Good Grief! Olympia "Lucy" Snowe has the football firmly in hand

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Unlike some folks, Snowe has been very clear about what she will not support.

She is running around TV saying that not only will she not vote for a bill with public option, but will also not vote for a bill with almost ANY feature more progressive than the Baucus bill. And she hasn't even said she would vote for the Baucus bill on the floor.

Either HCR is completely gutted or she doesn't vote for it. This isn't reading between the lines... it's all she talks about. It is all she has EVER talked about.

That should make her roughly as relevant as Jim DeMint. Instead she's the king-maker.

Now she's out there flogging a trigger that is one of the few 'compromises' that would play out as actually being worse than nothing. (It would never kick in and would politically freeze other actions going forward. Sometimes no solution is better than a bogus solution, since at least with no solution it's easy to see there's a problem.)

I said it yesterday and I'll say it again... Snowe voting for the Finance bill was a negative development for HCR in America. Her vote was not needed to move the Baucus bill out of conference. Her vote served only to accrue power/influence to herself.

Right now she is "relevant" and as long as she is "relevant" Reid is less likely to include the HELP bill PO in the merged bill that reaches the senate floor. (Which he probably doesn't want to do anyway, but Snowe provides cover.)

If the PO is not in the bill as presented to the full senate it has to be added by amendment--a serious problem since though one can appeal to blue-dogs to vote for cloture on an entire bill the blue-dogs will not vote for cloture on a specific PO amendment.

So we are right where we have always been... hoping for a conference report miracle.

The only path to even lame-but-acceptable HCR is for the conference to ignore the Senate's input and go with pretty much whatever the House passes, then get 50+1 in the Senate.

If that happens, awesome.

But please recognize that either

1) this whole thing has been meaningless window-dressing since the whole deal was always wired with a cool bill being crafted in conference no matter what happens in the Senate (awesome), or...

2) this whole thing has been a cynical sell-out involving dangling the conference scenario simply to freeze the left. Then, when some weak bill comes out of conference the suckerocracy will be appealed to to rally behind it as "the best possible bill." (not awesome)

[Captain Hilts]

1. It's the tail wagging the dog. nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. .

[MrModerate]

2. Reid is a complete fraud and useless to boot. If HCR is dependent on him . . .

We're screwed. He's a much larger problem than Snowe. The optimists tell me this compromise was just to blast the bill out of committee so the serious job of lawmaking can begin. Sounds a little crazy to me, but I'm watching developments closely.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. Yeah, but if the caucus didn't want him he wouldn't be majority leader

No point demonizing him personally. Some smart, well-informed liberals voted for him as majority leader secure in the knowledge that they could fight the good fight on various issues while not having to deal with the results of actually prevailing.

Politics.

[MrModerate]

8. And how's that working out? n/t

[Faryn Balyncd]

4. K & R

[high density]

5. I think the question is whether or not she supports a filibuster of the public option

And I cannot see her supporting such a thing. Now that this ridiculous drawn out bullshit with the finance committee has ended, her relevancy here at this point goes to 1 of 100. At this point int he process I do not believe the WH is stupid enough to continue trying to placate her when it is obvious she absolutely does not support some of the President's core ideas.

By the way, the bill had to make it out of committee in some form to progress.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. If a PO must be added by amendment it's a non-starter

Snowe, Lieberman and several Dems would not vote for cloture on a specific amendment to add a PO.

On the other hand, there are not 60 votes to REMOVE a PO if a PO was in the bill from the start.

So it's up to Reid, who is in charge of the form of whatever compromise HELP/FINANCE bill reaches the floor.

[Politics_Guy25]

10. I don't understand K&H

I thought it would be more difficult to find 60 senate votes for a Public Option and presumably 60 votes would be tough to achieve for cloture on the final bill if it does include a public option. Please clarify if you would for me.

