Thread by @frankthorp

Meanwhile, @RandPaul is hanging out of the Senate floor (maskless) so that he can block the Senate from adjourning for the night & establishing a pro forma schedule. He's trying to make it harder for the Senate to (eventually) override a veto of the NDAA.

Everyone else is gone.

@RandPaul It's 1:11am, Rand is still there trying to make it harder for the Senate to get to a veto override vote (if one is needed).

He has said in the past that he'd like to see the NDAA expire and not be renewed (this would be the 60th year in a row it has passed).

I'm going to bed.

Here’s what was decided on a potential NDAA override in the Senate:

IF Trump vetoes the bill, & IF the House votes to override on Dec 28th, the Senate will come back on Dec 29th to start the process to do the same.

That process can take days, so goal = finish before noon Jan 3.

With an agreement that process could have been condensed considerably, but Rand doesn’t want that to happen, so the Senate could be in session over New Years to run out the procedural clock (an intervening day, a cloture vote, up-to-30 hours of debate).

Deadline = Noon Dec 3

The new Congress will be sworn-in at noon on Jan 3rd, so any bill passed in this Congress expires if it hasn’t been signed into law (or in this case, a veto is overridden by both chambers) by that time.

So, if they don’t vote before they adjourn sine die, the NDAA goes poof.

And yes, in one of the tweets above I said Dec 3rd, I meant Jan 3rd. (Thank you @DemFromCT, I blame lack of sleep and just #2020 generally)