If you want to stop things from happening, or slow things down to the speed of molasses, being a US Senator is the world's greatest job. And if your entire political party's complete strategy is to kill every single thing proposed, it's a hell of a deal. But ever so slowly, painfully, creakily, the Senate is beginning to move forward on debating health care reform. It looks more and more like Harry Reid has gotten agreement to pass the motion to debate, the CBO has finally scored the bill, and the debate will likely begin next week- or, who knows given all the delaying tactics, maybe after they get back from Thanksgiving. But things are starting to move.
The motion to debate is only the first step, though, in these ridiculous Senate rules. Democrats are as of right now still probably four or five votes short on getting 60 votes to end debate. The same problem we knew about from the very earliest stages of this fight- that four or five conservative Democrats in the Senate and 60 or so progressives in the House are still dug in on seemingly irreconcilable differences on the public option- is still a big fat unresolved problem. Abortion looms as the second most vexing issue. And then there are half a dozen really important and problematic other issues to be resolved. It will be high drama right up to the end, and if anyone tells you they know how it's going to come out, they are fooling both you and themselves.
Reid has a host of alternatives once this gets to the floor, and he and the Speaker and the White House have many different levers of power to use to ram this through if they are willing to use them, so as I have believed all along, I still think something will pass. The question, though, is which factions do the best job of hanging together and negotiating most smartly, and which choices do the key power players make.
Reconciliation is still an option, but even progressives like Harkin and Rockefeller don't want to go there unless they absolutely have to because of the mess it would make of the bill, and the hoops that would have to be jumped through. If both Senate conservatives and House progressives remain dug in, though, dividing these bills into two pieces, the budget related items (including the public option) and everything else, is still the way that Reid might be forced to go. Since that is truly a last resort, he will continue to find the sweet spot that both sides can live with. And if all else fails, he can always just keep the bill on the floor for debate as long as the holdout Democrats want to debate it. Given that the polling numbers I have seen even in conservative states show that voters overwhelmingly want a debate and final vote allowed, that would put those Democrats in a very uncomfortable spot.
I wrote several months ago that ultimately the fate of this bill would come down to who blinks first, House progressives or Senate conservatives. One of them will win the majority of what they want on policy, and one of them will be given a fig leaf that allows them to say I forced a compromise. If it is House progressives who blink, or who let themselves be picked off one by one, not only would the final bill be far worse, I think it will be a political disaster for the Democratic party: bitter division, a disaffected base going into 2010, Republicans attacking full scale with no progressives to raise support and push back. Progressives have already compromised almost to the breaking point, and it is time for the conservatives in the party to do the same.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will send a health care bill with an opt-out public option, and without Stupak amendment language, to the floor of the Senate next week. From The Hill:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) late Tuesday laid the groundwork for the Senate's healthcare reform debate to start next Tuesday.
Reid filed a motion to introduce the bill on Monday, Nov. 16. Anticipating a Republican objection, the bill would be pushed onto the Senate calendar.
"A motion to proceed to the bill would be in order the next legislative day," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley.
Given the 60-vote culture in the Senate, it will take 60 votes either to remove the public option from the bill, or to add the Stupak language to the bill. This makes either pretty unlikely (especially the addition of the Stupak language).
This does not mean Reid has secured the votes to pass a public option. It does mean that Reid has likely secured the votes to start the amendment and debate process on the health care bill.
Unless the Senate uses the reconciliation process, or unless it uses the nuclear option (which it won't), it will have to pass three, 60-vote threshold, cloture votes on the health care.
The first will be to start debate. The second will be to end debate and proceed to a simple majority vote on the bill. The third and final vote will happen after the conference committee with the House, to end debate on the bill once again and proceed to one last simple majority vote. TNR summarizes the process here.
It is likely that Reid has secured the votes to start the debate and amendment process on the floor of the Senate. There was always minimal opposition to starting debate, even among the five "problem" Senators on health care: Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman, Blanch Lincoln, and Ben Nelson.
