What are Stupak and Pelosi cooking up?
Bart Stupak and Nancy Pelosi have been discussing a plan by which the House can amend the Senate HCR bill and change the abortion language that has been such a sticking point for him:
The deal calls for Stupak to have a vote on his amendment either before or after the House votes to confirm the Senate bill on Sunday. Stupak is confident that he has the votes to pass the measure, and is happy to have the vote after the House passes the Senate bill. He believes that by using a “tie bar” approach, his amendment would be “tied” to the health care bill ”” which would require just 51 votes in the Senate.
I have no idea why—if the House is required to pass the Senate bill as is, and any subsequent changes need to be accomplished through reconciliation, which can only be used for budgetary items—this sort of maneuver would be acceptable. Of course, until recently, I’d never even heard of “reconciliation” (at least in the parliamentary sense), so I certainly could be wrong here.
It seems there are other problems with this approach as well, not the least of which is that the pro-choice forces in the House are reported to be livid with rage about the possibility of getting the rug pulled out from under them once again, and are threatening to withhold their votes.
So, would the Stupak stipulation (I’m trying to coin my own alliterative nicknames) really garner enough votes to pass? And would he trust the Senate to approve the language when the bill goes back to that body for a vote? He certainly shouldn’t trust the Senate, which refused to do so the first time round. And if you don’t already have a headache trying to figure this all out, try pondering the following:
To that end, one version of the resolution apparently being discussed between Pelosi and Stupak would say that the Senate bill won’t be considered as having passed in the House until the Senate sends a message to the House stating that it has also passed the Stupak resolution, according to a knowledgeable Democratic aide.
Sounds a bit like time-travel to me.
But I’m not at all sure it really matters to Stupak whether his anti-abortion-funding language is actually in any final HCR bill. I assume we’ll know more today at 11:00 AM, when he is due to give a news conference. But remember when Stupak said this:
The ideal outcome, Stupak said, might be for the House Democratic leadership to get the votes they need without him and for the bill to pass.
“You know, maybe for me that’s the best: I stay true to my principles and beliefs,” he said, and “vote no on this bill and then it passes anyways. Maybe for me is the best thing to do.”
That indicates to me that all Stupak really wants is to make the appearance of opposing abortion funding, but would like the bill to pass otherwise even if it does fund abortions. Since Pelosi seems to require his vote for passage (otherwise she wouldn’t be giving him the time of day), he might indeed be satisfied as long as he is on record as voting against abortion funding.
This “tie bar” bill might give him the cover to do just that, while allowing the bill to pass. In effect, Stupak would be voting for the bill with abortion funding at approximately the same time he’s voting for the bill without abortion funding, if you know what I mean. And while that may be good enough for what passes for Stupak’s conscience, I doubt it would be good enough for his pro-life constituents.
[UPDATE: Well, as of this writing (12:30 PM), no press conference for Stupak. It may be moot because they may not need him after all. But they may. There’s a lot of blah-blah-blah on cable news, but no one knows nothin’—although the Corner says it has inside info that the Stupak deal is off. If Pelosi rejected it, you can bet it’s because she was informed she would be losing votes rather than gaining them by allowing it.
It also appears that “deem-and-pass,” otherwise known as the Slaughter solution or Demon Pass, is still very much in the picture.]
If Stupak caves, then it’ll prove that there really is no difference between a ‘Blue Dog’ and typical Democrat. But I already knew it was a myth
In reality, when push comes to shove, all of these supposed more centrist Democratic factions within Congress–the Blue Dogs, Stupak’s anti-abortion coalition–will vote for this bill if that is what it takes to pass it, all the while trying to justify/disguise what they have done by saying that they have gotten “assurances that their concerns will be listened to,” a vote on their particular issue, that their position “will somehow be taken into account,” that they will have influenced the final bill,” etc., etc.
At this point Democrats, have been so tainted by this process that it is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to disguise or disclaim responsibility for what they have done and how they have done it come November, but they will try, oh, how they will try.
Yesterday, for the first time I saw a editorial (in the Washington Times) calling for the Impeachment of President Obama, the UK’s Telegraph says Impeachment is a possibility (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100030703/barack-obama-could-the-president-face-impeachment-if-the-supreme-court-strikes-the-slaughter-solution/), and the Baltimore Sun yesterday had an opinion piece that very incisively pointed out that what we are seeing here–the willful ignoring of constituent’s wishes, the unconstitutional parliamentary maneuvers, passage of a mammoth bill that has not been read much less analyzed or debated–is really the stuff of Tyranny (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.healthreform19mar19,0,7066729.story), to quote from this opinion piece:
“If the Democrats are willing to ignore the public, their own political futures, the Constitution and the nation’s empty coffers in pursuit of their health care chimera, my question is this: What won’t they ignore? What legal, moral and political stricture won’t they bend, break or disregard? In short: What won’t they do?
