With Sanford disgraced, and Ron Paul unlikely to run for president again, Senator Jim DeMint may be our best hope for 2012. I hope he runs.
Description from a campaign for liberty email: “Seizing on a chance to take quick action to bring Audit the Fed up for a vote, and with the GAO provisions in mind, Senator DeMint attached the full text of S 604, the Senate version of Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill, to HR 2918 as Senate Amendment 1367 before it was considered for final passage.
However, Senate Democrats refused to even allow a vote on the amendment! That’s right. The internationalist, Fed-loving elite in the Senate used a parliamentary tactic to shut down DeMint’s amendment.
After Senator DeMint brought Audit the Fed to the floor, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska raised a ‘point of order’ to prevent a vote, claiming that the amendment violated Senate Rule 16 by ‘legislating’ on an appropriations bill. The Senate president agreed, and the amendment was shot down.
Senator DeMint did not back down, though, and directly challenged Senate leadership by pointing out the other GAO audits contained in the bill. As Senator DeMint listed them off, the Senate president was forced to agree with Senator DeMint that each one he described, all of which would be left in for final passage, also violated Senate Rule 16.
Which tells us at least one thing: the problem wasn’t with ‘legislating’ on the bill or violating Senate Rules (which is commonly done). Shooting down the amendment was about preventing a thorough audit of the Federal Reserve for the first time in its history!”