So, the Minnesota Supreme Court voted 5-0 that Al Franken was the winner of the disputed Senate seat. Coleman has publicly said, that he congratulated Franken on the victory (which I guess means Coleman has finally given up). Now that the State Supreme Court has given their official "Ja, you betcha" to the election, this gives the Democrats 60 votes in the Senate just in time for the big health care reform fight. What's more, Franken is not exactly likely to be one of those Democrats opposed to the public option.
This could be why Coleman was fighting this one so hard. The Republicans are fanatically opposed to real health care reform - just as they were opposed to social security, medicare and medicaid. With the Democrats at 60 votes, it will be very hard for the Republicans to block a bill. They'll need to get at least one of the members of the Democratic caucus to vote with them just to filibuster - which can be politically costly given that, from what I heard on CNN et al, over 70% of Americans support a public option (the main sticking point).
Now it comes down to Harry Reid and the senate leadership, especially the Majority Whip, Richard Durbin (D- ILL) to get the party unified behind the public option plan.
5 comments:
Because of the budget reconciliation process, a filibuster is not necessary. Democrats can do this with just 50 votes plus Joe Biden. Senate committees want to put together a bipartisan bill with Republican support for political cover, but the option of using the reconciliation process and going for just 50 votes remains viable.
That's great. That little option of a simple majority will let the Democrats convince moderate Republicans like Snow to back the public option in exchange for some minor concession that they care about.
It's a legislative sledgehammer that Pelosi and Emanuel insisted on with good reason. Specter, FYI, previously said unequivocally that he would not vote for a public option plan. But he also said he was a Republican. Specter has since waffled on the public plan and of course is no longer a Republican.
I think you are going to see some sort of public plan emerge, but watered down.
Lieberman is, of course, coming out against public option plans. Boy did the party leaders screw up by not getting rid of that guy when they had the chance.
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