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Udall’s missed vote
An editorial we published over the weekend has a lot of Mark Udall supporters calling foul.
In it, we said that Udall, after saying he would be on the House floor to vote against adjourning without debating energy legislation, in fact missed the vote.
The people taking us to task point to a House vote to adjourn and note that Udall was there for that vote.
We’re both correct.
Apparently there were two votes for adjournment. The first one, and the most critical, was a vote to decide whether to vote. It passed by one vote. Udall missed it. Had he been there, as he said he would, and had he voted as he said he would have, there never would have been a second vote, the House would still be in session, and we may have had a chance to see how Udall would have voted on domestic energy production.
Comments
By Alan Salazar
August 17, 2008 10:54 AM | Link to this
Mr. Herzog, your description of the House-Senate procedure for adjournment is not quite accurate. Mr. Udall tried to make, but missed a vote that established a three-day period in which adjournment could take place IF the Senate agreed. It was a procedural first step, but I do not think it can fairly be characterized as the “critical vote.” The critical vote for actual adjournment was the final vote, which Rep. Udall did not miss. Nor is it accurate to suggest that had Speaker Pelosi failed on the first vote another vote would not have taken place. That is speculation designed to put Mr. Udall in a bad light but not borne out by the actual history of the House of Representatives. Had Mr. Udall voted and tied the result, I believe most seasoned observers of the House will confirm that another preliminary vote would surely have taken place. The conservative political scholar Norm Ornstein said as much when asked by the Denver Post. So the headline implying that Rep. Udall abandoned his promise is not really fair. Abandonment implies bad faith and bad intentions, neither of which proved up in this case.
Alan Salazar Chief of Staff U.S. Rep. Mark Udall