Please tell me there is still time to use the Reconcilation Process

[Hawaii Hiker]

Reading this earlier convinces me Reconcilation is only way to go...No. Question.

You KNOW if Republicans were in charge they'd use it for anything & everything they wanted to get passed...

www.electoral-vote.com

Some excerpts:

"The decision by majority leader Harry Reid not to pursue using the budget reconcilation process to pass the health-care bill has come back to bite him. Going the regular route means he needs all 60 members of his caucus to vote for cloture, even if some of them may end up opposing the underlying bill. It is well known that all senators are smart enough to count to 60; in fact, when counting money they can often count into the millions. As a consequence of this situation, every Democrat can blackmail Reid by threatening not to vote for cloture unless he gets his way on something. It is already happening".

"Some of this may be just bluster, but Reid is in a real box because he can't afford to lose even one vote. But the problem is entirely self inflicted. What he could have done is instruct some senator such as Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the HELP committee, to split the bill into two parts, one with the noncontroversial stuff which would pass by the regular order and a second bill that would go through the reconciliation process, which needs only 50 senators and Joe Biden. All Reid would have to do is make it clear to Nelson, Landrieu, and Lincoln, that if they voted against the bill, plan B would be the Harkin bill, presumably far less to their liking. Reid could even have leaked plan C: abolish the filibuster or at least reduce the number of votes needed for cloture to 55. During the Bush administration, then-majority whip Mitch McConnell threatened to do precisely that ("the nuclear option") if the Democrats filibustered Bush's judicial nominations. Even if Reid didn't really want to change the cloture rule, the threat of doing so would chasten people like Nelson, Landrieu and Lincoln by putting them on notice that a vote against cloture (1) wouldn't work and (2) would turn the rest of the caucus against them. And there might even be a plan D, in which Reid threatened recalcitrant senators with loss of committee slots and chairmanships, desirable office space, staff, and other goodies. As majority leader Lyndon Johnson understood all these things very well."

:banghead: :banghead:

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Well, he could have, if he were FOR the bill.

But if he is being paid to throw the game, then what he is doing makes sense.

[Hawaii Hiker]

2. If Chuck Schumer were Majority Leader,

this foolishness would not be happening...

Harry wants to be everybody's buddy instead of getting things accomplished...:banghead:

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Hate to burst your bubble

The Center for Responsive Politics, a research group that tracks money in politics, reports that
financial industries -- the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, specifically -- have been one of the biggest benefactors to Congress over the past two decades:
And that Chuck Schumer got more of these donations than any other Congress person.

link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/17/the-15-biggest-congressio_n_360514.html?slidenumber=zb6sd3SJTkc%3D#slide_image

[KharmaTrain]

3. Ace In The Hole...

While I don't consider Reid much of a Poker player, this is the ultimate card in his hand. The sham of this process is that a bill needs to be "bipartisan" or appear to be. It's also how the process goes. Also, seems Reid and many other Democrats still haven't gotten the news they're the majority party and still fear that anything they do now will come back to bite them in the future...if they try to steamroll, then the rushpublicans surely will do the same if and when they retake the Senate. It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy as the more Reid tries to "accomodate" the weaker he and the Democrats get and make it possible that the GOOP could win seats next year and set them up to retake the Senate in 2012. While I hope this isn't the scenario, sure looks like the Democratic Senate leadership is headed that way.

[tritsofme]

4. Reconciliation is not ideal or a silver bullet. We would need to pass two bills.

The bill passed using Reconciliation could pass with 50+1 votes, but we would not be able to include all of the reforms in it, Republicans would be successful in stripping out much of it using procedural rules.

Another bill containing regulations like ending the pre-existing conditions clause, that would still face a 60 vote test.

The bill passed under Reconciliation would have to expire, and a future Republican Congress could let it lapse without having to repeal, as Democrats are doing to the Bush tax cuts.

Reconciliation is a mess, especially for something like HCR, any bill passed under the normal procedures would be superior.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. They can still filibuster reconciliation.

The problem is that it's filibuster by amendment. They'll propose upwards of 800 amendments, all of which must be voted upon. It would literally take months of doing nothing but taking roll call votes on some pretty awful things to get through them.