Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 27, 1993 TAG: 9310270032
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Arguing that the spending cuts Democrats had found to finance the $1.1 billion measure were bogus, Republicans threw a procedural hurdle at the legislation and succeeded by one vote. That forced the Senate to put the bill aside until today, when it will vote again.
Because two Democratic senators missed Tuesday's vote, Democrats seemed likely to prevail on the second try. Leaders of the two parties agreed to look for substitute financing, but with Democrats expecting the two extra votes they would need to win, these talks seemed unlikely to produce a compromise.
The vote put in limbo the 60,000 people each week who come to the end of their regular 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. They had been entitled to apply for extended benefits since November 1991, but that provision expired Oct. 2.
The problem arose when the Senate voted 59-38 against a GOP move to declare that the bill violated budget law because it would drive up the federal deficit this year. That was one vote short of the 60 votes needed to overcome such a procedural move.
Democrats had 60 votes until Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., switched her vote from supporting to opposing the benefits at the last moment.
"I'm sympathetic to extending benefits at this point," she said in an interview after the vote. But she said she changed her vote after realizing that by voting against it, "we could find a real way to pay for it."
Voting to keep the bill alive were 51 Democrats and eight Republicans, including Sens. Charles Robb, D-Va., and John Warner, R-Va. Three Democrats and 35 Republicans voted to kill it.
The legislation would give up to 13 extra weeks of benefits to jobless people who have exhausted the initial 26 weeks of coverage.
Memo: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.