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With Brown Win, Health Care Reform May Die in House, Unless...
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 20, 2010
Modified Jan 20, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 20, 2010
Modified Jan 20, 2010
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In an ironic twist, formerly-obscure Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat occupied by the late Ted Kennedy from 1962 until his death in August, throwing into jeopardy Congress's most recent attempt to pass some kind of health care reform, Kennedy's most beloved cause. Brown's decisive 52-47 percent victory over Attorney General Martha Coakley has Republicans giddy and Democrats panicked—Brown doesn't think waterboarding is torture, opposes a federal cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions, and posed nude for Cosmo.
It appears that independent voters were a major factor in Brown's win, which could signify serious trouble for Democrats in the long term. But in the short term, everyone's wondering what the loss of a fragile filibuster-proof majority means for Democrats' health care reform, not to mention other issues like climate change. Like many liberals, blogger Matthew Yglesias thinks Brown's win just makes a bad situation worse:
Scott Brown joining the Senate will make it impossible to make big progress on the big issues facing the country. But a number of “centrist” Democrats have been making it clear for a while now that they don’t want to make big progress on the big issues facing the country. That’s too bad, and Brown winning will only make things worse. We’re much more likely looking at a situation where Brown’s victory becomes an excuse for people not to do things they didn’t want to do anyway than a situation where Brown’s victory is the actual reason those things can’t be done.
There was some speculation that Democrats could legally stall Brown's seating in the Senate for as long two weeks, and use that window to pass a final House-approved health care bill. But less than 15 minutes after the race was called for Brown, Senator Jim Webb said, "I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated."
Which means it's up to the House to approve the Senate's bill, and many liberal Democrats aren't having it. "If it comes down to that Senate bill or nothing, I think we're going to end up with nothing, because I don't hear a lot of support on our side for that bill," said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA). "I've lost my faith in anything happening quickly that requires Senate action." And New York's Jerrold Nadler says, "I don't see how I could vote for the Senate bill." Unless...
There is another option being weighed, Politico reports: Satisfy the more liberal House Democrats by passing a second bill using the budget reconciliation process, which requires only 51 votes in the Senate. The trick here would be to pass this reconciliation bill before asking suspicious progressive House Democrats to vote on the Senate's current health care reform bill, which they find odious. It doesn't matter in which order the bills are passed, just the order in which the President signs them. Of course, as The New Republic notes, "The problems with reconciliation are legion."
"It would have to be so quick that they happen at the same time," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, when asked about the tactic. "We're in full whistling past the graveyard mode in there... They're talking as if, like, what our deal is, what our negotiations are with the White House. Yeah, I mean if the last line is 'pigs fly out ass' or something like that.... We've gotta recognize we have an entirely different scenario tomorrow." Which is to say today. Thanks a lot, Massholes.
Tagged
martha coakley
Massachusetts
scott brown
Senate race
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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