Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln have now, unsurprisingly, joined Ben Nelson and given Democrats 60 votes to proceed on the health care bill. Debate and amendments will begin the week after Thanksgiving.
As part of their statements, Landrieu and Lincoln are both claiming they will filibuster a bill with the current version of the public option. Landrieu is demanding a trigger, and claims that she is working on a compromise of that sort with Senator Schumer. Lincoln did not specify a trigger as part of her demands. They join Joe Lieberman, who has been threatening to filibuster a bill with a public option for nearly a month.
It is worth noting that, several months ago, both Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln singed the HCAN statement of common purpose which states:
Our government’s responsibility is to guarantee quality affordable health care for everyone in America and it must play a central role in regulating, financing, and providing health coverage by establishing:
A truly inclusive and accessible health care system in which no one is left out.
A choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public insurance plan without a private insurer middleman that guarantees affordable coverage.
So, these Senators are just flat-out liars. Both Lincoln and Landrieu signed a document stating that it was the “government’s responsibility to guarantee… a public insurance plan,” and now they both claim they will filibuster a bill with a public insurance plan.
Both of them flipped on the card-check provision of EFCA, too. They are just liars. I don’t even know why we deal with lying Senators like these. I certainly don’t know why we give to organizations that give them money. How can we believe anything either from these two Senators, or from organizations that are funneling them money? They consistently lie to us about the most important, progressive aspects of the Democratic agenda.
It now seems quite likely that the Senate has the 60 votes necessary to force cloture on the motion to proceed with the health care bill. The final three votes Senate majority leader Harry Reid needed were Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Mary Landrieu, but all three now appear to be ready to vote “aye.” Here is a rundown of all three:
Ben Nelson has stated that he will vote for cloture:
“This weekend, I will vote for the motion to proceed to bring that debate onto the Senate floor,” Nelson says. “The Senate should start trying to fix a health care system that costs too much and delivers too little for Nebraskans.”
Nelson indicates that this does not mean he is ready to support cloture to pass the bill, but he is willing to let debate go forward.
Earlier today, Senate #2 Dick Durbin stated that Blanche Lincoln has told Harry Reid she would vote yes. Durbin is now walking back that statement, but really, the gig is up for Lincoln.
Anyway, what was Lincoln going to do–oppose even letting the debate go forward and then ask Democrats to vote for her in 2010? Not bloody likely, especially with a prominent figure in Arkansas still considering a primary challenge. Lincoln is highly likely to be a yes.
The last remaining holdout, Mary Landrieu, appears to have secured $100 million in Medicare funding for Louisiana in exchange for her vote.
Right-wingers are in an uproar over this, but really–I am shocked, shocked to find that there is gambling going on in this casino! A member of Congress holding out on a key vote in order to secure funding for her home state or district!? I bet that has never happened before. This is really breaking new ground on Capitol Hill!
Further, while they don’t seem to realize it, the right-wing uproar over Landrieu’s deal actually makes it virtually impossible for her to vote against cloture now. Due to right-wing publicity, now everyone knows Landrieu is bringing $100 million home by holding out. As such, what is Landrieu going to do–issue a statement that preventing a floor debate on health care is more important than $100 million for Louisiana? Only 9% of Louisianans think she should block the debate. I bet a lot more than that want the $100 million, especially now that everyone has heard about the $100 million.
So, it looks like Democrats have the 60 needed to move forward on debate. The truth is that Reid probably secured the 60 votes before filing the cloture motion. It is a rare day when the leadership doesn’t know the outcome of a vote before scheduling it.
The vote will take place tomorrow night, at 8 p.m. eastern, following an all-day debate. Notably, in exchange for the all-day debate, Senator Coburn has dropped his demand that the entire bill be read out loud, which means there will be less droning on C-SPAN2 during Monday and Tuesday of next week.
Talking Points Memo is reporting that Sen. Landrieu is hedging against a public option over concerns we’ve met.
Asked under what circumstances she would support a public option, Landrieu responded, “[v]ery few, if any. I’d prefer a private market-based approach to any health care reform that would extend coverage,” according to the Monroe News Star.
“I’d like to cover everyone — that would be the moral thing to do — but it would be immoral to bankrupt the country while doing so,” Landrieu said. The public option as currently conceived is expected to be a deficit reducer.