The significance of this is not that Reid has secured the votes to start the amendment and debate process so much as it pushes the timeline for passage of the overall bill forward. If Reid had not filed a motion to introduce the bill this week, then the earliest floor debate would have started in the Senate would have been the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. This ups the process by at least two weeks, and gives real hope that the bill will be passed into law by the end of the year.
Senate Democrats in the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) finally squelched Republican boycotts and passed a version of the climate bill yesterday morning. Last week, Republican Senators refused to show up to committee hearings in an attempt to stall the bill. Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo notes that EPW has now set "the stage for other panels to amend the legislation."
Last week, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced a merged health care bill including an opt-out public option. The next day, Senator Joe Lieberman threatened to vote against cloture on any health care bill with a public option. The same day, Reid promptly brushed off the threat, saying that "Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid's problems."
Now, sources claim the two Senators have reached a "private understanding" to let the bill go forward:
Sen. Joe Lieberman has reached a private understanding with Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will not block a final vote on healthcare reform, according to two sources briefed on the matter.
Um, OK I guess. There are good reasons to be wary, but I'll take it for now.
Anyone want to guess what the "private understanding" is?
Update: Now, both Reid and Lieberman are denying this to multiple sources. Of course they are. Either there is a private understanding, and saying so in public would make them sound ridiculous, or there is no private understanding, and saying there is would make them sound ridiculous.
In short, stating publicly that you have a private understanding sounds bad.
With the Republicans becoming locked into being the party of No/Hell, No/Not Ever/Nada/Absolutely Not/Never Ever, Democrats are going to need to seriously consider revising the rules of the Senate at the beginning of next term. The gritty reality of the Senate rules minefield is making the passage of health care reform way too complicated. But it's virtually impossible to change the Senate rules in the middle of a term, so we are stuck with getting this thing done with the rules we have.
Fortunately, the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill and at the White House are completely bound and determined that they will pass a health care reform bill by any means necessary. We have come too far, spent too much time and political capital, to turn back now. I think almost everyone in the party (except maybe 3 or 4 Senators) understand the disastrous consequences of not getting a bill passed.
There are, however, two realities that in combination make getting the deal done really complicated.
The first is that the progressive wing of the party is as dug in as I have ever seen them on having some form of a public option in this bill. This reality, which has been building for months now because of stronger progressive leadership in Congress and a powerful grassroots campaign to push for the public option, has been slow to dawn on the Washington elite, but my sense is that progressives are getting more determined on the issue every day , not less, and that with their rhetoric, their promises to activists, their signatures on letters promising to oppose anything without a public option, that their willingness to give on the issue has gone out the door.
The other reality is that getting the final four or five moderate Senators to vote to let this bill get passed at the end of the process- whether to take it to conference committee or for final passage- is extremely difficult. Between a range of factors including genuine policy and ideological concerns, worries about conservative home state politics, fears about money being cut off from the insurance industry for their campaigns, desire to extract every possible concession on every possible subject, and the egos of being a Senator, getting every last Democratic Senator is a massive challenge. This would be true, by the way, with or without the public option, but the high-profile symbolism of the public option just raises the degree of difficulty with some of these Senators.
I actually think Harry Reid is doing a remarkable job working with the holdouts. He has gotten a lot of criticism over the past few months, but given the Senate rules, he is doing a remarkable job working every last angle to get this bill moving (beginning of next term, you gotta get the rules changed, though, Senator). He is now really close to getting the 60 votes to get this bill to the floor for debate, and I think that will happen.
The biggest question, though, is what happens next. No one wants to go the reconciliation route because given those ugly Senate rules, it is just a convoluted mess to do things that way. It would take more time, create enormous logistical hassles and tie-ups, and almost certainly force the bill to be broken into two parts, one that would go through the reconciliation process and one that could not because its provisions aren't directly related to the budget. I can understand why Reid and the White House would rather not go down that path unless they absolutely must.
