The Reid-Feingold bill that would have cut off troop funding for Iraq after March 31, 2008, failed by a vote of 29-67.
Sherrod Brown (for some reason) and Tim Johnson didn’t vote. Here are the Democrats that voted against Reid-Feingold:
Baucus (D-MT), Bayh (D-IN), Bingaman (D-NM), Carper (D-DE), Casey (D-PA), Conrad (D-ND), Dorgan (D-ND), Landrieu (D-LA)
Levin (D-MI), Lincoln (D-AR), McCaskill (D-MO), Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), Reed (D-RI), Rockefeller (D-WV), Salazar (D-CO), Tester (D-MT), Webb (D-VA)
No Republicans voted for it. Liddy Dole and John McCain didn’t vote. It’s not too hard to figure out the voting here. Sen. Carl Levin (DEM-MI),
Sen. Jack Reed (DEM-RI), Sen. Bill Nelson (DEM-FL), Sen. Ben Nelson (DEM-NE), Sen. Evan Bayh (DEM-IN), Sen. Mark Pryor (DEM-AR), Sen. James Webb (DEM-VA) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (DEM-MO) all serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. So does Joe Lieberman. Rockefeller is the chair of the Intelligence Committee. The rest (with the exception of Casey and Carper) are from Red States. And Casey and Carper are the two Democratic senators most out of touch with their home constituencies.
It’s hard to say how much influence the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, had on the vote, but I suspect it was considerable. And Levin voted against going to war in the first place.
Via email, Feingold seems satisfied:
“Today the Senate took another step toward acknowledging the will of the American people, who want to end this misguided mission in Iraq. A majority of Senate Democrats are on the record clearly stating that the President’s Iraq policy is a failure and that we need to take real action to change course. Keeping 150,000 American troops in the middle of an Iraqi civil war both hurts our national security and impedes the ability to reach a political solution in Iraq. We must continue to ratchet up the pressure on the President and supporters of this irresponsible war to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq so we can refocus on those who attacked us on 9/11.”
I’m not satisfied. This is taking too damn long.
Called Bingaman’s office early this morning. Apparently, he did not take my advice — but then he seldom does.
Those who won’t vote to defund vote to KILL U.S. troops and more Iraqis. Do they like that?
Hey, hey. Carl, how many kids did you kill today?
What does being on a particular committee have to do with it?
I suppose Feingold is right in pointing out that a majority of Dems voted for a bill that would have been seen as radical just a year or so ago. Still, it should have been straight party line.
I think you’re going to find it harder and harder, Boo, to keep arguing that some good came from electing Casey. We didn’t need another Lieberman.
he gave us control of the Senate. If I lived in PA I would not have voted for Casey in the primary, but I would have campaigned & voted for him in the general. Casey gives us subpoena power.
Beat Specter next year, reelect a Dem gov in 2010, and you are in a position to dump Casey in 2012. Start thinking now who should replace him.
We are so grateful for this because this ia what it is all about:
“Today the Senate took another step toward acknowledging the will of the American people, who want to end this misguided mission in Iraq.”
Ain’t gonna save one life. BUT thanks for the effin’ acknowledgement. It really got the job done.
This was a waste of time from the start.
The only good that came from it is that Obama suddenly decided to vote for it, which forced Clinton to vote for it, too. But, typically, Hillary said that she wouldn’t necessarily back moves to cut war funding in the future.
Hate to sound like a broken record here, but the only way we can defund the war is to defund the gov’t via tax revolt. Otherwise it’s all pageant to buy another FU.