Benemax

On Thursday of this week, President Obama is scheduled to meet Republican and Democratic leaders in a televised summit. The stated purpose: Find common ground. The more likely purpose: Re-engage the interest of the American people, create a ‘bully pulpit’ for the President to preach the message of reform, and of course, paint the Republicans as evil obstructionists.

In advance of the meeting, the President is likely to present his own version of Health Care Reform, a proposal that will probably include many of the features of the current House and Senate bills. It is possible, but my no means certain, that this “consensus” bill will include some brand new ideas from the President himself and/or some new provisions designed to appeal to Republicans in general (or to Olympia Snowe in particular) along with the disaffected American majority.

Finally, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Democrats have decided to rely on a legislative maneuver called “Reconcilliation” to get the bill through the Senate with only 51 votes (vs. 60). Reconcilliation is designed to be used for budgetary matters only, not to decide policy questions. It is hard to see how the use of this technique could possibly be appropriate for a bill that amounts to the biggest single policy shift in the history of The United States. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be tried.

The maneuver is fraught with risk. First, it is likely that a number of Democratic Senators who voted for the bill the first time will vote against it if their leadership resorts to  Reconcilliation. 10 Democrats would have to switch sides to change the outcome, and that is unlikely, but the loss of even a half dozen Democratic votes will be embarrassing for the President and the Congressional leadership.

Second, the new bill would still have to pass the House. Due to deaths and resignations, it is unclear whether the votes to pass this legislation are still there…even if not one Democrat switches sides after seeing what happend to their party in Massachusetts. Plus there are at least 11 anti-abortion Democrats who voted for the bill the first time but may not vote for it this time unless it contains strict pro-life provisions (which is unlikely).  

Third, it is possible that the courts might nullify all or part of this legislation if they find that the Reconcilliation process has been abused, i.e. if the find that the Senate did not follow its own rules. Courts traditionally dislike meddling in the affairs of the other branches of government but this could be deemed sufficient cause for a departure from that policy.