The Senate voted today against an amendment to restore the religious liberty protections for employers who don’t want to be forced to pay for birth control or drugs that may cause abortions in their employee health plans.

Leading pro-life organizations called on the Senate to vote for the amendment to the mandate the Obama administration issued, but Democrats banded together against republicans to defeat it on a 51 to 48 margin by adopting a motion to table, or kill, it.

Key pro-abortion senators including Clare McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana voted against the amendment — which will energize pro-life advocates against their re-election campaigns this November.

Senate Republicans were unable to muster enough votes Thursday for a bill opposing another $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling.

The measure was defeated on a 52-44 vote. Lawmakers would have needed 60 votes in order to push the bill through, and more than that to override a presidential veto. The House had approved the measure last week, but it was expected to fail in the Senate.

The vote caps an unusual process set up at the end of the debt-ceiling debate last summer. The process allows lawmakers, mostly Republicans, to vote against debt increases but not actually block them. Blocking them would provoke a first-ever, market-rattling default on U.S. obligations.

The vote split mostly along party lines. One Republican, Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, opposed the measure. Two Democrats -- West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson -- supported it.

When Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, voted last week to block a Republican attempt to repeal the 2010 health care law, his action on some levels was routine. The vote was straight along party lines, and the GOP effort was viewed largely as a symbolic gesture with little chance of success.

Within hours, however, the Republican public relations machine cranked into action, firing up press releases, videos and a website that attacked the newly minted senator for his vote and support of “the Obama agenda.”

“Despite his many campaign promises as he sought West Virginia's Senate seat, Manchin has used his time in Washington to embrace President Obama’s liberal policies,” Brian Walsh, a spokesman with the Senate Republican’s campaign arm, said in an e-mail to reporters the morning after Wednesday’s vote on repeal of the health care law...

Republicans are making some big promises to try to lure West Virginia Senator-elect Joe Manchin to cross the aisle.

Aside from his pick of committee assignments (likely the Energy and Natural Resources Committee), Manchin might get support for one of his pet projects - a plant to convert coal to diesel fuel that has stalled under Democratic leadership in Washington.

It's one of Manchin's pet projects and could mean big money for the state's coal producers...

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin has tapped a former aide to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Robert C. Byrd.

Manchin said Friday that former chief counsel Carte Goodwin will serve in the post. Goodwin is expected to take the oath of office on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old Goodwin served as Manchin's general counsel from 2005 until early 2009...