Unless all 60 Democrats stick with Harry Reid, though, that's what they will have to do. Getting this omelet done may require breaking a few Senatorial eggs. Having talked with some Senate staffers, I know they are preparing for every contingency, including reconciliation, and that's a very good thing, because I think that's what this will probably come down to in the end. I know it's a messy, irritating, uncomfortable way to get the deal done. But if any of those Senators decide they want to say no, and don't want to be players on the most important piece of legislation in at least 50 years, so be it. This legislation is too important not to pass.
Progressives rejoiced when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced this week that the final Senate health care bill would include a public option. The announcement was a major victory for left-wing Democrats.
Better yet, it would be a public option without a trigger. Earlier proposals called for a triggered public option which would only take effect if private insurers failed to bring down costs on their own. Under the opt-out compromise, the public option would come on line automatically (albeit not until 2013), but states would later have the option of quitting.
The jubilation was short-lived. Alex Koppelman of Salon explains:
Progressives didn't even get 24 hours to celebrate the victory they won in getting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to include a version of the public option in his health care reform bill. The celebration was cut off Tuesday afternoon with the news that Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., will vote with Senate Republicans to filibuster the legislation.
The Democrats have 60 Senate votes. If they all vote for cloture, a procedural motion to stop debate, the Republicans can't filibuster the bill. The Senators who vote for cloture can still vote against the bill. Reid's strategy for passing the bill was to get all Democrats to vote for cloture and let them vote their conscience on the actual bill. Even without Lieberman, Democrats have the votes to pass the bill by majority vote if they can avoid a filibuster.
Health care is the most important domestic policy initiative of the Obama administration. Would Joe Lieberman really torpedo reform? The Senate leadership thinks Reid is bluffing, according to Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly.
I understand the argument. Lieberman loves attention and power. By threatening to join the Republican filibuster, he gets both-Democrats have to scramble to make him happy, since there's no margin for error in putting together 60 votes. Lieberman gets to feel very important for the next several weeks by making this threat less than 24 hours after Harry Reid stated his intentions, but that doesn't necessarily mean he wants to be known forever as The Senator Who Killed Health Care Reform.
I find it very easy to believe, however, that Lieberman is capable of doing just that. He left himself some wiggle room, but not when it comes to the public option-he's against it, no matter what, even with all of the compromises thrown in.
In other words, if this is all a ploy for leverage, why would Lieberman open by swearing that he won't support a bill with a public option? You'd think he'd just say he was keeping his options open and force Reid to make him a counter-offer. Reid has already decided that the public option is politically non-negotiable. He's afraid that the base won't come out for the 2012 elections if they don't get what they want. Benen speculates that Lieberman wants to be the Senator Who Killed Health Care because he wants to drum up massive Republican support for his 2012 reelection bid. On this theory, Lieberman is joining Rep. Joe "You Lie!" Wilson (R-SC) and Balloon Dad in the quest to make bank on ridiculous publicity stunts.
Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) says that she will side with the Republicans to filibuster the bill "if she has to," as Evan McMorris-Santoro reports for TPM. Snowe was the only Republican to vote for the Finance Committee's health care bill.
Reid must walk a fine line. The administration really can't afford to alienate organized labor before the 2012 elections. Newly elected AFL-CIO President Ricahrd Trumka continues to push for his three core demands for health care reform: a public option, a mechanism to make employers pay their fair share, and no taxes on health care benefits. Last week, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee said that his union would oppose legislation that taxed benefits, but Trumka hasn't gone that far, as David Moberg reports at Working In These Times.
Finally, in other health-related news, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the division of the Labor Department that oversees workplace safety, has issued a sweeping new report condemning Nevada's state-level OSHA program. As I report for Working in These Times, the investigators found that NOSHA inspectors were being pressured by their superiors to write up employers on lesser charges, even when their repeat offenses killed workers.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Before today, sources had told me that Lieberman was not considered to be one of the top threats to vote against cloture on a health care bill with a public option. Now, even despite Lieberman's threat to vote against cloture today, from the way Harry Reid is talking, it seems like the Senate leadership still doesn't consider Lieberman to be one of the main problems:
"Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid's problems," Reid told reporters at his weekly press conference.
