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G.O.P. Senators Block Vote on Defense Post for Hagel G.O.P. Senators Block Vote on Defense Post for Hagel
(about 3 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a vote to confirm former Senator Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, arguing that Democrats were trying to rush a choice that they needed more time to consider. WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked President Obama’s nominee to lead the Pentagon in a defiant move likely to further strain partisan tensions while preventing the White House, at least temporarily, from assembling its second-term national security team.
In a 58-to-40 vote that broke down almost strictly along party lines, Mr. Hagel, a Republican, fell just short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate and clear the way for final consideration of his nomination. Republicans said they intended to allow a vote on their former colleague when the Senate returns from a break in 10 days, but Democrats said the Republican position amounted to a historic filibuster of the nominee for a post that is usually filled with bipartisan support. In a result that broke down almost strictly along party lines, Democratic senators could not muster the support to advance the nomination of Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, to a final vote. The vote was 58 to 40, falling short of the 60 that were needed.
Democrats vowed to hold another vote when the Senate returns from recess. And all signs indicated that many Republicans who voted against Mr. Hagel on Thursday would not do so then. Democrats vowed to try again to resuscitate the nomination of Mr. Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, when the Senate returns from recess in 10 days. Several Republicans who voted against Mr. Hagel said they would not block a final vote.
“Republicans have made an unfortunate choice to ratchet up the level of obstruction in Washington,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, who said that he planned to call Mr. Hagel and say: “I’m sorry for the president, I’m sorry for the country, and I’m sorry for you. But we’re not going to give up.” Democrats accused the opponents of mounting the first-ever filibuster against a Pentagon chief for their own political purposes.
All day, a tense standoff played out in the Capitol as one party tried to force the other into a more politically undesirable position. Republicans, aware that Democrats would not relish calling a vote that could result in an embarrassing setback for the president, had hoped to press Mr. Reid to back down and reschedule after the Senate returns from its recess. “Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, it gets worse,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader. “I guess to be able to run for the Senate as a Republican in most places of the country, you need to have a résumé that says, ‘I helped filibuster one of the president’s nominees.’ ”
Democrats, mindful that Republicans did not want to be blamed for making what would be seen as a historic affront to a sitting president, allowed knowing that it might fail and accused their colleagues of hitting a new low of obstructionism. The vote represented the first time in history that the Senate has required that a nominee for secretary of defense clear the 60-vote hurdle before a final, simple majority vote. Republicans, who took the extraordinary step of rebuffing their former colleague and fellow party member, insisted that Democrats were trying to rush a vote on a crucial cabinet position that deserved more consideration.
At 10 a.m. on Thursday, after the Republican leadership signaled to Democrats that it intended to seek a further delay, Mr. Reid said he would wait no longer and set the vote for Friday morning. “We didn’t need to have this vote today,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican. “But the White House and the majority leader were determined to have this vote in order to try to get a story in the newspaper, one that misrepresents the nature of the objection on this side.”
But just after 3 p.m. on Thursday, he came to the Senate floor to move that it be called instead at 4:15. That forced senators like John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, veterans of the Senate Armed Services Committee who have said that they find the act of filibustering a nominee for defense secretary distasteful, to cast a vote that had the same result as a filibuster, even if they refused to call it that. All day, a tense standoff played out in the Capitol as one party tried to force the other into a more politically undesirable position. Republicans, calculating that Democrats might want to avoid forcing a vote that could result in an embarrassing setback for the president, had hoped to press Mr. Reid to back down and reschedule after the Senate returns from its recess.
Mr. Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska and decorated Vietnam War veteran, had earlier appeared to have at least the 60 votes required to break a Republican filibuster. But Mr. McCain and other Republicans who had said they might oppose Mr. Hagel but would not back a filibuster said they would not support ending debate until they received more detailed answers to questions about the administration’s response to the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Democrats, mindful that Republicans did not want to be blamed for jeopardizing the Pentagon’s stability for political purposes, decided to press ahead and require Republicans to record a vote against Mr. Hagel, allowing Democrats to accuse them of a new level of obstructionism.
Specifically, a group of Republican senators including Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham have asked the president whether he spoke with anyone in the Libyan government to request assistance during the attack. While the showdown vote was set for Friday morning, just after 3 p.m. on Thursday Mr. Reid came to the Senate floor to move that it be called instead at 4:15. That forced senators like John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who have said that they find the act of filibustering a defense secretary distasteful, to cast votes that had the same result as a filibuster, even if they refused to call it that.
In an effort to address these questions and quiet the political uproar that has erupted over the Hagel vote, the White House on Thursday wrote to the senators informing them that Mr. Obama spoke to the Libyan president the evening after the attack, not the day of.   Four Republicans joined Democrats in voting that debate on the nomination should end: Senators Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah voted present because he said he was wary of the precedent a no vote would set, even though anything other than a yes vote had the same practical effect on the outcome.
“We continue to urge the full Senate to act swiftly and confirm former Senator Hagel,” said the letter, which was from the White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler. Because of parliamentary rules, Mr. Reid voted with Republicans to allow him to bring the Hagel nomination back for another vote. Counting Mr. Reid, Mr. Hagel was actually just one vote shy of the 60 needed.
