On June 12, the Senate rejected a proposal by Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) to make repeal of the estate tax, which under current law only expires for only one year, in 2010, permanent. Repeal advocates needed 60 votes to send the House-passed estate tax repeal bill on to the President for his signature, but only received 54 votes -- 44 Senators, including 2 Republicans, voted against repeal. This is even fewer votes than repeal proponents received in February on a non-binding .

The final vote this evening (June 12) on the Gramm amendment for permanent estate tax repeal was 54 for permanent repeal and 44 against -- clearly failing the 60-vote requirement. This represents a resounding victory against permanent repeal of the estate tax. Votes on the two Democratic reform amendments showed that there is a lot of support for reform, and means that we now need to move forward to talk about what a fair and reasonable reform would be. (The Dorgan amendment was 44 for and 54 against; Conrad amendment was 38 for and 60 against) (To be precise, these all were procedurally votes on waiving the budget rules to allow votes on the amendments--but effectively they were votes on the substance of the amendments.) Please check www.fairestatetax.org for updates this week.

The House wanted its vote on Thurs. June 6th on permanent repeal of the estate tax (H.R. 2143) to send a signal to the Senate showing widening support for repeal. The vote did send a signal, though not the one the House had intended.

This alert provides background information on the estate tax and 5 action steps you can take to help prevent repeal of the estate tax. Read through the alert and then contact your Senators through this legislative link -- the talking points included in this alert are also available there to provide suggestions for your letter or call to your Senators.