By the end of it all, the majority leader was left with no other option but to let the USA Freedom Act pass unamended.
Democrats in the House emerged from the briefing with Biden pledging support, and urging Republican colleagues to accept the bill unamended.
In that time, not a single country has left its constitution unamended.
But his Westminster vacillation has caused him grief on the campaign trail, with Mr Paisley and others delighting in the spectacle of the most likely first minister in the new legislature voting against the first Westminster trial the agreement has faced.Government strength meant the prisoners' bill was always going to go through substantially unamended.
That night the Senate passed it unamended, 73 votes to 7. On March 12 Roosevelt announced that, on the following day, sound banks would begin to reopen.
In Belgium, the lower house of Parliament has already approved a measure that, if unamended by the upper house, would make it a crime to wear in public "clothing that hides the face".
The NSW transport minister, Andrew Constance, said changes to the state's point-to-point transport laws passed state parliament unamended on Wednesday night, including the compensation scheme.
If the bill goes ahead unamended then councils such as Hampshire will be banned from helping struggling schools from the moment they are judged inadequate and an academy order is issued.
However, I have to take serious issue with his claim that had the Lib Dems not joined the coalition, the current health and social care bill would have passed into law unamended last year.
Helen O'Brien, chief executive of the Catholic Church's Caritas Social Action Network said: "We are pleased that the House of Lords recognised that vast numbers of women, men and children were at great risk if this bill was passed unamended.
Greg Archer from green group T&E said that a review of the car labelling system, unamended in the past 16 years, is long overdue.
