Durbin: Nelson Abortion Amendment Will Likely Fail

The Senate's chief vote counter told reporters today that the votes likely aren't there for Sen. Ben Nelson's controversial abortion amendment to the Senate health care bill.

A tired and concerned looking Dick Durbin told reporters, "The whip count says it's close, but at this point it appears there are more senators who would vote to table than those who would oppose table."

Durbin cautioned that even if Nelson does defect from the bill, there's no sense in wondering what might have happened if the abortion amendment had passed. "This is a zero sum situation. We could gain one senator and lose several other [pro-choice Democrats]," Durbin said.

If Nelson joins a health care filibuster, both Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) would become must-get votes for Democrats. I asked Durbin if he knew, one way or another, whether either senator supported the ideas being kicked around to replace a public option.

"I know that there is a genuine outreach effort to Senator Snowe and others on the Republican side," Durbin said.

Following up, I asked how he was feeling about the state of things right now. "This is an important day--it's a day when a lot of things have to come together if you hope to finish this in a reasonable time," Durbin said.

If we came up with an agreement that we think would reach 60 votes, there of course has to an evaluation by CBO before we can actually put it into the Senate for a vote, and once it goes into the Senate for a vote, it takes a number of days to go through our orderly process.

Keep track of all developments, as health care reform enters its final stretch, here.