David Waldman discusses the business currently on the Senate floor.
Now pending on the floor, though, is the much-anticipated Ben Nelson (D-NE) amendment to insert the Stupak language into the Senate bill. Will Nelson agree to a 60-vote threshold? If so, he’s pretty much guaranteed to lose, which would be a pretty interesting position to put yourself in if you were also saying you were determined to filibuster if it didn’t pass.
But the failure of the amendment might not be the end of things. If Nelson’s vote turns out to still be critical to passage of the entire bill, he’d have one more shot at sneaking his provisions or something like them into the manager’s amendment, if the leadership thought it couldn’t pass the bill over his threat to join Republicans in voting no. And as Open Congress points out, that’d not only slip that language in, but give pro-choice Senators cover by allowing them to point to their no votes on the amendment itself, even as they insist they had to throw up their hands and support the manager’s amendment in order to save the bill.
That manager’s amendment is really a whole new bill. Rather than withdraw the bill he introduced, Harry Reid will incorporate a dozen or more amendments into one sweeping amendment that can win the support of 60 senators. This manager’s amendment will render pointless the rest of the amendment process and much of the work of the committees. It looks like the bill will bear little resemblance to what the HELP and Finance committees produced, or what the House committees produced. The Nelson-Hatch amendment to introduce Stupak language into the Senate bill will probably fail, but that means nothing because Reid can put it back in the manager’s amendment and the pro-choice Democrats will be able to say that they voted against Nelson-Hatch but had to cave to the reintroduction of the language to get 60 votes. Yet, the procedural moves could have short-term consequences.
Indeed, Senators Boxer and Mikulski seem to be feeling so confident that they are prepared to take the risky step of moving to table Mr. Nelson’s proposal, which would require only a simple majority of 51 senators. Tabling the motion would kill it, but it is more of a gamble than allowing Mr. Nelson to move forward and seek approval of his amendment, which would require a larger majority of 60 votes.
If the liberals fail in their bid to table the amendment, Senate rules would not allow the amendment to be withdrawn without the unanimous consent of all senators – and opponents of abortion rights could potentially hold it on the Senate floor for days.
The liberals believe that as many as nine senators in the 60-member Democratic caucus, including Mr. Nelson, will support the amendment, leaving exactly 51 Democrats in favor of tabling the proposal. And some Republican supporters of abortion rights, including Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, are expected to join in defeating it.
Meanwhile, we wait to hear what kind of deal has been struck on the overall bill. Will the progressives settle for an expansion of Medicaid and Medicare eligibility, combined with stricter regulations? What will happen with the abortion language. Will progressives in the House go along with these compromises?
I can’t even tell you whether I’d vote for this bill. I have no idea what will be in it.
Jim Webb writes about the gears-within-gears machinations of procedural votes in A Time to Fight, about the Senate and being a Senator. He writes about going back to his office totally confused after some of those procedural fights, talking with his staff and trying to figure out whether he voted the right way.
I don’t have the book at hand, so I can’t quote it exactly, but he makes a telling reference to the Senate as “100 scorpions in a bottle,” and warns about the peril of shaking the bottle.
Another thing you’ll notice is that if you look at any given senator’s voting record on amendments, there is never any consistency of purpose or ideology. For example, in Webb’s case, he voted for the Gregg Amendment yesterday, which would have prevented Congress from redirecting any savings from Medicare Advantage to pay for this bill. Webb voted to gut the bill, but he’s made no noise about voting against the bill on final passage. It was a free vote because it wasn’t going to pass, so Webb just made himself look more conservative in some database somewhere, but his vote made no sense.
I’m just left thinking that putting in the public option opt-out was a huge mistake on Reid’s part and was the point at which the public option was killed. And a huge part of the reason that happened…FDL targeting Reid in Nevada.
IMO, the facts are really simple. The White House was looking for the senate to pass a bill with a PO trigger and a strong funding mechanism that was deficit neutral. In committee they’d take the House’s subsidies, PO, and keep the senate funding mechanism and then double dog dare a soul to kill it out of conference committee. If necessary, Reid could threaten to go nuclear or turn to reconciliation.
Taking the risk of going for the public option in the senate without the trigger killed Nancy Pelosi’s momentum of getting a PO w/Medicare +5 which would have become the negotiated PO the senate could accept.
I think a huge part of this is the White House not reaching out to disaffected progressive groups who lost a lot of trust b/c of the lack of moves towards civil liberties (through note, I didn’t see a lot of help on this when the President announced GITMO closing) and GLBT issues.
Bingo.
At this point, I would settle for a trigger on a strong public option that could be easily met, letting people at age 55 buy into Medicare, opening up access to Insurance markets and increased subsidies on those we are forcing to buy insurance.
I understand the PO has become a litmus test of liberal power but out smarting the moderates on making a better policy should be a far more meaningful out come priority.
No problem, I can tell what will be in the bill using my magic eyeglasses.
It will include the idea of letting people buy-into Medicare (though perhaps not as young as 55). It will not increase the subsidies to that 155% level.
And there will be some kind of anti-choice language, which will infuriate the Left, but not quite as much as the Stupak amendment.
Now, for extra credit, I predict that said anti-choice language will backfire on the Right, by providing a rallying cry to liberals in 2010, and help fire up their base.
Maybe it’s going to end up in budget reconciliation after all. I don’t know — what should have been a triumphant return to sanity has become instead further evidence that our system doesn’t work. Even if we get a good HCR out of it in the end, there will be a bad taste left in the mouth because it should have been obvious and easy.
OFA is on the case:
The public option turned into a shibboleth six months ago and anyone who’s still treating it as a make-or-break is as guilty of empty, gestural politics as Rep. Stupak.