This was a vote on an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would require the Congressional Research Service to publish an analysis of all legislation brought up in the Senate to determine whether such legislation would create a government program that is duplicative of existing government programs. This amendment was offered to legislation that would expedite the Senate confirmation process for 250 part-time federal government positions.

Coburn urged support for his amendment: “We have 101 programs for surface transportation. They are run across four different agencies. We have 82 teacher quality improvement programs--82 separate programs across 10 different agencies, and they are not in the Department of Education. There are 10 different agencies--9 of which are outside of the Department of Education--that have teacher training programs. We have 88 economic development programs run by 4 agencies costing $6.5 billion a year--88 separate economic development programs. We have 80 programs to provide transportation for the disadvantaged, across 8 different agencies. We spend $314 million on it. That is a good cause, and it is something we can do, but 80 different programs?...We spend $62 billion on 18 different food and nutrition assistance programs. We only need 2 or 3, not 18. We need to have metrics measuring whether we are effective in helping people with food and nutrition. We have bureaucracy after bureaucracy, and each of them doesn't know what the other agencies are doing. There is no coordination, and there is no measurement of the effectiveness of what we are doing.”

No senators spoke in opposition to Coburn’s amendment.

The vote on this amendment was 63-34. 46 Republicans and 16 Democrats voted “yea.” 34 Democrats--including a majority of progressives—voted nay. While a majority of senators voted in favor of this amendment, a two-thirds majority vote was required for passage in this case. As a result, the Senate rejected an amendment that would require the Congressional Research Service to publish an analysis of all legislation brought up in the Senate to determine whether such legislation would create a government program that is duplicative of existing government programs.