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Pelosi: No Obstacle To Senate Acting First On Health Care Reform
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says there are no procedural hurdles facing the Senate if it wants to take the necessary steps to make sure health care reform passes.
Pelosi has insisted for some time now that the Senate health care bill can not pass the House unamended, but that she can probably round up the votes if the Senate and the House both pass a sidecar bill making a number of pre-emptive changes to it.
"Don't even ask us to consider passing the Senate bill until the other legislation has passed both houses so that we're sure that it has happened, and that we know that what we would be voting for would be as effected by a reconciliation bill or whatever parliamentary initiative they have at their disposal," Pelosi said on a conference call this afternoon.
Senate aides have complained that her plan presents them with a big parliamentary difficulty: they don't know if they can pass legislation amending a bill that hasn't been signed into law yet.
Pelosi says that's simply not true.
"No. It is not an obstacle to this path forward."
"There's a certain degree of pressure on the House...pass [the Senate] bill and then we'll pass yours, and this or that," Pelosi added. "But that's not going to happen. And we want to be very clear on that."
Back over to you, Harry Reid.
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Michael A
February 2, 2010 5:04 PM
Actually, the only dem in a position of power right now who has a modicum of credibility and who I trust, like that matters, is the Speaker. She is the only one. Everyone else just sucks. You go Speaker. You are doing one hell of a job.
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CT Voter
February 2, 2010 5:10 PM in reply to Michael A
Second.
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eratosthenes8
February 2, 2010 5:16 PM in reply to Michael A
I admire the Speaker a great deal. But expecting the Senate to act first? Fat chance.
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jimbomoron
February 2, 2010 5:20 PM in reply to eratosthenes8
Particularly when this is a revenue bill as taxes have to be raised to pay for this. And any 12th grader would know that revenue bills always begin in the House.
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
February 2, 2010 5:29 PM in reply to jimbomoron
There's an easy procedural fix for that. The Senate just latches on to any convenient revenue bill the House has already passed and piles it's stuff into it. That's why what we all are calling "the Senate" bill" is an H.R. and not an S.R.
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jimbomoron
February 2, 2010 5:49 PM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
But those bills don't have budget reconcilliation directives. The entire point of using the budget reconcilliation process is to circumvent the Senate supermajority vote requirement. That can't be done, if I understand it correctly, without a budget reconcilliation directive.
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philogratis
February 3, 2010 1:57 AM in reply to jimbomoron
Not much of an obstacle, if true. The House could pass a law on taxing goldfish with reconciliation language, and then the Senate could attach a rider.
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mcc
February 2, 2010 5:16 PM
It still seems weird to me that there is such an air of mystery over whether this fairly simple thing is legal or not. Surely this has come up once before, in the last 221 years?
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jimbomoron
February 2, 2010 5:17 PM
I love Speaker Pelosi, but this is nonsense. The House is the only body right now that has the power to enact legislation tomorrow that will allow children to remain on their parents' policy until age 26. The House is the only body right now that has the power to provide immediate prescription drug relief to seniors. Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats are just doing the same pussy-footing that got Democrats into this mess in the first place.
If House Democrats are really serious about meeting Senate Democrats half-way, then House Democrats need to do more than just yell, "SIDECAR, SIDECAR." They need to specify now what exactly is necessary in such sidecar legislation that can realistically pass the Senate in order for the House to accept the Senate bill. Just yelling, "SIDECAR, SIDECAR -- WE'LL MEET YOU HALF-WAY" amounts to the same sort of pussy-footing that got Democrats into the very same predicament they are in right now.
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mcc
February 2, 2010 5:22 PM in reply to jimbomoron
Although more specificity would probably be nice, the House Democrats haven't exactly been coy either about what kinds of things they expect in the sidecar bill. If nothing else there's always that compromise pseudo-conference bill that supposedly was finished before Scott Brown was elected.
I think it is ultimately the House's responsibility to pass this bill, whether or not the Senate acts. However if they can improve the bill by getting the Senate to accept the sidecar thing then I think it is reasonable to give them a chance to try.
