Thursday, March 7, 2013
Mitch Perry Report 3.7.13: Rand Paul's filibuster just keeps going and going …
… and going, and going, and going …
Posted by Mitch Perry on Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 8:14 AM
Rand Paul's nearly 13 hour filibuster that ended early this morning was all the buzz yesterday on Twitter. The Kentucky senator made his point about his legitimate concerns regarding whether or not the Obama administration can use its authority to turn drones on U.S. citizens within U.S. territory — something that Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder refused to answer on Capitol Hill yesterday.
A number of senators joined on the floor to give Paul al break, but it was only on occasion as Paul had to remain on the floor for the old-fashioned filibuster to continue (he was filibustering against the nomination of John Brennan at CIA).
As far as I can tell, there were only two Democrats who joined up with Paul — Oregon's Ron Wyden and Illinois' Dick Durbin. I get how some Dems are reluctant to speak out against the administration of their standard bearer, but you know that if it was President Romney's policy at stake, there'd be plenty of Dems standing with the Libertarian leaning Paul (I'm not even sure how many Republicans agree with Paul).
The question Paul poses is simple and fundamental: Can your government put you to death without trial? When it's posed in that fashion, it's simply embarrassing that more Democrats couldn't join him to debate the issue.
Marco Rubio joined the filibuster at one point, quoting Wiz Khalifa and The Godfather. Earlier in the day activists pushing for comprehensive immigration reform visited Rubio's Tampa district office to tell him what they like and don't like about his proposals.
Exciting news for Tampa as Mayor Bob Buckhorn's office announced that two companies have been hired to implement a bike sharing program that will begin this fall.
And in Tallahassee, the House of Representatives voted almost unanimously (there was one dissenter) on reversing some of the provisions regarding early voting that they repealed two years ago. Tuesday night in Tampa, more than 150 people showed up at Lykes Gaslight Park to call for expanded voting rights.
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