A ruling party willing to ignore these things can conceivably ignore anything. The thought sends chills down my spine, for from such seeds are the flowers of tyranny often sown.
That our governing class would seek to create another trillion-dollar entitlement, even as our state and national governments are awash in red ink as never before and our children are shouldered with unshakable debt before they are even born is more than just disgraceful. It is terrifying.”
Pro life democrat is an oxymoron. How can you be pro life yet choose to enslave all the lives around you into forced production for the state?
Stupak:
What a brave man. A real statesman.
He must have been absent from school the day they covered the part about “our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor”.
Wolla Dalbo; good post. Most Americans have long since reached the conclusion, as Congressman Ryan stated in a round about way, that this bill is intended to undermine democracy in the US, the question now is how many are willing to support impeachment, in January 2011? At least now the obvious response is making the mainstream papers, and in a liberal blue state paper at that.
Next question what can be done to give impeachment a little momentum.
Regarding what Stupak said, I was thinking as much yesterday.
I am not saying all members of the Democratic party are bad, and Lord knows the Republicans are nothing to brag about, but now when I hear Democratic Party and it’s leadership I think Karl Marx and Stalin and Hitler and go downhill from there.
If teh Senate version of the bill is deemed to have passed the House; then the Stupak amendment is meaningless.
I recommend watching live coverage of the Rules Committee this morning. To my biased eye, the Republicans are making lots of points. Paul Ryan is really good. Chairwoman Slaughter seems a bit dim. Henry Waxman almost got caught asking for an “up and down” vote on the Senate bill.
I think this was an “experiment” to allow the cameras, and I don’t think they’ll do this again. Normal people don’t like watching sausage made . . .
If this deal is structured in such a way that the House is “deemed” to have passed the Senate bill BUT with Stupak’s abortion language then the same bill has not passed both houses of Congress and cannot go to the President for signature. That’s clearly unConstitutional.
If this deal is structured in such a way that the House is “deemed” to have passed the Senate bill as is AND is “instructing” the Senate to pass the Stupak stipulation (love it!) bill, then the Senate bill is law and good luck getting the Senate to pass the Stupak stipulation. If this is the plan then I’m think Ace put it best:
Stupak: We Won’t Have a Deal Until Nancy Pelosi Commits Her Unenforceable Empty Promises to Worthless Paper
Sounds like Stupak is covering his as* instead of his principles. In the end for Democrats, and many Republicans, it’s all about power.
Just what sort of people do we have steering this ship we call the United States? In case the captains or pilots haven’t noticed (or rather don’t seem to care all that much): Warning! Warning!—icebergs/rocks/revolts/all of the above/and more lie directly ahead! This Bart Stupak-abortion funding business is just one more example of unbridled, unprincipled, lack of integrity, rampant short-sightedness, me-firstisms, that pass for principled anything these days, never mind principled, trusted, and responsible government leadership for this nation.
According to neo’s research, Stupak’s “ideal outcome” for and from crashing into the health care iceberg is stated as follows:
“You know, maybe for me that’s the best [that the House Democrats don’t need his vote to pass the health care bill]: I stay true to my principles and beliefs,” and “vote no on this bill and then it passes anyways [with federal monies going towards abortions]. Maybe for me [this] is the best thing to do.”
And just what principles and beliefs is this man talking about? Sounds more like Kerryesque double-speak laced with a heavy dose of self-serving rationale.
The Bay City Times (Oct. 24, 2008) in its support of Stupak’s candidacy, had this to say about Bart Stupak: “A deeper thinker than a lot of his colleagues in Washington (God, help us if that’s true), Stupak can get hung up on principle.”
Now that the curtain has opened to show Stupak’s behind the scenes wheeling and dealing with Nancy Pelosi and his “ideal” stance to come out smelling like a rose while passively accepting that unborn babies will be thrown under the runaway federal health care bus (bus, ship, whatever), his pro-life constituents can breathe a sigh of relief to know that principle is no longer a sticking point for their representative. Pragmatic, self-serving ideology apparently will take him from here. Though it matters little, Stupak’s campaign motto in 2008 was “Leadership You Can Trust!” Maybe you can, I can’t.
NRO is saying that the deal’s off:
Of course, with a man of such noble, rock-solid principles as him, that has to be taken with a grain of salt.
rickl: I already linked to that article and commented on it in the update to the post above.
Neo: Oops, sorry. I found that link on another site.
rickl: my guess is that, if true, it means Pelosi doesn’t need him. Or perhaps she’s bluffing or mistaken, and will need him in the end. If she does, then he will be facing quite a dilemma, if she continues to reject the enrollment corrections proposal because it will cause the lose of other votes. If he becomes the deciding vote, will he stand on principle and doom HCR? Or will he cave?
rickl: no need to apologize. I don’t expect people to read all the fine print here.