Who’s The Arm-Twister Now?

Showing he can be every bit as bullying to advance a bad idea, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) held open a vote on his watered down earmark reform legislation today in order to round up enough votes to push it through.

Part of the Senate’s ethics reform bill deals with earmarks — lawmakers’ often abused practice of inserting items in legislation to direct funds to special interests (a la Duke Cunningham). According to current rules, lawmakers can attach earmarks anonymously, a state of affairs inviting abuse. Reform efforts have sought to change that. Republicans and good government types have criticized Reid’s version of earmark reform legislation, which is weaker than the version passed by House Democrats, saying that it doesn’t go near far enough in terms of disclosure.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) offered an amendment today that mirrored the tougher legislation passed by House Democrats.

According to Craig Holman of Public Citizen, Reid’s version, if it had been applied to earmarks as part of legislation passed last year, would have disclosed the sponsor of only approximately 500 earmarks. DeMint’s amendment would have forced sponsors to be known of roughly 12,000.

“DeMint’s version is considerably tougher,” Holman told me, noting that both Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who co-sponsored the bill, are “on the appropriations committee and haven’t really believed in strong earmark reform propoals in the first place.”

But Democrats sought to block DeMint’s amendment, with an effort led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). They failed, due mostly to nine Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and freshmen Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA), who crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). Here’s the roll call tally.

But instead of then passing DeMint’s amendment, as would normally occur in the Senate, the Democratic leadership held the vote open, a move that Senate Republicans called unprecedented, and reminiscent of tactics used by the GOP-controlled House that voters just booted.

Reid, according (sub. req.) to CQ’s Martin Kady, was “clearly embarassed” by the state of affairs:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was clearly embarrassed by the situation.“I’ve told my friend, Senator DeMint…. This amendment he’s offered is going to take a little more time,” he said.

He said “sometime we’ll have an opportunity to vote on the amendment. I hope it’s rejected.”

From the floor, Reid tried to paint his proposal as tougher than DeMint’s:

Reid insisted the language in the underlying bill that had been negotiated by him and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., “was very carefully vetted by weeks of work by our respective staff. It’s stronger in various ways than the DeMint amendment.”

He cited definitions of targeted tax provision as an example, saying DeMint’s version would require disclosure of fewer such provisions than the underlying bill.

He said the Senate version of the earmark disclosure requirement “is better than the House version.” He urged DeMint to back off.

Meanwhile, DeMint invoked a comparison to how House Republicans strong-armed passage of 2003’s Medicare bill:

DeMint said the Senate under its new leadership was behaving like the GOP-controlled House, which held open a 2003 vote on the Medicare prescription drug bill for three hours until leaders could shift enough votes to prevail.

“We’re back here re-voting something after some arms have been twisted,” DeMint said. “We won this vote fair and square, and it’s going to happen to all of you,” he warned his colleagues who were being urged to switch their votes and kill his amendment.

The vote on ethics reform will apparently continue tomorrow, with no resolution yet on the battle between DeMint’s and Reid’s version of the legislation. Stay tuned.