During a Q&A session with reporters, Reid offered a fairly spirited defense of Lieberman, signaling perhaps that he doesn't believe Lieberman will ultimately be an obstacle--or at least that he doesn't want to tip his hat: "I don't have anyone that I've worked harder with, have more respect for, in the Senate than Joe Lieberman. As you know, he's my friend. There are a lot of senators--Democrat and Republicans--who don't like [parts of this bill]... Sen. Lieberman will let us get on the bill, and he'll be involved in the amendment process."(...)
"We'll get it on the floor, we'll have an amendment process, and that's what we do," Reid said. "We haven't been doing a lot of it because we've had 81 objections so far this year by the Republicans."
I can think of three possibilities here:
There is a deal with Reid and Lieberman to change the bill via amendments that is already in place.
Reid is disappointed, but believes he can get Lieberman to fall in line by the time of the final cloture vote.
Reid has been blindsided by Lieberman, but he is sticking to talking points that reflect the earlier estimate that Lieberman was not one of the main problems.
This is all very speculative, of course. One thing that is not speculative is that we are going to have to find a way to pressure Lieberman hard as a result of this statement. Any suggestions?
I will feel bad for people living in states that opt out of a public insurance option. However it won't help them one bit if people in NO states are given the choice of a public option instead. Understand that I write this as someone who strongly supports establishing a Single Payer, or Medicare for All, public health insurance system in America; NOW. Sure I support that, but I also know that there isn't a prayer of a chance of making that happen, not now.
Call the system unfair, call the game rigged, unless someone has the power to change that system or nullify that game it will be go on being played under the rules in effect. I am not a defeatist, I am a fighter, and mine has been one small voice among many pushing the fight forward in the current session of Congress. I have witnessed our ability to move a mountain, against all seeming insider odds, to keep some form of a public option alive, to expose and reject the false promise of a "trigger to nowhere" being offered us as a sleeping pill instead. Our power is real. And so is the mountain. Our ability to move it slightly helped crack the aura of it's permanent invincibility. But that mountain is still there, pushed a few yards further down the road.
Okay, folks, we progressives got what we wanted. A comprehensive health care reform bill with a reasonably strong public option will be going to the floor as part of leadership bills in both the House and the Senate. We don't yet know whether we will get the best version of the public option in the House bill, and the Senate version is not as strong as progressives have been pushing for. But strengthening the form of the public option can be negotiated over in conference committee, once we get there.
For now, we can thank Harry Reid (HCAN has a page here) and Nancy Pelosi for their gutsy leadership, and fight like hungry dogs to win the floor fight and deliver on this hope. In the coming weeks we will have an all-hands-on-deck, all out public war with the insurance industry over whether we finally pass comprehensive health care reform or once again fall short at the bitter end after coming so far.
Here's where things are as we head into the floor fight:
1. White House staffers confirmed for me this afternoon that they are backing Harry Reid's decision "100 percent." Now that's not to say they aren't a little nervous about it. I suspect that there are still some feelings by some people working in that building that progressives should have given up and rolled over, and let them cut a deal with Olympia Snowe on her trigger-written-never-to-trigger. That would have been easier than sweating what will undoubtedly be a very tough battle to get all 60 Democrats to go along with the rest of the party. But us irritating progressive folk got in the way of doing that, and now Obama knows it's time to stand and deliver. I believe my friends at the White House when they say they will do an all-out fight for this bill. They know that starting down this path, and not being able to pull it off, would be a huge embarrassment and destroy all the momentum we've built by making it this far. They are all-in, and know how much is at stake. Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina are famous for twisting arms and doing everything in their power to get the votes that are needed, and now is their time to deliver.
2. The entire progressive movement has to go all-in supporting an up or down vote on health care reform. We should try to strengthen this bill with an amendment strategy on the floor, and we should be prepared to fight for a strong, tough negotiation strategy in conference committee. But first, we should be putting every ounce of work, dollars, and muscle we can to convince all the Democrats in the Senate to support Reid on the cloture vote in the Senate. The White House and Reid are on the line to deliver, but so are we. This is a history- making fight, one of those huge moments in American history, and if we win, this progressive movement will be written about in the history books the way the big change movements of the 1960s, 1930s, 1900s, and 1860s are. This is our time to deliver, too.
