19th
HC Dilemma via the MA special election
The Senate and House leaders are in a dilemma over the expected win by the GOP Senate candidate today in MA to fill the vacancy by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. If the Senate loses the seat to the republicans then they lose their 60 vote filibuster proof vote margin. This makes passing the HC bill coming back from the House very difficult if not impossible in the Senate. That is why the leaders are considering having the House simply vote to agree to the Senate amdt which was passed in the Senate this past Christmas eve. If the Speaker can muster the needed 218 votes, then the HC bill would be sent straight to the POTUS for his signature. The Speaker could then promise to make some changes to the bill via the reconciliation process which is easier to pass in the Senate.
The reconciliation bill takes only a majority of votes to pass in the Senate. Therefore, in the present Senate, the Majority leader could lose up to 9 of his members and a 50/50 tie vote would be broken by the VP casting the tie breaking vote. This process also only requires 20 hours for debate. For a leader who has spent many Senate floor days debating HC, this time restraint looks good to allow him to move onto other vital issues such as jobs and airport/TSA security.
While this process has a nice-clean time restriction built in by law, it also allows for additional amdts to be offered after the 20 hours has expired. These amdts get votes but no time for debate….so traditionally, Leaders have given 30 secs. to explain the text of the amdts before the Senate votes. This vote-a-roma has been a way for the minority to push votes on issues that otherwise would be hard to bring up for a full vote in the Senate. Therefore the vote-a-roma can last for several hours even days. Remember the “read the bill” campaign, this makes that look like child’s play! YIKES!
Check out the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA-KKJxXbBQ
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STay tuned,
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