REVOLT: Critical Spending Bill Goes Down In The House

In a dramatic rebuke of conservative leadership, the House has defeated the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending bill for Fiscal Year 2006. This year’s bill, which contains one-third of all domestic spending, calls for deep cuts in critical government programs.

The vote was scheduled for 15 minutes but lasted more than a half hour. This time, the conservative leaders couldn’t twist enough arms.

UPDATE: This bill seemed to be OK with the right-wing until Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) cut out all the pork.

UPDATE II: More on the loss for conservative leadership from a Hill staffer, via The Plank:

The defeat was embarassing in more than one respect. First, they lost. Second, they looked hapless while losing. Rather than stopping the bleeding, they held the vote open for a long time, but had a twenty vote deficit. Very few of those votes were budging. To make the effort to hold the vote open and then to lose looks exceptionally weak.