Senate postpones vote on veterans jobs bill until next week

By Ramsey Cox - 09/13/12 07:48 PM ET

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) postponed a vote on the motion to proceed to the veterans jobs bill until next Wednesday.

The vote was originally scheduled for 1 a.m. Friday.

“The least we can do for those who have fought for this country abroad is to ensure they never have to fight for a job when they come home,” Reid said on the floor Thursday. “This is the kind of proposal that should sail through the Senate with bipartisan support.”

The Veterans Jobs Corp Act would create new job-training programs to help veterans find work in targeted fields such as national park conservation, historic preservation projects, police work and firefighting, among others.

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said he’d offer a budget point of order because the bill violates the Budget Control Act, as it would increase the Veterans’ Affairs Department budget.

“My sole problem with the legislation is it violates the budget, and as a member of the Budget Committee Sen. [Patty] Murray should know it is subject to a budget point of order,” Sessions said on the floor Thursday. “The Majority Leader doesn’t want to talk about real issues of great importance and so this bill is brought up to take up the whole week."

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said the budget point of order would “tie the hands” of the Senate and not let them spend any more on veterans issues.

“What his budget point of order says is that we will now draw a line in the sand on what we will provide to our nation’s veterans,” Murray said Thursday evening. “It says we’ re done, veterans are on their own, even if we pay for it, tough luck, there’s nothing you can do.”

The reason the vote is postponed until Wednesday is that Monday and Tuesday of next week take place during the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah.

Reid also said he’d file a cloture motion on the continuing resolution, which passed the House Thursday evening, for Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. The CR would fund the government for another six months.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has also been filibustering all legislative action in the Senate, holding up bills until he gets a vote on his own legislation to stop all foreign aid to some Middle Eastern countries. His actions have required the maximum amount of time pass between each vote.