3. Senate Democrats who are reluctant to support this need to be clear: there are plenty of things none of us like in this big, sprawling bill. Personally, I think the idea that states could opt out of the public option is a tragedy, and I will fight for a better bill in conference committee. There are plenty of other provisions I don't love as well. But to step on history, to stop the entire rest of the Democratic party from making history because you don't like one provision in a bill, is fundamentally wrong. Go ahead and vote against it on an up or down vote, but do not stop this incredibly important, incredibly historic bill with a filibuster. And as a loyal Democrat who wants all Democrats to win, I want you waverers to be very clear about the political consequences. There is a huge political upside to supporting Reid on cloture, and an even bigger downside to not doing so. I don't speak for the entire progressive movement at all, but I have spent my life working in it, and have a pretty good sense of it, and I will tell you this: this is of truly massive importance to progressives. If you think this is just another issue, you are dead wrong. You will be helping yourself an enormous amount with progressives by letting this vote happen, and letting the Democratic party and the president get a huge win. It would be harder to raise money for anyone running a primary against you and easier to get our help in any tough general election you might face. On the other hand, if you screw us on this issue, you are opening yourself up for enormous political problems. The odds of serious primaries, with a ton of funding, go up dramatically, just as the odds of ever getting help in a tough general election fight go steeply down. The likelihood of people and organizations trying to block anything politically you are trying to get for your state go up exponentially, from judges you are trying to get appointed to highway money you are trying to get. Look, I am not trying to make threats here at all, I am just a lowly consultant. What I am suggesting is that everyone in the progressive movement is going to have very, very long memories about this highest of high priorities for us.
This is the fight of our lives, and after all the preliminaries, we have made it to the finals. Reid and Pelosi have delivered. The White House is ready to roll. Now let's get this done.
The merger process is nearly complete. We should know by Wednesday, and possibly as early as tomorrow, what sort of health care reform bills both the House and Senate Democratic leaderships will send to the floors of their respective chambers. Of course, we will also know what sort of public option will, or will not, be included in those bills. Here is the run of play on the merger process in each chamber:
Where the Senate stands The big news today is in the Senate. Reportedly, Harry Reid is ready to send a merged bill to the Congressional Budget Office. Last week, Reid indicated that when he finally sent a bill to the CBO, it would mean he had made a decision on the public option:
"I've had a number of meetings in my office, dealing with Democrats and Republicans on the public option aspect of it...when the decision's made to send this on to the CBO, I will have made a decision as to what we're going to do with the public option.
Senate leaders plan to submit the bill to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate as soon as Monday, and make the legislation public as soon as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.(...)
The bill to be brought to the Senate floor would create a new public health-insurance plan, but would give states the choice of opting out of participating in it, a proposal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada backed last week.
It is highly likely that the opt-out will be on Senator Schumer's "level playing field" public option. Even before the opt-out, this makes it weaker than even the worst-case scenario for the public option in the House (which I describe below). Still, it would be a trigger-less public option, and change the debate from whether or not there will be a public option, to what sort of public option there will be.
Reportedly, as of Friday, Reid was only one or two votes from reaching 60 on this public option. If he really is sending the opt-out public option to the floor, then he must have either rounded up the remaining votes, or bet that no Democrat would publicly vote against a motion to proceed to a floor debate for the health care bill.
Either way, Reid appears to be making these decisions without any particular assistance from the White House. No matter which of the two main rumors you believe--that the White House is staying neutral or that the White House is pushing the trigger--the White House does not appear to be pushing Reid toward the opt-out. This is a decision he is making on his own.
Harry Reid is holding a press conference at 3:15 p.m., eastern, to discuss the Senate merger process. We will be covering it.
Where the House stands can be found in the extended entry.
