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| Dr. No threatening to have bill read on Senate floor | |
| 2009-11-07 | |
| Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who developed a close friendship with President Obama when they served together in the Senate, is threatening to have the entire health care bill read on the Senate floor. Senior Senate Democratic aides had heard Coburn was considering having potentially thousands of pages read aloud in effort to stall passage. “If he did this it would be even outrageous for a guy who’s become known as Dr. No around here,” one of them told POLITICO.
“That's a possibility,” Coburn spokesman John Hart said. “He wants to make sure everyone has a chance to read the bill.” Coburn, who has a reputation for using procedural rules to block and delay legislation, has been an outspoken critic of the president’s health care overhaul. He recently told the New York Times: “My mission is to frame this health care debate in terms of the fiscal ruin of this country. … I have instructed my staff to clear my schedule for every minute that bill is on the floor.” | |
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