“Holding the floor in debate” will not prevent a cloture vote, and will not prevent voting on the underlying matter. The Senator who holds the floor can be interrupted.

If the Senate follows the timing set out in the cloture rule, the vote on the cloture motion that was filed Monday would/will be taken Wednesday, one hour after the Senate opens.

Link to Senate Rule XXII – Precedence of Motions

The significance of Thursday is also derived from application of the Rules – assuming cloture is invoked on Wednesday morning, the 30 hours of post-cloture debate will expire on Thursday afternoon, when a vote will be conducted on the motion to proceed to FISA.

But it’s vitally important to be aware that the Senate RARELY follows the timing rules assigned to cloture. It’s common to obtain UC to compress the time between filing and the cloture vote; and it’s common to compress the time between the cloture vote and the vote on the matter. The most extreme example I’ve seen is filing a cloture motion, invoking cloture (passing the cloture motion), and passing the underlying matter, all three within a period of less than one hour.

In the other direction, it is also common to DELAY the period between filing a cloture motion and taking the cloture vote – sometimes by weeks. What I’ve never seen, even though it’s possible by UC, is extending the 30 hours of post cloture debate – the time between invoking cloture and voting on the underlying matter – except when 30 hours expires between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., when the Senate is almost certainly adjourned. Then they vote at some convenient time after the Senate opens.

Deviation from the timing rules of cloture is usually done for the convenience of the Senators – to have votes at convenient times so as to avoid interfering with recess, nights out and other important things – and is sometimes done to manipulate public perception regarding a political position.

A review of Riddick’s Rules of Senate Procedure will show the diverse range of possibilities. One section is dedicated to Cloture Procedure.

The prime Senate rule is “all rules can be broken or modified by unanimous consent,” and that “without notice.” This makes advance predictions unreliable – at least given the information that is available from C-SPAN, the Congressional Record, press releases, and media reports.

And here’s her BFF Steny, also talking about FISA:

The American people, they want us to get this done. That’s the whole thing to me

.

Oh really, Steny? Have they been flooding your mailbox, fax machine and telephone lines with communications PLEADING with you to pass this reprehensible bill?

Yeah, right.

He’s doing his best to put on a good show, at the same time.

He probably gets bigger bribes in the Housing Bailout venue, so it makes sense to give that interest group priority in passage.

I’ll be pleasantly surprised if the Senate blocks the retroactive immunity past the election – I’m not expecting any substantial improvement on the other parts of the bill (too bad, it could use improvement), but the House really surprised me a few months ago, when it rejected the Senate-passed bill and tossed the issue back in the Senate’s lap (where it sits to this very day – see H.R.3773)

He’s horse trading. He wants the GOP to relent on it’s objections in the Housing Bill, and he’s holding FISA hostage until/unless the GOP takes what the DEMs are offering on Housing.

It definitely delays FISA, so if blocking FISA is most important, this is a welcome tactic.

My intuition is that the GOP will relent on Housing, because it has two firestops behind its current objection. One firestop (but probably useless to the GOP) is the House, the other is presidential veto.

The short answer is “Yes,” but what Dodd was doing tonight didn’t have any effect in that regard, either. An important part of the Housing Bill (but not the ONLY part of the Housing Bill) is in the post-cloture 30 hour debate period. That 30 hours runs, without regard to speaking, silence, sleeping, quorum call, etc. Dodd just decided to talk now.

Reid stated today that he’s going to stay on the Housing bill until the GOP relents on it’s demand for amendments. And, said Reid, if the GOP wants to hold onto its objections relating to the Housing Bill, don’t be blaming the DEMs for failing to get to FISA this week.