It can now be safely sated that the Senate will not pass the Stupak amendment.
Because 60 votes are required to attach an amendment to a bill in the Senate, there is no chance that the Senate will include the Stupak amendment in the health care bill it sends to conference committee. And, there simply are not 60 votes in favor the amendment in the Senate:
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said that 60 votes would be needed to strip the current health care bill of its abortion-related language and replace it with a version resembling that passed by the House of Representatives on Saturday. And, in an interview with the Huffington Post, the California Democrat predicted that pro-choice forces in the Senate would keep that from happening.
"If someone wants to offer this very radical amendment, which would really tear apart [a decades-long] compromise, then I think at that point they would need to have 60 votes to do it," Boxer said. "And I believe in our Senate we can hold it."
"It is a much more pro-choice Senate than it has been in a long time," she added. "And it is much more pro-choice than the House."
While it is not clear that the Senate is more pro-choice than the House, even the House did not have 60% in favor of the Stupak amendment. On Saturday, 240, or 55.2%, of House members voted for the Stupak amendment.
This is a rare situation in 2009 where the 60-vote culture of the Senate actually works in favor of progressives. It is much harder to add an amendment in the Senate than in the House.
Even in the event that the Senate pursues reconciliation for a health care bill, where only a simple majority of Senators would be required, the Stupak amendment could not be included:
By the same token, the Stupak amendment would definitely run afoul of the Byrd rule. This rule dealing with abortion is clearly an "extraneous matter" and the Parliamentarian would rule is as such. It violates the first part of the Byrd rule because it does "not produce a change in outlays or revenues." I see almost no way the Stupak amendment could remain in a bill passed using reconciliation.
It isn't even clear that there are a majority of Senators in favor of the Stupak amendment. For example, the regressive Senate Finance committee already rejected Stupak-type language by majority vote:
On a 13-10 vote, the Senate Finance Committee rejected amendments from Sen. Orrin Hatch that would have the bill conform to current federal law prohibiting direct abortion funding.
Hatch amendment 355 would make it so the Baucus bill "prohibits authorized or appropriated federal funds under this Mark from being used for elective abortions and plans that cover such abortions."
The otherwise party-line vote saw pro-abortion Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe side with Democrats against it and Sen. Kent Conrad of Noth Dakota join Republicans in supporting it.
There are a few anti-choice Democrats in the Senate: Casey (PA), Conrad (ND), Nelson (NE), Reid (NV) and possibly a few more. However, there are not enough to pass the Stupak amendment in the Senate. It is a dead letter in that chamber.
The battle over the Stupak amendment will take place in the conference committee. Supposedly, the White House is in favor of removing the Stupak amendment. Also, supposedly there are enough House Democrats to kill the overall health care bill if the Stupak amendment is not removed. Further, Stupak himself has claimed that there are enough votes to pass the health care bill in the House without the Stupak amendment. Right now, it certainly seems as though the tide is turning against Stupak, and his chances of victory before the end are less than 50%.
Update in the extended entry
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