 In case you missed it last week Thursday, we learned that Senate Democrats will be postponing the vote to codify marriage equality. Now just a couple of weeks ago Chuck Schumer said there would be a vote on this within a couple of weeks, despite them not having the 10 Republican votes needed to break a filibuster. But now they're postponing it and they're moving the vote until after the election. I don't even know what to say about this. This is political malpractice. This is them shooting themselves in the foot. This is them handing Republicans a huge gift for obvious reasons. Unsurprisingly, the New York Times reports, the decision came as a relief to Republicans, the vast majority of whom opposed the measure and were worried that voting against it so close to the elections would alienate voters. It spared Republican senators in difficult re-election races including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Marco Rubio of Florida, a fraught choice of casting a vote that would anger their party's conservative base or one that could sour independent voters in the closing days of the campaign. So in other words, they just handed Republicans a political gift. Earlier this year, after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Democrats were on a roll getting Republicans to show their cards on the right to contraception, marriage equality, abortion. And now rather than forcing them to take a position, Democrats are postponing this until after the election. Why? Because the sponsor of this bill, Tammy Baldwin, is saying that they don't have the votes right now, but they can get that 10 votes after the election. Assuming the makeup of the Senate changes. The problem with this is now you're guaranteeing essentially that it's not going to pass because as it stands currently, Democrats are still poised to lose the House of Representatives. Even if their electoral prospects have improved, they're still most likely going to lose the House. So in the event the Senate were to pass this, well, the House would have to vote on this amended version. And if Republicans control the House, it's not going to pass. Now, Democrats have been kind of going about this the wrong way. I think they haven't been harsh enough on Republicans, but they've been pretty persistent, but they try to pander to conservatives by like including amendments that wouldn't necessarily water this down, but just pander to them about their fain concern over religious liberty and how this decision might impact that. It won't. It'd be the same status quo as it is right now, but still they tried to pander and they realized that they couldn't get those votes. So they saw that Republicans, at least some Republicans were waffling and rather than forcing them to take a stand, they're just saying, yeah, we'll do it after the election. It's just so stupid. Now, who's responsible for this? Well, the buck stops with leadership. So Chuck Schumer primarily, but he is taking cues from Tammy Baldwin. The New York Times continues, we're very confident that the bill will pass, Miss Baldwin said on Thursday, but we will need a little more time. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader have been eager to hold a vote before the elections, even if only to put Republicans on the record, voting against the broadly popular position on a social issue. But he deferred to Miss Baldwin and senators in both parties with whom she had been working to reach a compromise. And this is a consistent issue with Chuck Schumer. Now is where you pull rank, Chuck. You don't say, well, all right, if you think that you can get the 10 votes after the election, fine, no, no, no, pull rank and say, Tammy, we're holding the vote on it next week. If you don't have the 10 votes, too bad. But Tammy is saying, no, no, I can get you, I can get you the votes. I just need more time because she actually wants this to pass. But you don't pass this bill or get the votes needed to break the filibuster by playing patty cake with Republicans. You shame them, you force them to support this. And if they don't support it, that's their loss. They're the ones who are jeopardizing their support with independence in their tight races. Now, Tammy Baldwin, she cares about this issue. This is an LGBTQ plus senator. So I don't doubt her sincerity here, but her political strategy is completely brain dead here. And by postponing this, you are damning this bill, essentially. And it's just it's so stupid. It's the dumbest thing that they could possibly do. And it reminds me of how in 2018, Senate Democrats expedited 15 of Trump's judicial nominees, all so they can get back to campaigning. And today, years later, we're dealing with the ramifications of that, of you just expediting these judicial appointments for Donald Trump. So Democrats, they never think like long term. They only think short term. What's going to benefit them within, you know, the near future. And it's just it's really infuriating. Now, thankfully, not all Democrats agreed with this. Many of them spoke out from a legit. Paul, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, she kind of just put out a mealy mouth statement saying we should have marriage equality now, not necessarily referencing how bad this was of a strategy. But others did take a more appointed criticism here. Netia Vasquez, for example, tweeted out the laying a vote on the Respect for Marriage Act until after the election is a disservice to the American people. Voters deserve to know whether or not their senators support marriage equality. The Senate needs to vote on this bill now. Now, Elizabeth Warren added, we need to vote on equal marriage today. Every single member of Congress should be willing to go on the record. And if there are Republicans who don't want to vote on that before the election, I assume it is because they are on the wrong side of history. And she's exactly correct about that. I'm not saying that you should just treat this legislation as symbolic legislation, right? It does need to be codified in the event the Supreme Court does choose to revisit Obergefell the Hodges. However, even if it fails right now, that's not to say that you can't have a vote later. Have a vote now. If it fails, then, you know, if you think that you can get the 10 votes after the election, try it again. There's no reason to not hold the vote now. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. If anything, you know, you might scare Republicans, maybe at least one into supporting this because they don't want to alienate independents who they need in these tight races. But they're choosing to back away. And this is like Tammy Baldwin's recommendation. But again, the buck stops with leadership. And it shows you that Chuck Schumer just doesn't know what he's doing. And he doesn't know how to pull rank. He doesn't know how to be a leader of his caucus. And we've seen this before. Individuals like Claire McCaskill says that she loves Chuck Schumer because his leadership style is more laissez faire, where he just kind of lets people do what they need to do to win their seats or whatever. So if you're in a purple state, if you want to lark as a Republican, that's perfectly fine. But he needs to do what Mitch McConnell does, reign in his caucus, control the narrative and assert control over situations, especially if you have a lot of ways to win over Republicans. So overall, this is incredibly idiotic, but not surprising because Democrats have been known to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to political strategy. And they're just handing Republicans a victory for absolutely no reason here. And it's pathetic and they should be shamed because of this. I mean, you saw the way that House Democrats exposed Republicans on issue after issue after issue. There's no reason why the Senate can't do the same thing, but they're not doing that. And it shows you that leadership needs to change because of how bad it is currently like this should not stand. There needs to be a vote on this, regardless if you have the 10 votes or not, make them show their cards. Don't give them a victory. Jesus Christ. Will you act like a baby?