Some 50,000 people stormed Cobo Conference Center on October 7, 2009 to receive applications for federal stimulus money that would ostensibly assist with utility and mortgage payments.
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Senator Relents, Allowing Jobless Bill Vote
By CARL HULSE
New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Senate headed toward resolution of an impasse over unemployment pay on Tuesday night after Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, dropped his objection to extending jobless benefits in exchange for a largely symbolic vote on paying for the aid.
Mr. Bunning's agreement to relent essentially short-circuited an intensifying political battle that had already resulted in 2,000 workers at the Department of Transportation being furloughed without pay and in the temporary cutoff of benefits to thousands of Americans who are out of work.
It came after Mr. Bunning's fellow Republicans began to air their own concerns about how the Senate blockade had the potential to damage their political brand while also having a direct impact on their constituents.
While Democrats hailed the progress, they also said Mr. Bunning's decision to delay the aid had caused serious disruptions in federal programs and could create bureaucratic problems as people try to reclaim their federal aid.
"Sometimes just because we have the power to do things, we ought to think twice before we use that power," said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No.2 Democrat in the Senate.
With Mr. Bunning's battle quickly becoming a national cause célèbre, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader and Mr. Bunning's home-state colleague, made clear that Republicans were trying to end the stalemate.
And Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican colleague of the conservative Mr. Bunning, joined Democrats in trying to force the measure through, calculating that perhaps a plea from a fellow Republican would get him to change his position.
Senator Jim Bunning, who had been stubbornly blocking a stopgap measure to extend help for the jobless, budged on Tuesday under pressure from Democrats and growing concern within his own party.
The objections of Mr. Bunning, of Kentucky, to the $10 billion measure were causing federal furloughs and threatening the unemployment benefits of hundreds of thousands of people. But the backlash on Republicans was becoming more intense, causing them to seek a compromise.
“When I was home this weekend, I talked to constituents who expressed their utter bafflement that Congress could not proceed on something that has widespread support,” Ms. Collins said.
With the impasse apparently broken, the bill was expectwed to come to a vote Tuesday night, The Associated Press reported.
While trying to blame Democrats for mishandling the entire matter, other Republicans distanced themselves from Mr. Bunning, who Democrats were trying to make into the poster child for what they say had been a maddening and persistent pattern of Republican obstruction in the Senate.
“This is one senator,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a chief political strategist for Senate Republicans. “This does not represent the position of the caucus.”
Republicans were not just unhappy that the fight was allowing Democrats, editorial writers and activists around the country to portray them as heartless, denying jobless aid to struggling Americans while Mr. Bunning complained that late-night debate was preventing him from watching a college basketball game.
The attention to the impasse was also cutting into Republican efforts to focus on the Democratic strategy on the health care overhaul, which Republicans were trying to portray as an end-run around Senate rules. Complicating the situation was the fact that Mr. McConnell and Mr. Bunning have had a tortured relationship since Mr. McConnell was instrumental last year in discouraging Mr. Bunning from seeking another term.
Not all Republicans were busily engaged in Bunning-bashing. “Jim Bunning is my hero,” said Senator Jim DeMint, the conservative Republican from South Carolina.
The White House, meanwhile, called Mr. Bunning’s actions “irrational.”
“I don’t know how you negotiate with the irrational,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, told reporters at an informal morning briefing. “I don’t know how you prevent one person who decides they hold in the palm of their hand the livelihood of hundreds of thousands who have lost their jobs.”
Mr. Gibbs’s criticism was couched in unusually strong language at a time when the administration was trying to be seen as searching for bipartisan comity.
Mr. Gibbs also defended not applying the pay-as-you-go rules — the Congressional rules that usually require spending to be offset by revenue or cuts elsewhere — to the extension of benefits, saying “this is an emergency situation.”
Ms. Collins, who took the floor shortly after the Senate convened, said her effort was being made on “behalf of numerous members of the Republican caucus who have expressed concerns to me.”
“There are 500 Mainers whose benefits expired on Sunday,” Ms. Collins said. But Mr. Bunning, her colleague, continued to lodge his objection.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, again urged Mr. Bunning to reconsider, saying his push to pay for the $10 billion costs of the added coverage out of stimulus money had been heard.
“His point has been made,” Mr. Reid said.
Peter Baker and Robert Pear contributed reporting.
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