Landrieu also said she’d continue her long history of opposition to a cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “I’m not supporting that approach, but I’m open to hear modifications,” she said.
The only thing more infuriating than her refusal to support keeping insurance companies honest is that she’s being disingenous about what the public option and cap-and-trade systems are. ACES is a market-based approach through creating a new market of tradable emissions permits. It’s not much different than the approach taken to acid rain. A public option would offer competition and choice in the health insurance market- two conservative economic buzzwords that Milton Friedman would have smiled at- is a market-based approach. Essentially, on these two big issues, we have come to the table offering the approach they ask for, and it’s still not enough.
Landrieu is not our top targets on the OpenLeft/HCAN/DFA whip count for a switch, but she hasn’t ruled out support for a public option yet, and I’m not yet ready to give up. One big reason is that we are one vote farther with the death of Sen. Kennedy, and no clear timeline on when we will have a replacement, so getting every Democrat to support a public option becomes that much more important.
Send a fax to Mary Landrieu asking her to support the public option.
The internal debate on health care strategy for Democrats can be boiled down to this: do we choose the approach whose specifics are more popular with the public and will almost certainly work better in practice once it gets passed, or do we want to go with something that has some bipartisan support and may avoid an all out war with the insurance industry?
The first approach is currently being championed by President Obama (although not always by his Chief of Staff), Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and 4 of the 5 committee chairs responsible for bringing the legislation to the floor. The second approach is strongly favored by Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus, Tennessee Rep.(and co-killer of health care reform in the Clinton years) Jim Cooper, and a few conservative Democrats in the Senate.
Seems like a damn easy choice to me.
The first thing to understand in all this is the consequences for the Democrats for the next generation and probably longer if they pass some convoluted, complicated, unworkable compromise that doesn’t change the abusive patterns in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and doesn’t begin to control health care costs. If they pass a compromise that doesn’t meet regular people’s needs, folks will figure it out very quickly, as most people deal with the health care system all the time. If the Democrats twist up this bill to make insurance companies and their Republican allies happy, it is end of story for this generation of Democrats – our party will not recover from screwing up health care.
The second thing to understand is that wealthy, powerful elements of the health care industry, along with the entire right-wing message machine, will oppose any health care reform bill. Democrats trying to avoid a fight should just get over it: they will get one no matter what.
Here’s the other thing: having a clear, clean fight – Obama and the Democrats take on the insurance companies – is an easier message to win with than the mushy “we’re all in this together, we’re all partners in solving this problem” thing Obama has been doing so far. Having enemies helps define this fight in Obama’s favor, especially when the enemies are as unpopular as the insurance companies.
So face your fear, Max Baucus. Tell you health industry allies no, Jim Cooper. Work through your fear of commitment, Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu. Let’s put together a bill that actually works and move forward sometime soon, in our lifetimes preferably. It’s time to get this done.
Via lord_mike in Quick Hits, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu has backtracked, and no longer supports the public option:
Count Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) as a “no” vote on the public insurance option.
“I am not open to a public option, however I will remain open to a compromise – a full compromise,” Landrieu told reporters Tuesday. “A public option is not something I support i don’t think its the right way to go.”
This is in contrast to the pledge Landrieu signed with Health Care for America Now, stating the following:
Our government’s responsibility is to guarantee quality affordable health care for everyone in America and it must play a central role in regulating, financing, and providing health coverage by establishing…
A choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public insurance plan without a private insurer middleman that guarantees affordable coverage.
Landrieu singed this pledge, meaning that she actually gone back on her support for the public option now. She has listened more to pressure from insurance companies and conservatives on the issue than she has listened to the Democratic leadership and progressive activists.
Of course, that is assuming that there was at least some pressure from the Democratic leadership in both the Senate and the White House for her to support a public option. There very well may not have been. In fact, there probably wasn’t much. Can anyone really believe at this point that if the Obama-led White House was twisting arms on this issue that Landrieu would have caved? Does the White House really have such meager influence with her office right now?
This only reinforces a point I made yesterday: progressive organizations and media outlets need to be targeting the Landrieus of the world, not the Limbaughs. If the public option is defeated, it will be the fault of the Landrieus, and of Democratic leadership that either did not place enough pressure on her, or was ineffective in the pressure they placed. And, if that defeat happen, it will signal the end of any possibility of real progressive governance during the Democratic trifecta.
