The Senate Republican leadership believes that the
parliamentarian allowed Democrats to violate the rules of the
Senate by allowing Sen. Bernie Sanders to cut off the reading of
his single-payer proposal.
When an amendment is introduced, it has to be read on the Senate
floor unless the rest of the Senate agrees to cut off the
reading, and typically, the requirement is waived through
"unanimous consent." Yet today, Sen. Tom Coburn insisted that
Sanders' 767 page bill be read on the Senate floor, which was on
pace to take more than 12 hours.
But about three hours into the reading, Sanders withdrew his
amendment, and this stopped the reading of the bill -- even
without unanimous consent.
"In allowing Sanders to do that, it appears the
parliamentarian has broken the standing rules of the Senate," a
Republican aide emails. "We're looking into the implications of
this and working on where to go from here."
Here is the relevant part of Riddick's Senate Procedure,
which the GOP believes Democrats have violated, emphasis was in
the email:
“Reading: Under Rule XV, paragraph 1, and Senate
precedents, an amendment shall be read by the Clerk before it
is up for consideration or before the same shall be debated
unless a request to waive the reading is granted; in
practice that includes an ordinary amendment or an amendment in
the nature of a substitute, the reading of which may
not be dispensed with except by unanimous consent, and
if the request is denied the amendment must be read and further
interruptions are not in order; interruptions of the reading of
an amendment that has been proposed are not in order, even for
the purpose of proposing a substitute amendment to a committee
amendment which is being read. When an amendment is
offered the regular order is its reading, and unanimous consent
is required to call off the reading.” (Riddick’s Senate
Procedure, P.43-44)
"It looks like there’s nothing the Democrats aren’t prepared to
do to jam this unpopular health care bill down the throats of the
American public," the aide writes.
