Meanwhile, on the 'reality, what a concept' front, I'd totally missed this. But HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today released a state by state breakdown of what the Senate bill would mean in different states -- how many more people could get insurance, how many would qualify for subsidies and tax credits to purchase insurance, etc. Worth a look.
]]>I am a political scientist who has studied the Senate filibuster. As much as I'd like to agree with JB's post, it misses the mark in important ways -- leading people to blame Obama and Reid for what is really way beyond their control. (Note: that is not to say that Reid hasn't made mistakes or Obama has not made mistakes -- but that is a separate question).]]> Here is the issue: JB writes: "If this had not been the case, legislation like the 1986 Tax Reform Act (which overhauled the entire federal tax code), the Goldwater-Nichols bill of that year restructuring the Pentagon, and the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments could never have been enacted." Here is the problem: all of those pieces of legislation passed with overwhelming majorities voting yes -- far more than 60 votes. For example, the Senate passed Golwater Nichols with 95 or 96 yea votes; Clean Air Act passed 89-11. Even if a few yes votes would've rather seen the bill fail, this is no way comparable to health care today. In other words, filibusters could not succeed in the Tax Reform, Goldwater-Nichols, Clean Air Act cases etc because if someone filibustered, more than 60 senators would genuinely want to end the filibuster so that the bill would pass. Today, there are not 60 senators who want the bill to pass, as it currently stands. That is lousy, but it is not something that Harry Reid could change by being a better legislative strategist. JB is right that it was not always this way: before the 1970s, it was pretty common for major, controversial bills to pass the Senate absent a filibuster-proof supportive majority. But since then, the filibuster has become so widely accepted (and so costless) that it is a real veto (except when reconciliation is an option -- which is not so feasible here) absent 60 votes. Note also: the idea of citing the southern Democrats as at all restrained on civil rights opposition is laughable. The only reason the 1964 Civil Rights Act could pass is that LBJ and the Democrats made enough concessions to Dirksen to get enough GOP votes to have 67 for cloture (which was the threshold back then). Fortunately, Dirksen was not anywhere near as conservative as today's Republicans, so the concessions were not as substantial as would be required to get GOPers on board today for any liberal legislation.
I think both readers have good points here. But, thinking back, there's any question that as recently as the 1990s filibusters (or using whatever obstructive measures to force 60 vote majorities) were much less common than they are today. Today it is treated as a given; 60 votes is the default. That simply did not used to be the case.
Some of it is a change in standards, a breakdown of informal rules, as JB suggested. But I think we're also deluding ourselves if we do not figure in a large role for larger structural changes in our politics. Simply put, the broader climate of political polarization in the country -- a socio-political reality than transcends parliamentary rules -- creates pressures for party coherence and party discipline that makes the resort to these tactics more and more the norm.
]]>As you know, I used to work in the Senate. When I did, the threat of extended debate was made fairly often: usually to delay legislation until some matter of parochial concern to one or more Senators was dealt with, occasionally to threaten with extended publicity the passage of legislation thought to be unpopular.]]> Within today's Senate it appears understood that these inhibitions are all gone now. Even the threat of extended debate -- the traditional filibuster -- has degenerated into the threat to prevent debate, by objecting to the motion to proceed to legislation. Southern segregationists in the 1960s, facing the passage of voting rights legislation aimed at uprooting the foundations of their states' political and social order, did not go as far in obstructing the consideration of legislation as opponents of health care reform are going today.It was always understood that legislation thought deeply inimical to one or more states' most vital interests might be opposed with every resource at the disposal of an individual Senator or group of Senators. The inhibitions -- all of them unwritten -- against deploying those resources routinely, though, were considerable. If this had not been the case, legislation like the 1986 Tax Reform Act (which overhauled the entire federal tax code), the Goldwater-Nichols bill of that year restructuring the Pentagon, and the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments could never have been enacted.
Of course, politics then or even in the 1980s and '90s when I worked in Washington were different. Elected officials were not nearly as tightly bound to the permanent campaign; it was usually enough for Senators in particular to vote against legislation opposed by key constituency groups to satisfy them. With much more information now available about the legislative process, this isn't good enough anymore. Senators feel compelled now to demonstrate that they are fully "on board" by fighting legislation opposed by organized interests every step of the way.