I’m quite fond of Barbara Boxer. Her ardent, sincere, and repeated failures to move liberal policies in the Senate – most recently the Energy Bill – suggest there was a time when liberals actually had power and could work through the policy process. Mike Lux tells me that was the case once, but it’s not within my political experience.
Boxer has served as a symbol for liberals of someone who stands for the correct policies and loses on the broad thrust of public policy, a liberal who believes that Senate work should be more congenial. It’s why she stumped for Joe Lieberman in 2006, and it’s why she sent out the following fundraising solicitation for Senate Democrats – including Mary Landrieu – who just defeated all of us on the Energy Legislation that is her signature issue.
The email is from her PAC for a Change. And Mary Landrieu is her candidate spotlight on the PAC home page.
Earlier today, the Senate failed to reach cloture on the renewable energy bill by only one vote. As was the case with all Democratic legislation, 60 votes were required (Republican legislation only need 50 votes, of course). The final tally was 59-40, with John McCain not voting and Mary Landrieu as the only Democrat or Independent who voted against the bill.
Let’s review the situation here. Mary Landrieu is, by far, the most endangered Democratic incumbent this cycle. A Survey USA poll released today showed her narrowly ahead 46%-42%, but well under the important 50% marker for incumbents. Landrieu will need a ton of outside help from her Democratic Senate colleagues in order to get re-elected. At the same time, Democrats only need her vote in order to pass an important renewable energy bill.
Now, maybe I am missing something, but isn’t there an obvious point of leverage in this situation? The leadership should turn the screws on Landrieu’s potential outside support in order to get her to pass this bill. That is what leadership should do. Landrieu needs something from other Senate Dems, and Senate Dems need something from Landrieu. Instead, Landrieu will get the help she needs from Senate Dems, and Senate Dems will roll over for Landrieu:
Senate Democrats stripped Thursday two key provisions from a sweeping energy bill aimed at reducing US reliance on foreign oil in order to gain support from the Republican minority.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats agreed to remove a provision that would have cut billions of dollars worth of tax breaks to oil companies.
The majority also decided to take out another provision requiring that 15 percent of America’s electricity come from renewable, environmentally-friendly sources by 2020, Reid said.
Let me be blunt: having 15% of our electricity come from renewables by 2020 is way, way, way, way more important than electing Mary friggin’ Landrieu to another six year term in the Senate. It isn’t even close. Second, Democrats don’t even need Mary Landrieu in order to maintain their majority, since they have at least ten strong Senate targets in 2008, while Republicans only have Landrieu. Third, Landrieu is probably going to lose anyway, given both her current weak polling situation and the destruction that has devastated Louisiana’s African-American community. I’d put her re-election chances at less than one in three.
The fact is, Democrats don’t really need Landrieu come election time, but she needs other Democrats. As such, we could have applied major pressure relevant to her election. However, instead of making her feel any real pain for defeating this legislation, Harry Reid decides to cave on renewable energy standards and tax breaks for oil companies. That isn’t leadership–that is pathetic. This was as obvious a moment where real pressure could have been applied to pass important legislation, and the Senate Democratic “leadership” utterly failed to do anything.
We need new leadership in Congress. Or, perhaps to phrase this better, we need leadership Congress. Right now, I don’t see how what Harry Reid is doing qualifies.
Update Commneter Ron notes that Landieu could have voted against the bill, and still allowed it to pass:
She could still have voted against the bill, but she voted against her party to filibuster the bill. That is unbelievable.
As good as the 2008 Senate picture looks for Democrats, it still isn’t a perfect scenario. An internal poll commissioned from Zogby by Landrieu’s newly announced opponent in the campaign, State Treasurer and party turncoat John Kennedy, shows Kennedy already ahead in the Katrina-ravaged state:
It is a Zogby poll, but it seems to be a telephone poll and a straight-up trial heat rather than their dubious online polls (not that all online polls are dubious, just that Zogby’s are). It is an internal poll, but there are no other polls out there right now to confirm or deny these numbers. Considering the impact Katrina had on the residents of the state, it also isn’t that surprising. Local Dems ended up being blamed locally, and much their voting base has either died or been shipped off to different parts of the country. This could very easily be a Republican pickup.
