Nothing is a done deal until it’s done — and I’ve gotten my hopes up too many times to let down my guard until this thing is over the finish line — but I will say this much: Right now, the finish line appears to be inches away. Chris Bowers has the timeline:
Earlier today, after a meeting of the Senate Democratic leadership, Tom Harkin had already said the Senate was going to use reconciliation. Here is the current timeline:
- Over the next week: Senate proves to House that they have the votes to pass a fix to the health reform bill via reconciliation. Simultaneously, House leaders whip to find enough votes to pass Senate health reform bill. Once both conditions have been met, the House will take up the Senate health reform bill and a reconciliation “fix” to that bill.
- By March 19th: The House passes the Senate health reform bill
- By March 20th: President Obama signs the Senate health reform bill into law
- By March 21st: House passes reconciliation bill to “fix” the Senate bill, and send it to the Senate
- By March 23rd: Senate takes up reconciliation bill.
Republicans, having totally painted themselves into a corner, can only respond by spinning even more frantically:
Senate Republicans are waging a pre-emptive strike against the Senate’s parliamentarian — a hitherto little-known official who could determine the fate of the Democrats’ health care reform efforts.
In interviews with POLITICO, several Republican senators and aides cast Parliamentarian Alan Frumin — a 33-year veteran of the Senate — as someone who is predisposed to side with the Democrats if they attempt to use the reconciliation process to pass parts of their bill.
“I think clearly the majority leader has his ear, and I’ve got concerns,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). “I think if he does not look at that very careful — reconciliation is supposed to be very narrowly defined, large legislative things don’t seem to fit in those parameters — I would think that reconciliation would make or break the perception of his objectivity.”
This is such nonsense on so many levels: the fact that the “sidecar” of fixes to the already passed main health care reform bill is exactly what reconciliation was made for, the fact that the parliamentarian hasn’t made a ruling yet, the fact of the Republican leadership’s unbelievable hypocrisy in everything they’ve said about reconciliation.
Steve Benen does lie patrol duty:
DeMint really doesn’t seem to realize that Dems have no intention of trying to pass the entire health care reform package through the reconciliation process.
Nevertheless, this push is pretty sad. Maybe Republicans are trying to bully Frumin before he’s even asked to rule on anything; maybe Republicans are trying to cast doubts on his integrity now so they can attack him later. Either way, the GOP’s desperation is getting increasingly ugly.
Indeed, for all the talk about the importance of independence in the parliamentarian’s office, let’s not forget recent history — when the Republican majority didn’t like the previous parliamentarian’s rulings on reconciliation, they fired him.
Try to imagine, just for a moment, what the reaction would be if, later this month, Harry Reid fired the Senate parliamentarian for ruling the “wrong” way on a reconciliation question. Think about how intense the media scrutiny would be, and how loud the cries of outrage would be from Republicans.
And then try to remember the fact that Trent Lott firing the former parliamentarian was considered largely a non-story at the time, and that GOP use of reconciliation was deemed routine.
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