Victory on DISCLOSE but another key vote Friday requires action

Congratulations! Thanks to you, the Senate narrowly defeated the DISCLOSE Act yesterday!

We’ll tell you more about our victory in a moment, but first we must tell you that we have more work to do this week. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a vote in the House of Representatives on Friday that will destroy tens of thousands of American jobs and make us more dependent on foreign oil. Freedom Action requests that you take a moment today to contact Congress and tell them to vote No on the Oil Spill Bill in its current form. Click here to send your message now.

Recap of the DISCLOSE Vote

Since the House had already passed it, the Senate vote on DISCLOSE was a nail-biter. Monday, President Obama made a last-minute plea. Senator Susan Collins came out against it, but her fellow Republican Senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe, was uncommitted.

Our friends at Tea Party Patriots sent out an alert Monday afternoon (which used the information from Freedom Action’s alert—thanks!) warning Tea Partiers that their First Amendment right to free speech and thus their participation in the election would be severely restricted by DISCLOSE.

Tuesday, with the Senate vote scheduled for 2:45pm, Senator Snowe finally announced that she would vote No at 1:45 PM. With 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and proceed to the bill, it failed by 57 to 41. All the Republicans voted No, except for Senator John Ensign of Nevada who missed the vote. Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut announced that he would vote Yes, but he also missed the vote. (Click here and enter your zip code to see how your Senators voted on this and other bills.)

But we cannot declare final victory yet. Majority Leader Harry Reid switched his vote to No so that he can use Senate rules to bring it up again if he thinks he has the 60 votes needed. But the Democrats are running out of time to pass DISCLOSE to have it take effect for the 2010 House and Senate elections, which is the whole purpose.

Click Here to Take Action Now on the House Job-Killing Bill

The House is scheduled to vote on Friday on a bill to address BP’s Gulf oil disaster. This is the last vote the House will take before starting their August recess. And the Senate plans to vote on its energy and spill bill before the end of next week, when it leaves town. (Speaking of vacations, Jimmy Fallon lately said, "President Obama is going on a 10-day vacation to Martha's Vineyard in August. Obama was like, 'This is my longest vacation ever.' And voters were like, 'Wait 'til you see the one we're planning for you.'")

Congress needs to address shortcomings in law and management revealed by the big offshore oil leak. But these bills go far beyond fixing real problems. They are designed to severely reduce or even end offshore drilling in the Gulf. As fewer new wells are drilled, U. S. oil production in the Gulf will begin to decline. Tens of thousands of high-paying jobs will be destroyed.

Analysis by the Heritage Foundation shows that “if a total ban on offshore drilling is implemented by 2011, then by 2035 Americans could expect national income (GDP) to drop by $5.5 trillion, total costs of imported oil to rise by $737 billion, total disposable income to decrease $54,000 per family of four, and job losses to exceed 1.5 million.” Also, “there is less ability to buffer the domestic natural gas production cuts with additional imports. An offshore drilling ban, therefore, would likely lead to natural gas price increases of 10 percent by 2015, 23 percent by 2020, and 45 percent by 2035.”

These bills won’t do anything to stop Cuba from drilling in its offshore waters in the Gulf, however. Cuba’s Communist government continues to lease offshore tracts to foreign companies, and oil production in Cuban waters will not be subject to U. S. environmental protection requirements.

People in Louisiana understand the threat to them. Last week, 15,000 people filled the Cajundome in Lafayette to protest the threats to their jobs coming from President Obama and Congress. They realize that the reaction from Washington could be much more damaging to the Gulf economy than the oil spill.

Please stand with the people of the Gulf. Click here to tell Congress to vote No on the job-killing spill bill.

Thanks again for all of your efforts. The defeat of the DISCLOSE Act was a critical vote to prevent a blatantly partisan effort to limit the free political speech of some but not others. As a Freedom Action member declared—here’s wishing the rest of their agenda a similar fate!