Nancy Pelosi doesn't need WH or Senate promises... she can act unilaterally

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Added on edit: This is not my idea. I am laying out how an approach being discussed by many in DC plays out, and why it cannot be blocked by the usual suspects if Pelosi is on board.

Scenario (if made necessary by events): House passes Senate bill in a deal with House liberals that certain provisions in the Senate bill will be changed later under reconciliation--notably restoring the union 'cadillac tax' deal. (or, if it looks like the votes are there, substituting the House bill wealth-tax funding method for the policy-surtax.)

It is said that this would be a leap of faith for House liberals because the WH or Senate could sell them out... the fix would never happen.

But once Pelosi keeps her promise to put the "fix" before the House everything else falls into place. (Assuming we have 50 actual Dems in the Senate, which seems to be the case.)

Here is how it would go down:

1) House passes Senate bill. (Senate cannot act on the bill again.) President signs it.

2) Pelosi puts new "fix" bill before the House in form that qualifies for Senate budget reconciliation rules.

3) Budgetary "fix" passes the House, goes to Senate.

4) Fix cannot be blocked; can only be filibustered for 32 or 48 hours. (I forget the exact number, but it's only a couple of days.) It only take 41 votes to uphold a ruling by the chair that the bill qualifies as budgetary. Fix passes Senate with 50+1.

5) President signs it

At no point does the WH have to do anything except not veto the fix. The Senate blue dogs play no part in the process because reconciliation rules apply... their votes are never needed. All Reid has to do is have a real Dem in the chair to rule (correctly) on the propriety of reconciliation.

And it is irrelevant whether we have 60 or 59 in the Senate... it's not a factor at any point.

So the only promises that House liberals need are promises from Pelosi, and she is in a position to keep them.

You ask, why didn't we do this in the first place? Because we couldn't have gotten 60 votes in the senate for the non-budgetary stuff if the blue-dogs thought the budgetary stuff would be changed later without their agreement. They accepted a package based on inclusion of things like the cadillac-plan tax. So we would be betraying the betrayers... boo hoo!

This might even help blue-dogs in tough elections because they get a free vote against the plan. (We don't need their votes so they can go full wing-nut if it makes folks in Nebraska or Arkansas happy.)

Obvious caveat: If there are not enough votes in the House to pass the fix, or if it cannot reach 51 in the senate, those are different issues. Pelosi can promise to get something on the floor but she cannot promise that it will pass... obviously the fix has to be designed to be something that can get 50%+1 in House and Senate. We cannot reasonably hope for measures that cannot even get 50 votes in the Senate.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Ok. I get this part. But what about the non-budgetary items? It'll still

be a fight to the death over those, right?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. They would be a lost cause, but they already are

In this scenario all non-budgetary aspects of the Senate bill would be the bill.

But the reason this doesn't upset me much is that the Senate bill was always going to be the bill. Under regular order Lieberman and the rest have the same veto power over the conference report that they had over the original bill. (A conference bill returns to the Senate and faces the same cloture thresh-hold.)

So what is lost would be lost in any scenario. All non-budgetary items are subject to a Lieberman-group veto in every scenario.

[shoopnyc]

3. Love it...

[Clio the Leo]

4. Easy peasy....

... and what's the alternative?

This is precisely why the State of the Union is 8 days away.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. This is very likely to be the plan.

This isn't my idea, of course. I am just explaining the plan and in particular why House liberals don't need to worry about being sold out on the deal because only Pelosi could sell them out.

Once she keeps her part of the bargain the other parts cannot be blocked. (Assuming the fix has 50 votes in the senate.)

[Clio the Leo]

11. Yeah, I think Weiner et al are just posturing at this point....

Steny isn't too worried...

http://twitter.com/jacksonjk/status/7951797913

[Avalux]

5. Thanks for explaining - the SOTU is early because of this.

Can't wait to see how it plays out! :woohoo:

[jefferson_dem]

7. Sounds like a fine plan but...

Remember only budget-related elements can be ironed out with reconciliation. Eliminating the cadillac tax for unions would effectively *add to* rather than subtract from the overall cost of the bill and, hence, serve to decrease projected budgetary benefits of reform. If reconciliation is for deficit reduction purposes, I'm not sure this would fly.

