Wednesday, January 20th, 2010...1:09 pm
Truth and Reconcilliation
Bruce Ash has already taken me to task for not saying anything about the Massachusetts Senate race. This is because I am obligated to only write about topics that Ash approves. I forgot about this and I am sorry.
Ash will crow for the next few days about Scott Brown’s election as the new Senate Majority Leader and next President of the United States. This is great for Ash, since talking about an election thousands of miles away will keep him from having to address the awful budget situation his party has left us with in this state.
But, what to do about the health care bill. One obvious thing would be to send the Senate bill as written to the house and vote on it (which the Republicans will kvetch about, but it is the normal procedure). Our own Raúl Grijalva suggests in a piece in the New Republic to pass one more to the House’s liking and pass it through the Senate by the reconcilliation procedure, which would only require 51 votes.
Seems like a decent idea to me, except that some parts of the bill would have to be left out. Of course, we’ll be treated to weeks of Republicans and their allies in the “liberal” media arguing that a procedure to pass a bill with the votes of half the members is somehow counter to democracy.
6 Comments
January 20th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
This already is not happening. Reid already came out and said no new Senate action on healthcare till Brown is seated.
Only way right now is House passing the senate version as is. Which people like Grijalva already said they do not like the idea of doing.
January 20th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
jeez….look…its fish or cut bait here. Honestly, if the house doesn’t pass the Senate version then this thing is going to get wrapped up and fast.
I would be thinking….the bill isn’t perfect, it has some reprehensible pro-life language, but this is about fixing a problem that no one has come close to in decades. It is a historic opporunity.
If they back away now, I just don’t see it happening and I see no benefit to it.
January 20th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
In an interview with Greg Sargent of The Plum Line blog, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor said that the election should serve as a clear signal to Democrats that they need to begin a new wave of bipartisan compromise. And Cantor had something specific in mind. *The Democrats, he said, should drop their health care plan in favor of the Republican alternative, one that the Virginia congressman said was “the result of bipartisan agreement on some issues.”* In other words “Do it the Republican way or no way.”
January 21st, 2010 at 12:31 pm
I’m amused with all the hoopla of the Tea Baggers and its affiliate, the GOP National Party. They are proclaiming the election of Brown as a political breakthrough, an electoral tidal wave, a landmark election. Really? So another white guy gets elected to the U.S. Senate. What’s the big deal?
January 21st, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Scott Brown winning the Massachusetts senate election was the best thing that could have happened to the Democratic party.
Because it happened in January and not November. Because it was only 1 senator, not 13 senators and 47 reps.
Because it gives us 9 months to get our act together.
January 24th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Gotta love the election of Scott Brown!!! The “tea baggers” are gonna love having one of their own be “pro-choice” – not. I think he’ll burn himself out – and I’m gonna love watching it! the verbal gymnastics should be the greatest entertainment since Barnum and Bailey!