Remember back when we were trying to pass the health care bills? Remember how the House had to pass the Senate’s version of the bill and then make all the fixes in a separate budget reconciliation bill?
Okay, here’s a refresher. The Senate passed their version of the health care bill on Christmas Eve, 2009. Fifty-eight Democrats and two independents voted for cloture on the bill. But, before the bill could be reconciled with the House version, we lost Teddy Kennedy’s seat to Scott Brown. We no longer had the 60 needed votes for cloture. That meant that the Senate couldn’t make any changes to the bill, and that meant that the only way to pass a health care bill was for the House to pass the Senate version without amending it in any way. So, they did that. But they weren’t happy about it. And they put together a separate Budget Reconciliation Bill that only required 51 votes to pass that included the changes they wanted to make. They passed it and then they went into recess.
This time is was the Senate that had to pass a bill without making any changes to it. If any amendments succeeded then the bill would have had to been sent back to the House which was no longer in session. This presented an opportunity for the Republicans to introduce popular amendments and force the Democrats to vote against them. The most spectacular of these was Tom Coburn’s amendment to prohibit coverage of Viagra for child molesters and rapists.
Did you think they’d never use that vote? Think again:
Nevada Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle is out with a harsh new ad Thursday, accusing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of approving funds to give Viagra to child molesters.
The ad begins with Angle and her husband walking hand-in-hand at sunset as she announces her approval of the message, but quickly transitions to attacking the Democratic Senate leader, who’s locked in a tough battle fore reelection, over the economic stimulus legislation, illegal immigration and, finally, using “taxpayer dollars to pay for Viagra for convicted child molesters and sex offenders.”
Did Harry Reid vote for sending taxpayer funds to child molesters and sex offenders so that they could buy Viagra? Only in the sense that he had the choice of voting against the amendment banning that use of funds or letting the health care bill die.
