Countdown to almost voting…maybe

Tonight at 8 o clock the Senate will vote on cloture, the motion to proceed with voting on the bill. Moderate Democrat Landrieu of Louisiana has announced she will vote for the motion to proceed, leaving the bill one vote short of avoiding a possible filibuster. Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas has yet to announce her intentions but will do so within the hour on CSPAN. If the motion passes with the required 60 votes the stage will be set for a floor vote on the bill…after Thanksgiving, nearly three weeks after the House bill was passed.

Senators Brownback (KS), Hatch (UT), and Johanns (NE) have just been having their own round table discussion about abortion as it relates to the health care bill. They have made it perfectly clear they want the Stupak-Pitts amendment added to the Senate bill. The amendment would prevent federal dollars from funding abortions in the public option except for a few exceptions. It would also bar federal subsidies from being used to purchase private plans that cover abortions.

These three senators have reduced the vote on health insurance reform to a vote on abortion. Even though Republicans have been warning for months about a government takeover of health care, socialism, and increased taxes, these issues have fallen to the wayside to the ultimate bill killer – abortion (it killed something as unrelated as bankruptcy legislation in 2002). The point was most clearly made by Senator Johanns when he said, “This vote tonight, on the life issue…”  And I think Johanns just said he would kill himself if the bill passed. After discussing the near certainty that the bill would go on to pass if the cloture vote succeeded and what that would mean for protection of the unborn, he said “I can’t live with that.” The Senators made a point of emphasizing that it would take just one Democrat to break ranks to ensure that the Senate bill would include safeguards against abortions, a sign of things to come for Landrieu and Lincoln (should she vote to proceed) in their next reelection campaigns.

The trio of Republicans have made this seem like the end of the road for abortion. If the bill proceeds to the floor and passes, it will have to face Conference where the House and Senate bills will be combined. Pelosi can make a strong case that any bill will face an uncomfortably slim chance of success if anti abortion provisions are not included. In the end, the final version of health care may very well include something like the Stupak-Pitts amendment, yet Republicans will surely still vote unanimously against the bill.

Update: Lincoln is setting herself up to vote for the motion to proceed but against the bill on the floor. She is emphasizing the need for reform and her responsibility to do the right thing. At the same time she is taking a stand against the public option. The cloture vote needs 60 votes making all the Democrats essential. But only 50 votes are required to pass the bill after that, giving conservative Democrats leeway to vote against the bill in the end.

Update 2: Lincoln has indeed stated she will vote for the motion to proceed tonight. As Olympia Snowe did quite a while ago, she stated that her vote may not be the same in later stages of the process, especially if a public option remains in the bill.

Related

Look at the attention to detail on this poster. It really looks like that excerpt was torn from an 800.5″ x 1100” piece of paper. The Senate floor needs a projector and power point.

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