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jimbomoron
February 2, 2010 5:46 PM in reply to mcc
Things you want and things you can live with/without are not the same thing. It is the responsibility of the House, if they are to demand sidecar legislation in order to accept the Senate bill, that they specify precisely what they can/cannot live with/without in order to vote for the Senate bill. Anything less merely amounts to pussy-footing.
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neutral party
February 2, 2010 5:52 PM in reply to jimbomoron
You don't really think that in all the meetings between Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, Durbin, and the WH, Pelosi and Hoyer didn't give their whip counts and sidecar demands to Reid and Durbin? Just because they haven't announced them to CNN doesn't mean their requirements have not been communicated to their Senate counterparts.
Also, this procedural dilemma seems reasonable to this attorney. Bills amending other bills (no matter how passed - over a filibuster threat with cloture or through resolution) all have language saying "Sec ___ of Public Law ____ is hereby deleted in its entirety and the following substituted therefor: _____". Or at least something along those lines. You get the picture.
The only problem is that unless the bill is passed, you don't have a "public law" number for it. The number gets assigned once signed into law by the Prez.
The only way I think they can get around it is if they basically agree that nothing gets passed before these bills. Then, they basically know what the Public Law No. will be for the now-standing Senate bill and can just plug that into the sidecar bill to be passed by reconciliation.
Now, I may be way off. I'd love to get a heads-up from a current or former Hill legal staffer on whether this is the right take on the situation.
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jimbomoron
February 2, 2010 7:11 PM in reply to neutral party
Very good point on the Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, and Durbin meeting in private discussing whip counts, etc. You make a good point that if things were blared onto CNN, then that would just allow the media to focus attention on those provisions, and allow Lieberman, Nelson, et. al. to express their self-righteousness over this or that provision. Still, this "SIDECAR, SIDECAR" shouting reeks of politicians grandstanding, stabbing people in the back, etc. It amounts to pussy-footing.
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Eric Jaffa
February 2, 2010 5:27 PM
Don't reconciliation bills need to start in the House, meaning it's her move?
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goldiera
February 2, 2010 5:27 PM
Yes, pass that mandate forcing people to buy insurance from private insurance companies with no cost or price control. Those that cannot afford it can beg to the government.
Wonderful
For the corporations, by the corporations with the appoval of the corporations.
As for the rest of it, public option, single payer, anything to help or protect the consumer....that is off the table.
Love her if you like, she is just as rotten as the rest of them.
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solerso68
February 2, 2010 5:44 PM in reply to goldiera
At shes saying they aren't going to rubber stamp the abominable senate bill (yet- we shall see)
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jimbomoron
February 2, 2010 5:51 PM in reply to goldiera
You obviously haven't been paying attention -- or at least haven't learned anything -- the last six months. There's no point in dealing with a willful health care ignoramus like you.
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Michael A
February 2, 2010 5:57 PM in reply to jimbomoron
Oh, I think the poster has been paying attention.
Bottom line is many, many people are opposed to a mandate to line the pockets of the insurance industry and big pharma. Why is opposition to a mandate without a public option ignorant? I don't get that one. Maybe you can explain.
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mans_best_friend
February 2, 2010 5:28 PM
Don't hold your breath waiting for the Senate to act. The way to get the ball rolling is for the House to pass a sidecar bill and send it over to the Senate.
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solerso68
February 2, 2010 5:42 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
only problem with that is, Nancy Pelosi and house democrats would have to be born yesterday morons to trust the senate to do anything they say they will. clearly the speaker wants "to be very clear on that" apparently, she wasn't born yesterday.
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mans_best_friend
February 2, 2010 6:14 PM in reply to solerso68
Nothing precludes the House from waiting until the sidecar bill is passed by the Senate before passing both pieces of legislation in the House.
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sunnysteve
February 2, 2010 5:34 PM
Obviously, Pelosi would not say it is possible, unless it is possible.
The crunch is whether the Senate is willing to do the possible. Pelosi views the rules as a roadmap for how to get things done. The Senate views the rules as an impediment to their worship of Senate tradition. Senators have become the nobility and, like the nobility, have lost touch with the real world. The final step remaining is for them to start wearing powdered wigs and ruffles.