P.S.: I understand that democrats would be loathe to fillibuster their own final bill but I find it hard to believe that Lieberman and Nelson would not join the GOP fillibuster on a bill including the public option. Unless you are advocating for reconciliation, but I can see the senate parliamentarian tearing up page after page of the bill and leaving it as a shell of a bill in that case.

[Mass]

13. Are there the votes to block a bill with a PO from coming to the floor.

This is the only issue. If there is not, you're right, there are not 60 votes to take the PO out of the bill.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

15. The question of what comes to the floor won't be voted on

Reid will put forward some merger of the two bills and then debate and amendment will start

That's why it is so important whether Reid puts a PO in the bill as it first appears. If it starts out in it's hard to remove. If it starts out out it's hard to insert.

[Mass]

17. Yes, it will, by a Motion to Proceed that needs to get 60 votes.

And potentially, before that, a motion of cloture on the motion to proceed. There is no way somebody on the Republican side does not try to block the bill to get to the floor. In fact, Snowe said she is not sure how she will vote for the Motion to Proceed depending of the bill.

I am not arguing Reid should not include a PO. I think he should do it and challenge the moderate Dems to filibuster it, but you have to be aware the mechanism to block it exist.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

18. Yes, you are correct. I was thinking about the content of the bill

I was thinking about the content and using "comes to the floor" in a general sense.

A bill that fails a motion to proceed was put before the senate, since the whole senate is acting on it, but not technically on the floor.

I just meant that there will not be a vote on content or method of crafting the bill that will be put forward. When it is put forward it is exposed to senate action on its consideration before technically being on the floor, open to debate and amendment and such.

So you are quite correct.

[Neecy]

9. oh, I can see her supporting a filibuster

She has said repeatedly that she doesn't support a public option. She'll go against her caucus for the terrible, lobbyist-driven Baucus bill, but she won't buck her caucus when it comes to the public option.

And the bill would have made it out of committee without her vote.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. Quite right

[Better Believe It]

12. What filibuster? Who is threatening to filibuster? And if someone is, so what?

Make any opponents filibuster on the floor of the Senate until 60 votes for cloture are achieved.

What's the problem with that?

[depakid]

14. People need to grasp the fact the Snowe is NOT decent human being

In fact, given her life history- quite the opposite.

She's the type that should be used when it suits procedural purposes- and unceremoniously dumped when policy matters are at stake.

Same with her bobbsey twin Susan Collins.

Nothing good will come from either of them- as we saw all too clearly with the half assed stimulus.

[Cleita]

16. This woman has been given too much power over the issue as has Max Baucus.

They both come from sparsely populated states and shouldn't have been given the ability to make or break legislation for the majority of Americans.

[Politics_Guy25]

19. Don't forget that Nelson won't vote for the bill if Snowe votes against it

And if Nelson defects along with you know who from CT, there aren't 60 votes. I have no doubt that Nelson/Lieberman will vote against the cloture motion as well. That's why Snowe is so key. She SHOULDN'T be in a perfect world but thanks to the likes of Nelson et al, she is critical.

[Politics_Guy25]

20. If there's a good public option, it will come in the House-Senate conference-n/t

[TheKentuckian]

22. My gut tells me that we need some form of the option, good or not, in this Senate bill

The momentum can't be allowed to slip that far because the pressure on Pelosi and the House not to blow up the whole thing will be too extreme. I'm not saying it is over if we don't get the public option and choice in the Senate version but if there isn't a solid mechanism for cost containment and price control by the end of that step then the battle will be so up hill that we're talking more miracle than realistic.

[polichick]

21. No thanks to the prez for his big shout-out to her - we coulda done without that! nt

[smoochpooch]

23. I thought her statements yesterday actually indicated weakness on her part.

I think it was her that said she didn't want to be on the wrong side of history or something like that. It kind of led me to believe that for all the talk, she doesn't want to be viewed 50 years from now as some dummy who voted against a popular institution. If so, the final bill could have a real public option and she'll have to vote for it. There may be others (bluedogs and such) who will do the same in the end.