Scott Brown Votes with Democrats (Again) on Cloture

By Kristina Wong
@kristina_wong
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ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports: Scott Brown is proving to be an elusive vote on matters of cloture. During his month in the senate, Brown is just about evenly split, siding half the time with Democrats and half the time with Republicans.For a man ushered into the Senate as someone Republicans should “exalt in” and signaling the death knell of Democrats’ super-majority, Brown has shown himself to be no fan of Senate Republicans’ slow-everything-to-a-snail’s-pace strategy.In two cases now Brown joined several other Republican moderates to buck his party and help Democrats narrowly defeat filibuster.The most recent occurred Tuesday afternoon – a cloture vote on Democrats’ most recent jobs bill, which has a year-long extension of unemployment and COBRA benefits as well as extending popular tax credits for a host of issues. Cloture was invoked 66-34.The problem is that the bill adds $100 billion to the federal deficit. And Brown said today he doesn’t support it.Brown sounded downright Senatorial explaining his vote on the Senate floor, explaining that while he opposes the bill in its current form, it has been debated for a week and he feels like it is time to “move the process forward.”"I wanted to make it very clear that I will be voting for cloture. But that, in fact, does not mean I support the actual bill when it comes to a vote,” said Brown in a quick speech on the Senate floor, his second. “As I said when I first came here, I believe in process and I believe that we should have an opportunity after full and fair debate to move bills forward and hopefully send back a product that we can all live with,” he said.Brown’s other cloture votes – one of the times was for a non-controversial judicial nominee for whom Republicans still insisted on a cloture vote. On the other controversial issue – a temporary extension of unemployment benefits that Republican Jim Bunning held up for several days – Democrats tempted the obstruction by not filing for cloture. Brown supported the temporary unemployment benefits extension that allowed Senators to move forward this week with the longer-term fix.He voted with most conservative Republicans against cloture to move forward with a national tourism board, long sought by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that would be funded with a $10 fee on many foreign visitors.Brown’s other vote with his party on a cloture vote – so far – came in his first cloture vote as a Senator, rejecting Craig Becker, President Obama’s nominee to sit on the National Labor Relations Board. And in that case, with the vote 52- 33, well short of the 60 that would have been needed to move forward to a final vote, Brown was not a deciding factor.March 2nd  on Barbara Milano Keenan of Virginia, to be a judge (99-0): http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00029 Feb. 25th: on Reid’s tourism board: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00026Feb. 22nd: on Dems’ first jobs bill: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00023Feb. 9th: on Craig Becker to sit on the NLRB: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00022