All night long
by digby
So the Speaker closed down the negotiations and everyone went home for the night. Times have certainly changed. There was a time when they did whatever it took to get a bill passed, even if it meant keeping the vote open all night long:
Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., says that sometime late Nov. 21 or early in the morning Nov. 22, somebody on the House floor threatened to redirect campaign funds away from his son Brad, who is running to succeed him, if he didn't support the Medicare prescription bill. This according to the Associated Press. Robert Novak further reports,
On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, [Rep.] Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.
Speaking through Chief of Staff Kurt Schmautz, Smith assured Chatterbox that Novak's account is "basically accurate." That means Smith was an eyewitness to a federal crime.
Nothing happened to anyone over that of course. Duke Cunningham later went to jail on unrelated charges.
But the lesson is that Republicans usually have a way of passing things they really want to pass.
h/t to @ericboehlert
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