The intensity is ratcheting ever higher as we move toward the final stages of the health care fight. It's been a good week for reformers overall. Pelosi and Reid are both whipping for strong bills, including a very strong public option (in the House) or a respectable public option (in the Senate). Progress is being made on other key components of the package including the affordability issue. Even traditional media sources like The Washington Post and the New York Times are waking up to the fact that even though they have been declaring health care reform on life support and the public option dead for six months, something decent might actually pass.
The only down moment of the week has been the confusion caused by the White House on the Senate strategy. This whole muddled are-they-or-aren't-they backing Harry Reid or backing Snowe's trigger-designed-not-to-trigger mess was just a poorly handled distraction. I mean, look, anyone who has been in DC longer than a week knows that if you have a meeting at the White House with more than five people in it, that certain folks with their own agenda will start leaking stuff to the media, so whatever the intent of all that was, it was bound to undermine Reid and our overall momentum. The White House is now on the record denying that was their intent, and folks there have sworn to me they are backing Reid to the hilt, so I believe them and that's all good, but it was still a mess.
I think we're still moving forward, though. The next few days will tell us what kind of deals can be cut, but no matter what, I think the strategy for progressives remains the same as it has been from the beginning of this fight (more in the extended entry):
At FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver broke down the top ten reasons the public health insurance option is gaining momentum.
In a game of "rock, paper, scissors, bloggers, Washington Post," bloggers/online activists definitely trump Washington Post!
The full list (drum roll please)...
1. The tireless, and occasionally tiresome, advocacy on behalf of liberal bloggers and interest groups for the public option. Whatever you think of their tactics -- I haven't always agreed with them -- the sheer amount of focus and energy expended on their behalf has been very important, keeping the issue alive in the public debate.
2. The fact that the CBO thinks it will save money.
3. The seeming inevitability of health care reform, which neuters the voices of those who aren't opposed to the public option per se so much as the entire project of health care reform.
4. The fact that the locus of power has shifted from the Gang of Six -- Bingaman/Conrad/Baucus/Snowe/Grassley/Enzi to the Group of Six -- Pelosi/Dodd/Obama/Reid/Baucus/Snowe.
5. The "innovation" of the opt-in/opt-out family of compromises, which have more liberal "street cred" than co-ops or triggers and are potentially also much more politically advantageous.
6. The fading from memory of the tea party protests and the "government takeover" meme.
7. Polls in myriad swing states and swing districts showing the public option is reasonably popular in these regions.
8. Constituent letters and e-mails.
9. The insurance industry's "senior moment": forgetting that this isn't 1993 and that the shelf life of a misleading study would be measured in hours (rather than days or weeks) and would damage its credibility in the process.
10. The Washington Post's somewhat bizarre decision to make its poll showing support for the public option its lede in yesterday's paper, even though public opinion has been fairly steady on the issue for months.
In the words of one of Nate's commenters, "Great, simple article. Loved it."
Speaking of progressive group pressure, I made my first appearance on Rachel Maddow Wed night talking about the PCCC's new ad pressuring Harry Reid. Wuddyathink?
Last week, in conjunction with CREDO Action, the Open Left community raised over $12,000 to run advertisements on the Senate health care merger process. The ad told Senator Reid and President Obama that we are counting on them to include a public option in the merged, that there are enough votes for the public option, to pass the Senate, and that we will not accept process based excuses.
The ads ran in Roll Call and The Hill, as well as in the Washington Post, where we ran geo-targeted ad to D.C. residents who focus on health care news. For a process this shadowy, the idea was to target political insiders and let them know the grassroots understand the state of play.
Here is a screenshot of the ad which is still running in the Washington Post:
(click to see an even larger version)
I wanted you to see that your donations are making a difference in this fight. Our message is reaching into the beltway, and we are getting closer to victory. As part of the next steps, either later tonight or tomorrow I should have a much more detailed, and narrowly targeted, list of House members to whip on the public option.
The 'doc fix' bill (S 1776) failed to achieve cloture this afternoon. The bill removes a particular piece of legislative nonsense at the cost to the deficit of $250bn or so: under current legislation, Medicare payments to doctors should be much lower than they are; each year, a one-year fix is passed to stop this reduction taking effect.