The sweetheart deals (Nebraska) are another story. They could be tossed via the process.

Then again, once the reconciliation box is cracked open, why not toss a tasty public option in there?

Whatever, our goal if ... heaven help us ... Brown wins is to make lemonaid out of lemons.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. The House wealth-tax is budgetary, right?

So swapping the rival House/Senate funding methods ought to be reconciliation-eligible. Add enough wealth-tax to offset the costs of the deal we just made with labor... however it works out.

The particulars of the fix would be negotiated between Pelosi and the Dem caucus... we don't know exactly what it would look like.

[jefferson_dem]

9. Now we're talking.

Problem is the frenzy that follows tonight's results may not be conducive for ANY action on health care. Democrats are already freaking out. Media whores are already calling reconciliation a "gimmick".

Look at this shiznit- http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0110/Dems_may_flee_scene_of_health_care_crime.html

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

10. Interesting article. I agree that abortion language is not reconciliation eligible

For political reasons we would have to swallow the Senate abortion language... but we were going to do that anyway! Under regular order Nelson has a veto on any conference bill. (Conference bill still needs 60 for cloture)

So that's unavoidable in all scenarios. I am a choice fanatic so that upsets me, but it really is going to happen in every scenario. The abortion language will be whatever Nelson says. Fortunately he negotiated that position when we appeared a little stronger and in the OP scenario he never gets to weigh in on it again.

As to whether the will is there if today goes badly... politically the right thing to do is take the one-week hit of muscling it through to get something signed and also solidify the base. Then start worrying about what to do about the center.

The voters upset about HCR are going to be upset no matter what passes. Take the short-term PR hit and move on.

That's the correct politics. As to whether it would happen that way... anybody's guess.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

12. Amendments are the problem for reconciliation.

As long as proposed amendments to reconciliation are germane, they have to be considered. Debate on first degree amendments and motions are limited to two hours and one hour for second degree amendments (second degree amendments are amendments to other amendments).

Republicans have allegedly cooked up around 600 such amendments. Assuming 2/3rds of them will be ruled non-germane (leaving us with 200 amendments), and then 1/3 of what's left to be first degree amendments (so about 133 1st degree and 66 2nd degree), that would amount to 200 hours of debate and at least another 100 hours of voting, assuming the Republicans demand a roll call on each (and they would). That's 12.5 full, 24-hour days worth of action before even getting to a final vote, during which time nothing else can occur and you'd need at least 51 Democrats sitting on the floor during that entire period in order to avoid losing quorum. Now, no one can possible last on the Senate floor for that long continuously, especially with how old many of our members are. If we're talking about 10 hour days of vote/debate, that'd be a full 30-day month before getting to a final bill, without being able to address any other issues. Again, being more realistic about things, if you were to have 5-day weeks, it'd take six weeks to finally clear everything out.

First of all, I should note that no one really knows what Republicans have cooked up - I know I don't. Further, even if rumors are true, it'd still be worth pursuing to expose the obstructionism. Beyond that, what actually can pass under reconciliation is just about anyone's guess, as that's up to the Senate parliatmentarian. Further, we have several procedure hawks, such as Byrd and Feingold, who may object solely on the grounds that we shouldn't be passing the bill this way. Finally, there may be many awkward votes that our members are going to be forced to take (think Stupak).

The point I'm trying to make is that I just want to be sure we realize that reconciliation may not get us where we want to go.

[brooklynite]

13. Before you "fix" things too quickly...

Do you know for certain that a majority of the Senate will support your substitute funding strategy? They didn't include it the first time around.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. As noted, any measure that can't get 50 in the senate is a non-starter

I have no idea what would or would not get 50 votes in the senate, but I know that it is a lot better than what could get 60 votes.

We know there are 60 votes for the recent union compromise, so there ought to be 50 for a fix that adds that compromise to the bill after the fact. So that's a starting point.

[eleny]

15. Outfox the fox

k&r