March 9 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist suspended debate on overhauling lobbying rules after the chamber refused to prevent a vote on blocking a state-owned Dubai company from taking over terminals at six American ports.
The Republicans couldn't come up with the 67 votes needed to prevent the Senate from considering an amendment to the lobbying legislation that would have blocked DP World from running the ports. The 51-47 vote in favor of shutting off debate was mostly along party lines.
After the vote, Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said he would delay action on the lobbying and ethics legislation until the Senate sponsors approved a list of amendments and blocked unrelated proposals. He gave no date for resuming debate, and the sponsor of the ports amendment, Senator Charles Schumer, said he still wanted a vote on that issue.
``We've had a totally unrelated amendment injected, I believe, for partisan purposes,'' Frist said, referring to the ports provision submitted by Schumer, a New York Democrat.
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