The point is that, so long as the one-year fix arrangement continues, the $250bn is kept out of the deficit stats - Enron accounting.
The plan was to take the pain this year - and not seek to offset any of it with revenue increases. And keeping it out of the health care reform bills avoids any confusion about the effect of reform on the size of the deficit.
In the event, 12 Dems - including Feingold - plus Lieberman joined all 40 GOP to vote against cloture.
All pretty much business as usual so far. The piquant detail is a quote from Harry:
Reid said he had been reassured that GOP support would be considerable. "I was told by various people we have 27 Republican votes," Reid told reporters Wednesday morning.
I just read this news piece at Huffington Post saying that Colorado's senators and governor are circulating a letter to senators asking them not to filibuster a public option. I signed the petition, but let's just say I'm not a fan of an ask that has no leverage behind it. However, I thought of a strategy that might generate a little leverage.
As Chris has detailed elsewhere, the crucial battefield right now is the closed-door negotiation among Reid, Dodd, Baucus and the White House over whether a public option will be included in the bill reported out to the Senate floor. If a public option is not included in the bill, those who want to add one would have to overcome a filibuster. If one is included, then a filibuster would be required to remove it.
I don't know which way that negotiation is leaning, but here's a way we might be able to change the equation and influence the negotiators to include a public option in the bill: what if public option supporters like Udall and Bennet publicly promised not to filibuster an amendment that simply tried to strip the public option from the bill, as long as the option was included when the bill was reported? Essentially, they'd be saying, "include a strong public option in the bill, and we promise to allow an up-or-down vote on it, rather than relying on a filibuster to protect it." If the public option could get 50 votes, it would be preserved.
Our whip count says the public option has at least 50 votes (Harkin says 52), so unless someone is lying, we'll win the vote, right? And publicly setting aside the filibuster to go "all-in" on a majority vote on the public option would make it that much harder for opponents of the health care measure to justify supporting a later filibuster on the whole bill, wouldn't it?
Does this seem like a promising idea, or am I missing something?
As [Reid] takes over the leadership role in merging different variations of health care legislation in the Senate, there have been indications that he's prepared to abandon the government-run plan.
In going after Reid on this front, the PCCC has two important data points at its disposal. A September 2009 poll commissioned by Daily Kos showed that 52 percent of Nevadans support a public option. In that same survey, only 36 percent of respondents said they had favorable view of Reid -- 52 percent said their view was unfavorable.
PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor elaborated on how we are using that leverage in our email to 225,000 folks today:
We know that Sen. Reid is concerned about his election next year. Polls show him trailing Republicans, and he's already running campaign ads.
Our ad will remind him that for many voters back home, the public option is a make-or-break issue. Voters want Reid to fight for the public option and win -- not cave.
This week is critical. Now's the time to put pressure on Harry Reid and let him know that his legacy will be judged by the strength he shows in this moment.
The latest poll of Nevada residents by MasonDixon/Las Vegas Journal-Review shows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to be very unpopular:
Favorable/Unfavorable:
Harry Reid: 38/50
Sue Lowden (R): 31/15
D.Tarkanian (R): 30/11
General Election:
Reid: 39; Lowden: 49
Reid: 43; Tarkanian: 48
When an incumbent is around 50-54% in a poll a year away they are considered vulnerable. Reid isn't even close to 50% in this poll or in this poll from Rasmussen in September. Reid is going to lose without a game-changing event.
Part of Reid's problem, aside from his own lack of leadership ability, is the state of Nevada's economy. It's very bad. Perhaps Reid thinks the game-changing event will be an improving economy is 2010. But it's not likely that citizens will notice much improvement in the next 12 months and, even if they do, they may have soured on Reid too much for him to recover. When progressives in Congress are trying to pass measures to help average citizens it doesn't look good to keep saying "We can't do that, we don't have the votes."
Reid has one chance to reinvigorate his chances which I discuss inside.
