Senator places "secret hold" on legislation, preventing passage

We learned late last night - as we awaited news of whether or not the Senate would unanimously pass the historic LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act - that a Senator has exercised the anonymous "privilege to hold" the bill, preventing its passage until the hold is removed.

As we wrote yesterday, due to both the level of support within the Senate for the bill and to the Senate's packed legislative calendar, yesterday morning the bill was  "hotlined" for passage, which means it passes unanimously unless any Senator decides to place a "hold" on the bill.

And that's what has happened. Basically, the bill is just sitting one inch from passage. If/when the Senator with the "hold" on the bill removes it, the bill will pass the Senate immediately (though it still needs to then pass the House before being sent to President Obama to be signed into law).

Due to the ancient rules by which the Senate operates, we won't have confirmation on the identity of the Senator who is holding the bill for another week. However, we are fairly confident of his identity.

Right now, the Senators championing our bill (particularly Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Sam Brownback of Kansas, and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma) will try to negotiate their way through whatever objections exist to get the bill passed.  So we're holding off on anything public that could disrupt those negotiations.

But if negotiations don't work - and they may not - we will have to put our heads together and unleash the kind of passionate, committed creativity that has succeeded in getting us this far to win one more battle for peace.