15th
HC self imposed crunch in Congress
The House Democratic Leadership along with the Senate team are scrambling to try to come to some agreement to pass the HC bill in the House with changes that will allow the Speaker to garner the 218 votes needed to pass it in the House and the necessary 60 votes needed to break the filibuster in the Senate. The old deadline, self imposed, was to pass the bill in time for the President to claim victory at his State of the Union address. The new self imposed deadline is to pass the bill before the new Senator from MA is sworn-in as the newest Senator, taking the place of the seat holder Paul Kirk who has been in the seat since the August death of Sen. Kennedy. You see there is a real possibility that the Republican candidate for this seat could win the election scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 20. If this occurs, then the Senate Leaders have lost their 60th vote. The Sec. of the Commonwealth, Mr. Galvin, has been on the record saying his office would need some time to certify the election results, maybe as late as Feb. 20. Much work needs to be done by counties and others his office states. Weird that his office was able to certify the special election of Niki Tsongas when she ran in a special election in MA in 2007 in two days. She was voting on the House floor 48 hours after the polls closed in MA. HUM…
Anyway, if the GOP candiate wins the election next Tuesday, and the leaders try to jam the bill through ahead of the swearing-in of the new Senator, I believe there will be HONORABLE Democratic Senators that will protest this by withholding their support of the HC bill. There is still some honor and decency left in Congress and if need be, it will surface in the form of Democratic objections.
Is reconciliation the “Plan B” for Senate consideration of HC? Watch the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA-KKJxXbBQ
Stay tuned,
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