This, though, begs an important question. There are Senators who needn't feel so compelled at all -- older Senators mostly, either in their last term or having won reelection by such large margins it would be difficult to challenge them in a party primary. Republican Senators fitting this description include Lugar, Voinovich, Cochran, Alexander, and the two Senators from Maine. One can perhaps see why they would vote against health care reform, or offer amendments to it. Why do they think it necessary to vote against taking it up, or against putting a time limit on debate of the legislation?
As you observe, this question has not been asked either by the Obama administration or by Democrats in the Senate. I don't know why, honestly. Overcoming opposition by attempting to divide it is second nature to me, and it isn't as if GOP Senators like the ones I've named really gain anything by backing up their anti-health reform colleagues to the point of attempting to make it impossible for the Senate to address this issue at all.
Part of me suspects that Democrats have difficulty suppressing their instinct for seeking victimhood. Perhaps they half-expect health care reform to fail, and want to be sure they have someone to blame for their misfortune. It may be they are themselves so tightly bound to the permanent campaign that they fear muddying their 2010 message in some states by having some Republicans on their side, at least when it comes to letting legislation be voted on.
Or it may be simpler than that. Harry Reid may just not be much of a legislator; Barack Obama isn't either. At any rate, there are some Republican Senators who are willy-nilly locked into opposing health care reform more tenaciously than they would have opposed any legislation on any subject earlier in their careers. They are paying no price for doing this; they're not even having to explain it. It is a wonder.
]]>"It's hard to be more conservative than I am on issues -- though there are different ways stylistically to communicate that -- I'm pro-life, I'm pro-gun, I'm pro-family, and I''m anti tax." ... "I don't know what else you're supposed to be, except maybe angry too."
See the rest here.
]]>What does surprise me though and what I've seen few good answers to is why there wasn't more of a push from the outside on the question of 'up or down votes.'
]]> If you go back to the earlier part of this decade when the cloture/filibuster issue became a big deal, largely on the Supreme Court nominations front, the right made a big push on the outside about the issue of allowing up or down votes (i.e., 51 vote majorities) simply as a matter of principle. That is perhaps implicit in the current debate. But it's very, very implicit. Pressing that issue earlier in this decade opened up a part of this debate that's really pretty absent at the moment. In essence, it opened up another front in a legislative battle that wasn't tied to the particular policy or legislative issue at stake.Why that didn't happen or perhaps why it still couldn't happen is a pretty good question I haven't seen a good answer to.
]]>Currently PPP has the Dems with a 8 point margin on the 'generic ballot'. If they pass a bill with a public option, the margin drops to 5 points. If they pass nothing at all it falls to dead even.
]]>What gets less discussion is how circumscribed the public option (in current House and Senate versions) has become and how much or whether it's even worth fighting for.
Let me explain what I mean.
]]> There's been a decent amount of discussion of "robust" versus non-robust public options, which has mainly referred to whether reimbursement rates are tied to Medicare rates or independently negotiated. Getting less attention is how many people are even eligible for the public option. I think a lot of people still imagine that what we're talking about is a government-administered health insurance option that you can buy into if you don't like your options in or simply can't access private health insurance at all.So if TPM is tired of our group plan, we can switch to the Public Option plan. Or if one of our employees is individually unsatisfied, they can switch.
However else that would effect the private insurance market, there's no question that would apply a lot of competitive pressure on private insurers. Such a plan would not, I think, doom private insurers, as they claim it would. But it would dramatically, radically transform the market they operate in. Yet, that's not even close to how any of the plans now on the table would work. The current plans would only be open to a few million people -- basically those who don't currently have private coverage through their employers and aren't eligible for Medicaid. (There are some exceptions at the margins, but broadly speaking that's how it would work.) And at that size, there are good reasons to think that the Public Option would become a dumping ground for what health care policy types call "creaming" -- health insurers wanting to maintain pools of the young and the healthy and dump responsibility for the aged and chronically ill on to public programs or on to nothing at all. Regardless of that, it's pretty questionable whether such a highly restricted public option would provide any significant competitive pressures on private insurers that would yield benefits on the cost containment front. And in part because of this, it's questionable whether the Public Option's premiums would even be cheaper.
Now, there are many people who look at this and say that the bill(s) under discussion are so anemic that they're maybe not worth fighting for at all. And that's certainly a legitimate opinion. But I think there's another question. Considering how down to the wire this is, is it really worth holding up everything else contained in the bill when the point of contention, the public option, is as measly as it is?
]]>Though the crazy has gotten pretty crazy. So it's a steep climb.
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