Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked consideration of a Democratic bill that seeks to punish companies that ship jobs overseas.

Senators voted 53-45 to defeat a procedural motion to begin debate on the measure, which would eliminate tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs. Sixty votes were required for the motion to succeed.

Democrats decided to try to bring up the bill late last week to give Members another item to run on this fall. The decision to bring up the outsourcing measure came after Democratic leaders decided to put off a debate on extending the Bush-era tax cuts.

Tuesday’s vote followed a rare Monday night “live quorum,” which Reid called to try to force a dramatic showdown over the bill.

But that effort fell flat. Rather than inspiring a testy debate, the quorum largely resulted in Senators delivering somewhat routine speeches to a nearly empty chamber.