Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Monday said Republican senators have no idea what Obamacare repeal bill they’ll be voting on Tuesday at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) request.
“Senator, what is up for a vote tomorrow? Could you update me?” Fox News’ Neil Cavuto asked.
“I thought you were going to tell me,” Paul replied. “I thought I was coming on air for you to tell me.”
Paul said Republican senators are completely in the dark about what measure they’ll cast on-record votes for or against on Tuesday.
“We have no earthly idea what we will be voting on tomorrow other than that it’ll be moving to the House bill, but everybody knows it’s not really going to be the House bill,” Paul said.
Last Tuesday, McConnell said he would hold a vote on a motion to proceed with a repeal bill, but neither of the proposals he has floated — a revival of the 2015 repeal-and-delay bill and a modified version of the current Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare — have the support of enough senators to pass.
To boot, Republican senators left town on Thursday with no idea which of McConnell’s proposals will serve as base legislation if they open debate on the repeal bill.
“Last week they said, well, we’re going to move to a clean repeal, the same vote we voted on in 2015, and I said hooray, that’s what we should be doing, that’s what we promised,” Paul said. “But now I’m told it may be the new Senate leadership bill.”
Paul said he considers that proposal “a big insurance bailout” that “doesn’t really repeal Obamacare.”
“So nobody’s told us,” he said. “There’s a lot of unknowns, and I don’t think we should move to the bill with so many unknowns unless we’re going to be told what exactly we’re going to move to.”
Go ahead Rand , Say it
"They’re going to Ram it down our throat"
Pure powerplay - and pure (evil) folly, to vote on something so important, that effects 1/6 of our economy, without knowing the day before what is in it. Like blind faith that something “good” or “better” will come out of the conference committee.
Listen closely GOP senators, that sound you hear as you vote yes? Those are the metaphorical nails in the coffin of some of your political careers. Add to that being completely tied to the chaos of the White House which appears to be leading a retreat from “America Exceptionalism” and world leader status, those sounds you hear may be the beginning of a death rattle for your party.
May some wisdom prevail among enough of you in the GOP to stem this travesty, and prevent the havoc being sought from being wreaked on our society.
So serious question, will Democratic senators be able to use vote-a-rama to introduce hundreds, even thousands of amendments as twitter was talking about a month ago?
wonder if they’ll bother telling them before they actually vote.
Or surprise! will McConnell tell some of them they’re voting on one bill and some they’re voting on the other one, haha.
Is Trump privately promising Russian support to senators who comply and Russian opposition to those who don’t?