However, other than Louisiana, things look just fine for the other eleven Democratic incumbents running. In South Dakota, Tim Johnson still lacks a major opponent, and the only poll on the campaign from March 2006 showed him with a healthy, 53%-39% lead on Republican Governor Mike Rounds. At the time, Rounds had a 60% approval rating in the state, showing Johnson’s strength. Rounds is the strongest possible candidate Republicans could have come up with, and he doesn’t seem to be running. Granted, it is possible that Johnson’s illness has weakened him not only physically but also in public opinion polls. Then again, it is also possible it has helped him in with public opinion. There is no polling data to confirm that one way or the other.
Another potentially endangered Democratic-held seat is Frank Lautenberg in New Jersey. A Quinnipiac poll of the state in September showed Lautenberg only narrowly ahead of a generic Republican, 39%–36%, and net negative in the does deserve vs. does not serve to be re-elected question, 36%–46%. Certainly, these are not great numbers. However, the Republican bench is thin and no major candidates have declared. Also, Lautenberg does lead a generic Republican, which means he would probably do even better against an actual Republican (candidates rarely do as well as partisan generics). Further, New Jersey has been a place where expensive Republican efforts have lately come to nothing. Republicans saw mirages in the state in 2004, 2005 and 2006, but ended up losing all of those campaigns by substantial, expensive margins. With a depleted bench, it seems highly unlikely they will break that string this time around.
Every other Democratic incumbent, Pryor (AR), Biden (DE), Durbin (IL), Harkin (IA), Kerry (MA), Levin (MI), Baucus (MT), Reed (RI), and Rockerfeller (WV), all appear perfectly safe. All nine are listed as “Solid D” by the Cook Political Report, which is their saest ranking possible. CQ politics rates six of the nine as “safe Democrat,” their highest ranking, and Pryor, Baucus and Harkin as “Democrat favored.” Hard to imagine anything coming of those three, given that Iowa is turning blue again, Harkin has an approval rating close to 60%, Pryor is in the same position, and Baucus is well over to 60% according to multiple polling organizations.
So, basically it looks as though, to go along with their gains, Democrats are likely to lose one seat, Mary Landrieu’s in Louisiana. Of course, with lots of money to support her, even that isn’t a guarantee. Holding the Senate, or even the House, do not appear to be real issues for Democrats in 2008. Expanding on current advantages doesn’t even really appear to be an issue, either. As such, how far those leads can be expanded, the quality of the new Democratic members of Congress, and whether we can add the White House on top of it become the more pressing electoral issues.
LA-Sen: Landrieu Threatened By Party Switcher
Even though he hasn’t declared yet, in Louisiana Treasurer John N. Kennedy Republicans might have their first, serious chance of defeating a full-term, Democratic incumbent since Tom Daschle. After long being recruited to do so, Kennedy has now switched parties:
In a move that could throw a shadow over growing Dem optimism about making gains in the Senate in 2008, Louisiana Treasurer John N. Kennedy announced today that he is switching from the Democrats over to the Republican Party – a change widely seen as being a preliminary move towards challenging Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu.
While Landrieu is vulnerable, on the bright side, Kennedy ran for Senate as recently as 2004, as a Democrat. He finished in a dismal third place with 15%, well behind Democrat Chris John who took 29%. So, as a campaigner, he may not be all that formidable a foe.
Edwards Up In Rasmussen National Poll
In the daily Rasmussen tracking poll, John Edwards has reached or surpassed 15% in six of the last seven days, including 17% today and 18% yesterday. Additionally, he now only trails Obama by 4%. This is significant, since Edwards has never surpassed 15% since Rasmussen began daily tracking, since he only reach 15% twice from July 29th through August 20th, and since he has been at least 8% behind Obama for several months in this poll. It will be worth watching to see if this becomes a real trend, or if it is just a random, short term blip.
