Sen­ate deal­mak­ing falls to the way­side as Thune tees up doomed midterm votes

The Senate’s final votes before the Novem­ber elec­tions will give Repub­li­cans a mes­sage they can take on the cam­paign trail, but don’t expect either of the bills up for con­sid­er­a­tion to become law.Both the Ratepay­er Pro­tec­tion Act and a sec­ond bill restrict­ing stock trad­ing by mem­bers of Con­gress are slat­ed to fall vic­tim to the 60-vote fil­i­buster on Wednes­day, when sen­a­tors hope to leave Wash­ing­ton and sp …