October 11, 2026
Fleeing GOP Senator Handing Power to Democrats
Timothy Birdnow
Republican U.S. Senator Steve Daines is leaving a parting gift as he walks away from his Senate seat in Montana.
Daines purposely waited until just before the filing deadline to announce his retirement so his hand-picked successor - U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme - would be the only candidate.
Daines is co-sponsoring a bill to make major changes to procedure in the Senate. He is co-sponsoring the legislation with Oregon Democrat Sen. Jeff Merkley, and they expect a vote while Daines is still in the Senate to help guarantee it's passage.
Partnering with a Democrat shows just where Daines, who was supported by President Trump, really stands. You don't partner with Democrats on things like this. It's a big FU to Trump and to America.
According to the Daily Signal article:
"A bipartisan Senate duo claims it has the answer to "Save the Senate.” The proposal to eliminate cloture votes, limit dead floor time, increase debate time, and create multiple "fast-tracks” for bills could allow the Senate to pass more legislation.
The rule changes, proposed by retiring Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana and Democrat Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, seek to limit dead floor time, limit omnibus bills and backroom deals, and move legislation faster, much like the lower chamber. Their goal is to get the proposal passed before Daines departs and the new Congress convenes in January.
"More bills passed, more votes taken, less time wasted. That sums up,” Daines said in a Semafor interview with Merkley announcing the proposal."
If Democrats are for this there is something wrong with it and either Daines doesn't know this or he's screwing us. I favor the latter interpretation; he's been in the Senate long enough to know how they operate.
Ending cloture means more filibusters and less done, not more. If Daines truly wanted to limit filibusters he would have eliminated the filibuster, not cloture. Cloture is what ends a filibuster.
Senator Mike Lee had this to say about this bill:
"I’m concerned that this proposal would have many of the downsides of eliminating the filibuster and none of the upsides,”
Jeff Merkley (rhymes with Berkeley)" a progressive champion and a workhorse for working families, democracy, and climate.". Is that really who you want to crawl into bed with?
But Daines is doing it and it's going to burn the GOP, I have zero doubt of that.
So why did Daines wait until he retired? Why is he retiring in the first place? The suddenness of his retirement suggests somebody found something on him and he may well be a blackmail victim.
Senator Daines has near perfect attendance and he's never once voted against the party line. Don't know if he believes it or is just a good foot soldier for the Republican Establishment.
I am all for reforms but if Democrats want them you have a problem.
It hurts to lose a guaranteed supporter but on the other hand Daines is probably leaving for the same reason that so many RINO's are leaving and he's getting his pick of replacements (assuming he wins) so no doubt the replacement will be similar to Mr. Daines.
I doubt this will pass but you never know. If it does I hope the Republicans don't get hornswoggle as they usually do, but I have great faith in them. They always think they are ahead of the game when they are in fact well behind. Republicans are like George on Seinfeld; thinking Cramer is a buffoon but he's way ahead of the dim-witted George.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:22 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 598 words, total size 5 kb.
25kb generated in CPU 0.033, elapsed 0.2355 seconds.
35 queries taking 0.2243 seconds, 187 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
35 queries taking 0.2243 seconds, 187 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
