Open all night

last updated 8 January 2015

Washington, D.C.

With rows of cots waiting in a room off the Senate floor to receive weary lawmakers, the Senate this week held a rare, all-night debate on a Democratic bill to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days. Democrats forced the session after Republicans invoked procedural rules that require a 60-vote majority to vote on bills. Although three Republican senators—Gordon Smith of Oregon, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and Olympia Snowe of Maine—sided with the Democrats, the Democrats knew they lacked the votes to end the filibuster. But rather than follow the usual route of simply tabling the measure, Democrats chose to continue the debate, in a bid to highlight Republican support for Bush’s Iraq policy. Republicans called the maneuver a “publicity stunt,” and in the end, Democrats fell eight votes short of the 60 they needed to end the debate.