If the Democrats decide to use budget reconciliation rules to try to pass the health care overhaul — a strategy that would allow them to push through the most contentious changes with a simple majority, rather than 60 votes — expect to hear Sen. John McCain of Arizona draw a lot of comparisons to the fight he helped lead four years ago to preserve judicial filibusters.
In 2005, McCain was the Republican co-chair of the “Gang of 14,” a bipartisan group of senators who blocked a Republican plan to stop Democrats from filibustering President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees. The group vowed to vote against any procedural ruling that banned future judicial filibusters, arguing that the ability of the minority party to block objectionable things — even judicial nominations — was crucial to the traditions of the Senate.
Last night, McCain told Sean Hannity that the 60-vote principle was so important to the Senate that he’ll fight the Democratic reconciliation strategy on health care on those grounds — just as he fought the Republican leadership’s plans to end judicial filibusters.
HANNITY: What happens if Chuck Schumer and Senator Harry Reid in the U.S. Senate, as they have indicated that they’re willing do, but what if they go forward and used the reconciliation process because they don’t have enough Democratic senators on board for cloture and a filibuster-proof Senate? What happens then?
MCCAIN: I think it destroys, in many respects, the unique aspects of the institution in the Senate which is the 60-vote principle. You may recall that I fought hard for that principle in the nomination and confirmation of judges in the United States Senate. I was criticized by some at that time. But the fact is that if they go this way in the so-called, quote, “reconciliation,” I think that you will see a backlash in the United States Senate and across this country. The institution of the Senate works on the 60-vote basis in many occasions.
The big question, of course, is whether any Democratic senators will fight against a reconciliation strategy on health care just to protect the institution of the Senate. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who was the Democratic co-chair of the Gang of 14, said at a Nebraska town hall meeting this month that he won’t support a reconciliation strategy.
But to actually stop a health care reconciliation bill, a sizeable group of Democrats would actually have to vote against it on instititutional grounds. McCain and his Republican colleagues couldn’t do it by themselves.
Six of the seven Democratic members of the Gang of 14 are still around, but one, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, is ill and rarely shows up in the Senate anymore. (The other remaining members are Nelson, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, now an independent.) And they’d need other Democrats like Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who has said that reconciliation is “an option, but it’s not a very good one” — not exactly a sign that he’d fight it on principle.
Still, you can expect to hear lots of McCain speeches about how the 60-vote principle is as important on health care as it was on judges. And then, watch the Gang of 14 Democrats try to figure out to do.
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Comments
It would be a travesty for democracy to use reconciliation for such a important issue as health care/insurance reform. I will vote against my rep and senator if he or she votes for it. Are we turning into a banana republic? I thought we we got the Clintons out of office we had a better chance of not becoming a banana republic but I guess not.
Posted by: Skylark
| August 28, 2009 10:38 AM
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