Through some miracle, I am able to write this commentary in the midst of a government shutdown.

In all of the drama watching the clock tick down till midnight, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee made brief comments about the voting process.

He explained that Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and others had reached an agreement that the next vote by the Senate would be on a bill that was agreed to by the President and Republican and Democrat leaders in the House and Senate.

He went on to say that this pushes ahead a negotiation that will yield results. At first take that sounds reasonable. But remember, this is a politician talking.

What he is really saying is that there will be a closed door meeting with a handful of people. There will not be an open floor debate and discussion.

The news keeps saying that it takes 60 votes to pass. That is not true.

It takes 60 votes to end the debate. Then there is a vote on the resolution itself. That vote only requires a simple majority.

There should be a vote to end debate with each Senator on record to proceed to a vote on the House bill. That bill funds the government temporarily, provides border security, and provides emergency disaster relief which includes Georgia farmers hit by Hurricane Michael.

If there were not enough votes to end debate, then someone could offer an amendment and the Senate could deliberate and vote on the amendment. In other words, be accountable for the vote.

The US Senate is supposed to be the great deliberative body. They should go on record so that everyone can hear and see.

Historians should be able to look back and see how our “distinguished” Senators set priorities and addressed border security. But this is not about the great deliberative body debating and hammering out these issues.

It is about allowing individual Senators to dodge accountability. Theoretically some Democrats might be persuaded to vote to end the debate and proceed forward.

I believe that some Republicans do not want to end debate because they do not want real border security. They just do not want their constituents to know that.

They want to dodge accountability. Once again, this puts on open display the hypocrisy of politicians in Washington.

They say that they can’t do away with the filibuster for appropriation bills because the Senate is the great deliberative body. Yet their actions show that they do not want the Senators to deliberate at all.

The Senators are dodging accountability. They should be held accountable.

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