Posted on 10/07/2009 5:12:59 PM PDT by Mozilla
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option -- making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster -- and then adding the provision later as an amendment.
The public option amendment would be there waiting, but the 60-vote test would technically be on a bill without the government plan. Then moderate Democrats could drop out for the vote on the public option, which requires just 51 votes for passage.
Reid has not revealed whether he will use this tactic, but he's considering it.
"We haven't made any decisions yet," his spokesman, Jim Manley, said. "We have different options -- that is one."
Open-government proponents slammed the tactic, saying it would be a bait-and-switch gambit for the Senate to put forward a bill without a public insurance option, only to slip it in later.
"You don't lock out the American people from the process, and this is essentially locking out the American people," said Brian Darling, director of Senate relations for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Senate Democrats may have little choice but to use this tactic if they are to pass a bill with a public option, as Reid has pledged.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
“Do not attempt to adjust your set. We are now in control.”
Harry Reid yawns and says so what we won!
How so?
Don't argue, they are elites and we are dependent peon's.
Without them we are nothing.
What IS legal when it involves leftists?
Sure it's unconstitutional.
Freedom dies, not with a bang, but with an amendment.
And that will stop them how?
“Don’t argue, they are elites and we are dependent peon’s.
Without them we are nothing.”
I guess none of those Idiots were looking out the window last month.
OBAMA is attempting to force a Haitian health plan on us.
How are they going to enforce it? and if the house goes GOP in 2010 it will be refunded.
Defunded
Now really what could this mean?
My view: They are counting the votes. They're probably one or two short of getting to 60 even with Snowe-flake. So they will have to figure out what they can do to bribe the holdouts. There are at least four possibilities that I can think of: Money. Ambassadorships. Money. Money. There are probably others that I haven't thought of.
I’m not convinced he can get the 51 votes.
I *am* convinced he could lose his seat.
You must have a lot more faith in the GOP than I do. I can pray though.
I am saving all my good dirt for cookies!
I say air drop Olbermann, Matthews and Obama in to the middle of Cap Haitian.
This is a plan to work around the Constitution.
The Republican’s won’t be fooled, and there is almost never a cloture vote before amendments are closed. I’m not even sure that can be done within the Senate rules. This isn’t about 60 votes. It is about Article 1 Section 7 of the Constitution.
I’ve written about this so many times, rather than posting it all again, I'll refer anyone who wants more details to my previous post that lays out all the details of why this is the only way they can do this breaking only the spirit of Article 1, Section 7, but “following” the letter of that section.
| From the desk of cc2k: |
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