Mr. Graham demurred when asked if his concerns had been addressed. Given the outcome, a major matter of concern for the White House over the next 10 days is that Mr. Hagel’s opponents — an array of groups that includes conservative and pro-Israel forces — could intensify their campaigns to defeat his nomination.
“Nobody wants to filibuster the nomination,” Mr. Graham told reporters. “But on our side there’s a consensus that we need more information, and we have a right to get it.” Leaders of these groups said in interviews that they expected their efforts to include more phone calls urging conservative voters to tell their senators to vote no; new efforts to unearth embarrassing details from Mr. Hagel’s past; and, potentially, a new round of television advertisements pressuring Democrats to drop their support for him.
The White House strongly condemned Republican efforts to stall the vote, saying they were sending the wrong signal to the world. "We urge the Republicans in the Senate to drop their delay," Josh Earnest, a spokesman for the president, told reporters aboard Air Force One. “There is a clear majority in the United States Senate for Senator Hagel’s confirmation. These delaying tactics are unconscionable, and they should end right away.” “My intention is to keep doing what we’re doing, but only to escalate the effort,” said David Brog, the executive director of the large, pro-Israel evangelical group Christians United for Israel.
With Democrats controlling 55 of the Senate’s 100 seats and a few Republicans saying they will back Mr. Hagel for the post, he appears to have the support to win confirmation if he can surmount the Republican procedural tactics. The current Pentagon secretary, Leon E. Panetta, is preparing to vacate his post imminently. Republicans were moving on other fronts to block Mr. Obama as he tries to put together his national security team. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has said he will place a hold on the nomination of the president’s director of central intelligence, John O. Brennan, and Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham also said they intended to use Mr. Brennan’s nomination to force the administration to answer questions about the September attack in Benghazi, Libya. “It’s a time-honored practice,” Mr. McCain said. “It’s a way for us to get information.”
Mr. Reid took to the floor on Thursday to denounce Republicans for trying to use the confirmation process for political gain and accused them of undermining the nation’s national security. In a statement after Thursday’s vote, the White House accused Republicans of putting “political posturing ahead of our nation’s security.” It added that there were serious matters at hand: “We have 66,000 men and women deployed in Afghanistan, and we need our new secretary of defense to be a part of significant decisions about how we bring that war to a responsible end.”
“This isn’t a high school getting ready for a football game,” Mr. Reid said. “We’re trying to confirm somebody to run the defenses of our country, the military of our country.” The Pentagon said that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta will remain in the position and travel next week to Brussels for a major NATO conference, an event that Democrats had hoped would be Mr. Hagel’s debut on the world stage.
He added: “For the sake of our national security, we need to put aside this political theater, and that’s what it is. People are worried about primary elections. We know how the Tea Party goes after Republicans when they aren’t conservative enough. Is that something they need to have on their résumé? I filibustered one of the president’s nominees? Is that what they want?” The vote on Thursday was an abrupt and unexpected turn of events. Mr. Hagel had earlier appeared to have at least the 60 votes required to break a Republican filibuster.
Mr. Graham is among the senators up for re-election next year and is a leading critic of Mr. Hagel. Mr. Graham and Mr. McCain are close allies. Then this week, Mr. McCain and other Republicans who had said they might oppose Mr. Hagel but would not back a filibuster — an opposition tactic that is rare for cabinet-level nominees — said they would not support ending debate, a procedural step that must be overcome in the Senate for a vote to take place. They said they wanted more detailed answers to questions about the administration’s response to the Libyan attack.
Mr. Reid also said that the Republican objective was to kill the nomination, not gain information from the administration. In an effort to diffuse the political tension and address these questions — specifically one about whether the president had spoken with anyone in the Libyan government to request assistance during the attack — the White House wrote to the senators early Thursday informing them that Mr. Obama had spoken to the Libyan president the evening after the attack, not the day it occurred.
“Make no mistake: Republicans are trying to defeat Senator Hagel’s nomination by filibustering while submitting extraneous requests that will never be satisfied,” he said. Still, Republicans said they needed more time. Mr. Graham noted that Mr. Hagel’s nomination passed the Armed Services Committee only on Tuesday. “This is Thursday. Two days is not quite fair,” he said.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, spoke directly after Mr. Reid but made no mention of Mr. Hagel or the coming vote. Senator Barbara Boxer of California, summing up Democrats’ frustrations, implored her Republican colleagues, “What more are you trying to get out of this?”
Senate Republicans find themselves in a politically weakened position this year, having lost two seats in the 2012 election. And while they may see some political purpose in opposing a cabinet nominee of Mr. Obama, a Democrat, they are also mindful of the potentially precarious historical precedent they could set.

Jim Rutenberg and Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting.

The Senate generally affords the president the courtesy of being able to choose his cabinet, though there have been exceptions.
According to the Senate’s historian, Donald A. Ritchie, only 5 percent of presidential cabinet nominees have been blocked or rejected by the Senate. And only twice since 1917, when the Senate’s modern filibuster rules were created, has a cabinet-level nominee been subject to a supermajority vote of 60, as Republicans are forcing with Mr. Hagel.
In the case of Mr. Hagel the opposition is especially striking because senators have traditionally afforded their former colleagues a high level of courtesy. Instead, when Mr. Hagel testified before the Armed Services Committee he was pummeled.