GOP Senator: Don’t Filibuster Hagel Confirmation

By Ben Armbruster/Think Progress

A Republican senator who serves on the Armed Services Committee said on Friday he does not believe Chuck Hagel should need 60 votes to be confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said on MSNBC this morning that he does not intend for vote for Hagel; but when asked if he would support a filibuster of the former Republican senator, Blunt said he would not and that Hagel should receive an up-or-down vote:

BLUNT: I will be voting no in the committee and then assuming there’s a vote on the floor I’ll be voting no on the floor.

CHUCK TODD: Well there’s two ways — and there’s a third way to vote no on him which of course is the issue of a filibuster. Would you support a filibuster of Chuck Hagel’s nomination?

BLUNT: I doubt it. I doubt it. I think for somebody who’s going to be there the length of time the president serves as opposed to a Supreme Court judge, thata majority in the Senate should be able to confirm. I wouldn’t intend to be a part of that majority but certainly my strong inclination would be that this is a vote that should be done by a majority rather than a 60 vote standard and this person’s going to leave the day the president leaves that makes a difference.

Watch the clip:

While only a handful of Republicans have said they will vote against Hagel, it does appear that he will get some GOP support. And with the Democrats in the majority, it seems increasingly likely that Hagel will get confirmed.

Senate Kills Blunt’s Anti-Contraception Amendment

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

By a vote of 51-48, the Senate agreed to table a Republican amendment offered by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that would have empowered employers to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of personal moral objections. The measure represented the GOP’s response to President Obama’s rule requiring employers to provide contraception and other preventive health services as part of their health insurance plans. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) — who announced her retirement earlier this week — was the only Republican to join Democrats in “tabling” the amendment, while three Democrats, Sens. Ben Nelson (NE), Joe Manchin (WV), and Bob Casey (PA) voted to preserve it.

During the nearly two hour debate, Republicans attempted to frame the issue as an attempt to prevent religious organizations from the Obama administration’s overreach and, despite supporting efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, maintained that women could obtain birth control from public sources. Blunt took to the floor to argue that employers would be discouraged from denying certain treatments by existing state mandates and a provision in the amendment requiring employers to replace the benefit with another service.

The most surprising support came from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), a pro-choice Republican who has previously supported contraception equity measures without conscience exemptions for religious organizations. Collins expressed skepticism about the wide scope of Blunt’s amendment, but said the administration’ incomplete rule — specifically its lack of detail about how to treat self-insured plans — compelled her to support the measure. “I feel that I have to vote for Sen. Blunt’s amendment with the hope that the scope will be narrowed and refined,” she said, adding, “I do this with a lot of conflict.”

The Obama administration’s rule requires employers to offer contraception in their health care benefit plans, but exempts houses of worship and nonprofits that primarily employ people of the same faith from covering birth control. Religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges, and other nonprofits can also eschew the benefit. Their employees would obtain the coverage — at no additional cost sharing — directly from the insurer.

Rep. Roy Blunt Refuses To Join Boehner In Calling For Repeal Of Financial Reform Legislation

By Scott Keyes Earlier today, the Senate broke a Republican filibuster by a 60-39 vote and approved major financial reform legislation. Even before the bill passed, House Minority Leader John Boehner declared at a press conference, “I think it ought to be repealed.”

However, not all of Boehner’s colleagues are rushing to join his immediate call for repeal. ThinkProgress caught up with Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) — a former GOP whip and current Senate candidate — to ask him if he supported Boehner’s plan. After pausing for a few seconds, Blunt danced around the question. When pressed again, Blunt said that “it’s just a hypothetical question” and “really doesn’t matter right now”:

TP: Obviously you’ve been following the financial reform bill. I was curious, if it ends up passing – which it looks like it will – would you be in favor of repealing the bill?

BLUNT: Well, the bill does look like it’s going to pass. I think probably what the most likely thing to happen now is that people are going to have to watch and see if the difficulties for small banks – the restriction on credit – really occurs. And if it does, as I anticipate it will, we’ll have to take a second look at this bill and the country will demand it.

TP: But you wouldn’t immediately be in favor of repealing it?

BLUNT: It’s just a hypothetical question, it really doesn’t matter right now.

TP: Well, you’d voted against it before. Do you regret that vote now, or do you still think that we shouldn’t have this law – well, this bill that’s about to become a law?

Blunt: Why don’t you get back to me when the bill becomes a law?

Listen here:

As The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo points out, repealing the bill would mean: losing the ability to unwind failed banks without engaging in bailouts, halting the efforts to make the derivatives market more transparent, allowing risky trading to continue, and disbanding the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among other things