As well it should. Yesterday, the Senate voted on whether or not it should continue floor debate of the Federal Marriage Amendment. 48 senators voted in favor of continuing debate, while 50 senators voted against continuing debate. Perennial no-shows John Kerry (D-MA) and John Edwards (D-NC) were not present to vote. (Obviously, that doesn't look good for them.) The vote was pretty well split along party lines; of the 48 senators who voted to continue debate, 45 were Republicans. Of the 50 senators who voted against continuing debate, 43 were Democrats, 6 were Republicans -- including John McCain (AZ) -- and one was Independent Jim Jeffords (VT).

While this does not mean that the bill will be scrapped, it does mean that prospects for a federal marriage amendment aren't looking so good. The constitution requires a 2/3 majority (in this case, 67 senators) in order to pass a proposed amendment and continue it to the next part of the amendment process, approval by 2/3 of the House and then ratification by 3/4 of the states via their state legislatures (in this case, 38 states). Since only 48 senators voted to even continue debating the issue, it seems that the Senate won't get the 67 required to move it on to the House.

Or, they could continue a potential vote after the time has expired in order to strong-arm other Republicans into switching sides as they did last week. On July 9, the House voted on repealing the provision of the PATRIOT Act that allows the FBI to demand records from libraries. The vote ended in a 210-210 tie, but Republicans held the vote open for 23 minutes longer than usual while it strong-armed some Republican congressmen into switching sides. Democrats shouted "Shame! Shame!" as the vote continued, while a spokesman for House majority leader Tom DeLay said, "We're more interested in catching terrorists who are trying to kill Americans than we are in leaving the Capitol in time for happy hour," implying that Democrats were more interested in getting home -- and simultaneously implying that they wanted to get home so they could get drunk -- than they were in combatting terrorism. Stuart Roy, DeLay's spokesman, is officially Truly Contemptible.

In any case, even if the Republicans do convince those six to switch sides, it's still not enough to get an amendment through. Gee, I wonder why the Founding Fathers made it so difficult to get an amendment passed. Could it be because they foresaw exactly this situation as happening? Probably. An amendment to the constitution is something that is so important, it deserves near-unanimity. I guess the argument that "most Americans" are in favor of a constitutional amendment is pretty bogus, if the Senate can be taken as a sample of America.