Senate to start work on defense bill

The Senate will start debate on its annual defense policy bill Wednesday — months earlier than usual.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the early start would send a signal about the importance of the issue.

{mosads}“We think it’s important to focus on the national defense because of all the threats that are occurring these days,” he said of the bill, which will be open to amendments.

The Senate had been expected to take a cloture vote Tuesday on a motion to proceed to the House-passed defense bill, which the Senate will use as a vehicle for its own legislation.

But senators said Tuesday that the procedural vote had been called off, and they had agreed instead to proceed directly to the bill on Wednesday. 

Moving the defense bill to the Senate floor marks a shift from recent years when lawmakers have scrambled to wrap up their work on the legislation before the end of the year.  

For example, the Senate last year failed to let its version of the bill reach the Senate floor.

Instead, then-Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and then-Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) had to work out a compromise bill on the sidelines.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) suggested that just because the Senate can agree to take up the bill in June, doesn’t mean the legislation will be passed anytime soon. 

He noted that the White House has threatened to veto the legislation over a fight about spending levels.

“We’re just going to move to it,” Reid said. “We don’t need to vote on that. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to get off the bill once we get on it. We’ll see what happens.”