Candidate Support Still Fluid In 2008 Primaries
Pollster.com looks at a recent Michigan poll showing Gore ahead, and makes the following important conclusion:
This result does help demonstrate something useful, however, which has less to do with Gore than with the current support for the frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Just how real (or solid) is her support, at least among Michigan Democrats? The fact that preference for Clinton drops from 45% to 32% with Gore’s name included, suggests that many of her supporters remain open to an alternative. Less clear, of course, is whether any of the actual candidates (Obama, Edwards or any of the others) can replicate Gore’s apparent appeal among Michigan Democrats (as support for the others also drops with Gore included). But the fact that the simple addition of Gore’s name to the list of choices shakes up current preferences to this degree tells us that the vote preferences we are watching are still tentative, and the Democratic race is still a long way from over.
While it may seem that candidate support is fairly static in 2008, it is also pretty soft. Once major events occur in the campaign, such as the results of the first primaries and caucuses, expect big changes in all polls, both national and on a state by state basis.
Punidtocracy Occupies Non-Partisan, Non-Ideological Fringe
Basically, an entire generation of David Broder acolytes are joining him in decrying partisanship and ideology in the political process, as demonstrated by their lust for Michael Bloomberg. As Kos notes, these pundits are the political fringe, since Bloomberg never receives more than 10% in any national poll. And of course they are on the fringe, as most people identify with one party or another, and with either conservatism or progressivism / liberalism (even if they don’t always understand what their self-identification means). The lust for corporate, billionaire bi-partisanship is primarily a phenomenon of the pundit class that grew up hating hippies. Unfortunately, since pundits appear to hold their jobs for life, we may have to keep putting up with this nonsensical fringe for at least another twenty years or so.
Entire Pacific Coast Now Deep Blue According to Survey USA, Clinton leads Giuliani 52-42 in Oregon, 55-40 in California, and 56-39 in Washington. Those are the best matchups for the GOP on the West Coast. I think the days of Washington and Oregon as “swing states” are over. The Pacific coast is now deep blue. Maybe Alaska could follow before long…
I learned last year that Senator Joe Lieberman is brilliant man with an unbelievable ability to ignore reality. In 2006, he spent his election campaign promising to bring the troops home from Iraq, and promptly reversed course after winning reelection, going even further with belligerent rhetoric against Iran. Now he’s working on something even bigger than the Iraq war – an economy-wide bill on climate change.
We all know that Lieberman cannot be trusted, but to understand the problem with his particular approach to global warming, you need to get that the Senate is far ahead of the deniers but is focused on how to regulate carbon. There are a whole host of bills on carbon (you can track them at Hillheat.com), but only the Sanders-Boxer bill does what is needed. The rest of them are worse than nothing. If you pass a big piece of legislation, we’ll have to wait at least five years before understanding it hasn’t worked, which is five years we don’t have. And with that in mind, here’s Lieberman’s latest.
The bill from Warner and Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., tries to limit the cost of mandating reductions of greenhouse gas emissions through an emissions cap-and-trade program.
Their bill would allow companies to borrow emission permits and pay them back in future years with interest and to buy more offsets to meet their emission requirements. The bill establishes a seven-member, president-appointed Carbon Market Efficiency Board to oversee the carbon emissions market and, if necessary, permit a temporary increase in emission allocations when prices remain high.
The Senate would have to confirm the board members, who would have 14-year terms.
Basically this bill sets up a complicated scheme to give away carbon rights to industry, and don’t worry, if the price of carbon goes to high, the government ll just let more into the atmosphere. It is, in other words, a fraud, designed not to work.
Backing the bill is environmental DLC group Environmental Defense, and their President Fred Krupp. There’s no nice way to say this, so I’ll just say it. Krupp has been selling out the environmental movement for years.
I’m trying to get my head around the climate change debate, and there’s quite a bit here, obviously. There’s the Farm bill, the Energy bill, transportation, and a whole host of regulatory agencies. But coming down the pike this fall are a series of economy-wide measures to regulate carbon. We shouldn’t pass anything until 2009, when the next President takes office, because Bush won’t sign anything that solves the problem. We need to be sure that the bill that goes through works, and this Congress can’t get a bill like that done.
There’s useful stuff to get done right now on carbon policy. But going for full bore cap and trade, with people like Lieberman, Landrieu, Lincoln, Warner, Graham and Krupp in charge, will be a disaster.
I’m quite fond of Barbara Boxer. Her ardent, sincere, and repeated failures to move liberal policies in the Senate – most recently the Energy Bill – suggest there was a time when liberals actually had power and could work through the policy process. Mike Lux tells me that was the case once, but it’s not within my political experience.