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JanglerNPL
February 2, 2010 5:44 PM in reply to sunnysteve
That's not at all obvious to me. I'm not sure how Pelosi would know something like this, unless she somehow found time to become an expert Senate parliamentarian. Would anyone be truly surprised if there was in fact a rule in the Senate that amendments passed through reconciliation had to be attached to existing bills? Or some other rule which would require a 60-vote threshold for this particular scenario?
I hope it's not the case, but to me the most likely explanation is that she either can't or doesn't want to pass the bill even with fixes, and she's trying to find a way to pass the blame onto the Senate.
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Lucieann
February 2, 2010 5:48 PM
Nothing passing the buck, while you are kicking the can down the road, whistling passed the graveyard, heh, Madame Speaker?!
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DA in LA
February 2, 2010 6:36 PM in reply to Lucieann
Um. No. As Harkin explained, the compromise between the House and Senate was worked out. Done deal. Then Brown was elected. Instead of just passing the bill, our great president/coward told Congress to wait until the Brown was seated.
So stop pointing fingers at the House. They passed one bill that was better than the Senate bill. The Senate ruined it. Then they came up with a compromise. Obama ran like a coward.
Try not to let your ignorance get in the way of the fact.
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philogratis
February 3, 2010 1:50 AM in reply to DA in LA
Our great president/coward told Congress not to pass the Bill? Maybe instead what happened is that either Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieu, Dodd, Bayh, Conrad, or Durban (or somebody else) told Harry Reid that he or she would not vote for the Bill before Brown was seated. Reid relayed that to the president, and then the president told everybody else.
Obama's leverage over Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson is limited. We already knew that.
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Lestatdelc
February 2, 2010 7:48 PM
the compromise between the House and Senate was worked out.
Bullshit. Back up that assertion.
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DA in LA
February 2, 2010 8:35 PM in reply to Lestatdelc
Try reading. It's enjoyable.
http://bit.ly/ba1GYx
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jonnienohands
February 3, 2010 7:44 AM in reply to DA in LA
Without CBO assessment it cannot be considered worked out
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hopeful still
February 2, 2010 8:35 PM
Lost in all of this is that the public sees Democrats once againg indulging in a circular firing squad. If the Speaker can't get the votes, then why not say what is the minimum needed to satisfy enough in the caucus to get to 218, and tell us who is holding it up. Otherwise, it looks like petty cameralism. If it is principled, what are they, and who is insisting on it. Putting so many uninsured at risk on what looks like a pissing contest is just wrong.
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JohnMcCSF
February 2, 2010 9:03 PM in reply to hopeful still
I haven't lost sight of that at all. In fact, it is my only take away from the latest sorry episode of feckless Democratic "leadership"
We're gonna get rolled this fall and then when the Congress is filled with teabaggers, all the self-appointed "progessive" poobahs across the blogosphere can rejoice in their self-righteous failure.
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chigger
February 2, 2010 8:41 PM
"One of the sadder spectacles to watch since Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts has been House progressives suggesting that now is their chance to ram a public option through the Senate. Nancy Pelosi tried to give a reality check on that point today."
Fine, just fine. Kill the bill or kill the party. It appears those are the only two choices left.
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JohnMcCSF
February 2, 2010 9:00 PM
Nice try Madam Speaker (my Congresswoman)
If Health Care Reform dies, it dies in the House, at your hands, and quite possibly your Speakership along with it
{x-post}
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philogratis
February 3, 2010 1:55 AM
If she had the votes, she'd schedule a vote. No point in blaming her. At what point did she go wrong? She has a large, fractious caucus with a wide range of ideological beliefs. That's what sucks about being in the majority.
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Homefries
February 3, 2010 6:17 AM in reply to philogratis
Said another way, the Democrats became the majority party, in part, because they were willing to enlarge their tent. Now the more liberal members under that tent are acting horrified that not everyone agrees with them.
I think most Democrats would agree that this situation is preferable to McCain/Palin. At least, I hope so.
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wbgonne
February 3, 2010 7:36 AM
I can think of one obstacle: the Senate.
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