One way to play hardball is to ask all Democratic senators to vote for cloture on the health care bill or lose their chairs. So, Patty Murray would potentially replace Kent Conrad as the chair of the Committee on the Budget and Jay Rockefeller would trade his Commerce chair for Max Baucus’ chair of the Committee on Finance. Maria Cantwell could take over for Mary Landrieu on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and Daniel Akaka could replace Joe Lieberman as the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Frankly, we’d be better off with these changes anyway. It’s not that I don’t value having senators from North Dakota and Louisiana, but they don’t need to be chairing committees if they are afraid to usher through the president’s agenda.
It really shouldn’t take more than a threat of doing this to get the Dem’s senate caucus in line.
