(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) The Senate has announced that it will delay its vote on same-sex marriage until after midterms.
Wisconsin Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is the lead sponsor of the bill, announced the delay in voting, Just the News reported.
“I’m still very confident that they bill will pass but we will be taking the bill up later, after the election. We will be putting out a joint statement,” said Baldwin.
Democrats planned to hold the vote sooner, apparently under the concern that the Supreme Court would strike down laws that make such marriages legal. The bill, which attempts to codify same sex marriage, cannot get 10 more Republican votes to reach 60 to get the measure passed.
Majority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., stated that he is “extremely disappointed that there aren’t 10 Republicans in the Senate willing to vote yes on marriage equality legislation at this time.”
He did make it clear that he “will hold the bipartisan group to their promise that the votes to pass this marriage equality legislation will be there after the election.”
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., remains undecided on which way he would like to vote, but made a statement to Politico saying that it would not be “constructive” to have the vote so soon.
“There’s a lot of complex issues that have not been resolved. And we haven’t even seen text … it does seem that the scheduling has been driven by Sen. Schumer’s political ambitions, rather than an attempt to get an outcome,” the retiring Pennsylvania Republican said Wednesday. “I don’t think it’s constructive to have a vote on Monday.”
The bill, which was proposed in July, has been largely controversial due to the language instead of its contents.
Sens. Toomey, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Mitt Romney of Utah are among the Republicans still undecided.
