Republicans Consistently Turn To Lobbyists For Strategies To Block And Kill Legislation

Yesterday, The Hill reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) may not have the votes to begin debate on a $15 billion jobs package. Reid, for his part, is reaching out to Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), in the hopes that he will provide support to overcome a GOP filibuster. A Reid spokesman said simply that “the vote is in the hands of Republicans.”

However, as Roll Call reported, the Senate Republican leadership is trying to persuade members to simply block the legislation. And this push comes after the GOP spent an afternoon huddled with more than 100 lobbyists, trying to figure out how to react to Reid’s bill:

Senate Republican leadership staff are huddling with K Streeters this afternoon over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) decision to forgo a bipartisan jobs package in favor of a smaller, targeted plan…The business community has been up in arms since Reid decided to ditch a bipartisan job-creation bill last week.