Snowe's True Colors

[ProSense]

Snowe's True Colors

by mcjoan

If any Democrat, and that includes the White House thinks that Olympia Snowe is negotiating with them in good faith, they need to think again. They need look no further than Snowe's actions this morning in mark-up:

Right now in the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), is arguing in favor of an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), that would require the committee to wait until the final CBO score is completed before voting on it. Chairman Max Baucus doesn't support the proposal, and neither do most Democrats, but it's quite telling that Snowe does.

To be clear, the Bunning amendment, which she voted for, would have delayed the Committee's final vote on the bill by as much as two weeks. Which would in turn delay the leaderships's reconciliation of the two bill, and which could also push Senate floor action on the bill past the October 15 decision-point on whether the bill goes through on reconciliation. Though the Bunning amendment failed, an alternative amendment that requires a preliminary CBO analysis be completed before a final vote did pass, which could cause a few days delay.

This is going to be the Republican approach, which was clear if you watched this morning's proceedings and saw their filibustering, led by Hatch. Snowe is just playing along and she is not participating in good faith. Negotiating with her on her public option trigger amendment as a way to get her on board, is foolish and naive. She might not be at the top of the invite list to lunch with her Republican colleagues, but she's with them on their delay game.

That's totally apart from the fact that her trigger amendment should be totally unacceptable to any Democrat who supports the public option. Her amendment is intended to kill it. Scratch the surface, and it is no compromise, and no one is going to be able to sell it to the base as one.