Word: demint
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Republican base is "frustrated with us for not carrying through on the spending issue and overspending. It's the reason we're not in the majority and it's going to take us a while to earn that trust back," DeMint told TIME in an interview in his offices last week. The Senator heads a group called the Senate Steering Committee - an organization founded more than three decades ago by Senator Jesse Helms that purposefully eschews the label "Republican" in order to stress its independence. Its members, though, are all Republican, and the group has grown from a few Senators...
...Since Democrats took control of Congress, DeMint has filed 82 amendments and has seen 20 of them receive roll call votes. Coburn has had 83 amendments with 22 roll call votes. Between them they've accounted for 13% of the 336 roll call votes so far this year. Compared to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's six votes and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's two, the pair are literally driving the debate on the floor...
...conducted, without formal votes by each Senator. While "unanimous consent" is usually reserved for non-controversial matters like Post Office namings and symbolic resolutions, the leadership will occasionally try and sneak substantive bills through the process, and the Steering Committee scrubs the daily list of UCs for objectionable items. DeMint, for example, objected to 10 bills just before the Congressional summer break in August. The measures, which covered the Health and Human Services Administration, Justice and Transportation departments, included a total of $66 billion in discretionary spending and $281 billion in mandatory spending. "This is stuff they want...
...objections do not usually kill the bills, but they invariably launch negotiations with the bills' authors or the leadership on what can be done to appease DeMint's or Coburn's concerns; usually all they are asking for is a chance to debate and amend the bill - even if their amendments fail they still serve as a symbolic line in the sand. Increasingly, though, the group has started winning votes. Although the group's signature concern has been spending, their biggest victory was killing the immigration bill. They also held up the lobbying reform bill until much more stringent controls...
...Stevens, an Alaska Republican, was outraged that the attack came from his own party, and he is not alone. Along the way DeMint and Coburn have angered the leadership of both parties and a lot of Senators. Senator Trent Lott, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, was so incensed at the role they played in killing the immigration bill that he revoked the $7,500 in funds they get from the leadership to help maintain their offices (the bulk of their funding, however, comes from fees that Senators pay to be members). While he recognizes what they're trying...