While retiring Sen. Tom Coburn only has a few days left on the job, he isn’t going out quietly.
The conservative Oklahoma Republican has vowed to block attempts to expedite a final vote on a House-passed defense authorization bill over objections to a federal lands package inserted into the measure.
The bill easily cleared a procedural vote Thursday with broad bipartisan support, setting up a final vote after 30 hours of debate. But debate time on non-controversial bills often is whittled down or eliminated as long as no one objects. And with senators eager to wrap up their end-of-year business Thursday so they can head home for the holidays, there isn’t much appetite to drag out debate on a mostly routine measure to authorize Pentagon spending levels for fiscal 2015.
Not so fast, said Coburn, who has refused to yield debate time, meaning the final vote will take place late Friday afternoon, unless he relinquish his hold on the bill.
Other senators also have concerns about the bill, including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who are pressing for the measure to include better protections for military personnel against sexual assault.
But Coburn is viewed as leading the charge to delay the bill’s passage, keeping his colleague in Washington for at least one more day before their holiday break.
During his scheduled “farewell speech” on the Senate floor late Thursday morning, Coburn vowed it wouldn’t be the last time he took to the podium before retiring — suggesting he wasn’t going to back down from his hold on the defense bill, “much to many of your chagrin.”
“I have some adamant opposition to some of the things that we’re doing,” he said.
It’s basically impossible for Coburn to stop passage of the $585 billion measure. But the senator, who is stepping down in early January after 10 years in the Senate, wants his colleagues to have some extra time to think about the wisdom of approving a defense bill that would designate 250,000 acres of new federal wilderness, in addition to 15 new national park units or expansions and three new wild and scenic river designations.
The provisions also includes transferring management of a 140-square-mile national preserve in northern New Mexico to the National Park Service and making a land swap in Arizona that would clear the way for a much-disputed copper mine.
The House passed the bill last week by a largely bipartisan vote, 300-119.
Until the matter is resolved, the Senate can’t proceed to a must-pass $1.1 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill needed to avoid a partial government shutdown at midnight Thursday. Coburn is keeping his plans close to his vest, though it is expected that he wouldn’t object to a temporary one or two day spending measure to keep the government open until the Senate could clear the omnibus, which the House is expected to pass later Thursday.
It’s not the first time Coburn, a physician, has had held up votes in the Senate, leading some Democrats to call him “Dr. No.” But Coburn insists he’s not trying to block the bill out of spite, saying he hopes it can be amended before it becomes law.
“I’m not holding it up. I’m just going to try to get amendments, try to fix it, talk about it,” Politico reported him as saying. “l’ll keep that stance ‘til I’m through all the points I want to make about what a mess it is.”