Update for Andrew Davey (see comments): You say the polls are lying and you also say Harry Reid always polls badly before ultimately winning. Can you back that up with some data? Here is what I found. First, the two polls I linked to are by MasonDixon (for Las Vegas Journal-Review) and Rasmussen. According to Nate Silver's analysis of 30+ polling companies, they are both in the top 7 for accuracy. I don't think the polls are lying. Second, a poll commissioned by the Journal-Review 8 months prior to the 2004 election found that Reid would easily beat his GOP opponent with 61% support in the poll. Guess what? Reid ultimately won with 61% of the vote. That result would seem to refute both your claim that the paper's polls are always biased for the GOP and that Reid is always polling badly before ultimately winning on election day.
Last week, Mike Stark asked Joe Lieberman if he'd side with Republicans to block a vote on health care reform.
Lieberman's response: "I haven't decided that yet."
Yesterday, Politico had yet another Lieberman response to the same question:
“Not vote for cloture? I wouldn’t rule that possibility out — not at all,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with the Democrats.
With the health care issue now moving into Harry Reid's court, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee will deliver this petition signed by over 85,000 people to Reid today:
"Any Democratic senators who support a Republican attempt to block a vote on health care reform should be stripped of their leadership titles. Americans deserve a clean up-or-down vote on health care."
The AP argues in an article today that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is largely responsible for merging the Senate HELP and Senate Finance committee health care bills into a single piece of legislation:
With the Senate Finance Committee on the verge of approving a sweeping health overhaul bill as early as Tuesday, the path might appear open for action by the full Senate.
Not so fast.
First the Finance Committee bill must be combined with a more liberal version that the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee wrapped up this summer. Such a merger is so rare that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has never attempted it on any piece of legislation - much less one as complex as President Barack Obama's top legislative priority.(...)
Reid must resolve all those issues and more over the next week or so to come up with a single bill to bring to the Senate floor.(...)
But many of the details are unresolved and it's Reid's job to decide.
Many of the details might be up to Reid to decide, but the public option is not one of them. The process for merging the two bills involves the chairmen of the two Senate committees, Harry Reid, and the White House. Given that Senate HELP chair Tom Harkin will be pushing in favor of a public option being sent to the floor, while Senate Finance chairman Max Baucus will be pushing against it, it will be the White House, not Harry Reid, who serves as the tiebreaking vote. Think about it:
On one hand, if the White House wants to send a public option to the floor, but Harry Reid does not, within the overall Democratic power structure Tom Harkin plays the White House exceeds Harry Reid plus Max Baucus.
On the other hand, if the White House does not want to send a public option to the floor but Harry Reid does, then Max Baucus plus the White House cancels out Harry Reid plus Tom Harkin.
Despite months of seeming ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched an intensifying behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea in the weeks just ahead.
President Barack Obama has long advocated a so-called public option, while at the same time repeatedly expressing openness to other ways to offer consumers a potentially more affordable alternative to health plans sold by private insurers.
But now, senior administration officials are holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring to the Senate floor later this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides.
Good. If they succeed, and a public option is in the bill sent to the Senate floor, it will be a huge boost to the public option campaign. Getting 60 votes to overcome a filibuster of the entire bill is a lot easier than getting 60 votes to add a public option to the bill via Senate floor amendment. This is because even the Senate Conservadems are loathe to cross President Obama by filibustering health care reform, and Senator Schumer claims there are 54 to 56 votes for a public option in and of itself. Schumer's numbers seem a bit optimistic to me, but they are still hopeful.
Our petition to the White House urging that a public option be included in the bill sent to the Senate floor is up to 78,728 signatures. Can we get to 80,000? Add your voice today, telling the White House that we are watching the process closely and expect results. Trying is good, but succeeding is better.
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said today there will be a "public option" in whatever health insurance reform bill comes out of Congress.
"We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents, referring to some kind of government plan.
That is quite a promise from Harry Reid. Before we get too excited though, remember that Harry Reid has previously described his favorite public option in a way that sounds awfully like a co-op.
Here at Open Left, we are not going to take this for granted. Today, we joined with CREDO Action on a petition to President Obama demanding that the public option be included the bill sent to the Senate floor. Remarkably, we are already well over 37,000 signatures today.
