In my last post, I railed against the 60 vote frame and outlined the “nuclear option” procedure which allows escape from that requirement for passing reform and also makes clear that the frame that 60 votes are necessary is at best a half-truth, and at worst a lie. Of course, I didn’t expect that post to change the world, or even have much influence on it. That post, and previous ones I’ve done on the subject of the filibuster are just the best I can do to try to change it. They’re an obligation. Part of a longer term effort to do my part to restore a vanishing democracy in the United States. This post, too, is part of that effort.
The 60-vote frame is just as vigorous this week as it was last week. Ceci Connolly, a prominent member of WaPo’s “framing” (i.e. “reporting”) health care team, today characterized the Senate’s problem as one of stitching together a complex bill that would somehow include something that could be called a PO, but still be capable of getting 60 votes. The frame has shifted slightly from a few weeks ago, because the latest polling results at WaPo show a steady rise in support for the PO since August. But I guess the support for it is not high enough, as we’ll see, to lead the Post to do a good job of explaining, the existence of alternatives to the 60 vote frame.
In the paper itself today, Connolly and Shailagh Murray addressed the question: “Why does everyone keep talking about 60 votes in the Senate?” Their answer, reflects their bias toward the necessity of the 60 vote story frame they repeat again and again to the public.
”Sixty is the magic number needed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. On paper, Democrats have 60 votes. But to reach that threshold, they will need Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), who has been in frail health, and independent Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and Bernard Sanders (Vt.).
“Further complicating the math, a handful of centrist Democrats say they are not yet sold on the health-care bills approved by two Senate committees. The narrow margin helps explain why the White House and Democratic leaders have aggressively courted Snowe as a possible crossover vote.
”Democrats have a procedural fallback — a maneuver known as “reconciliation,” which requires a simple majority. However, parliamentary experts say it is not clear that Democrats could achieve the sweeping health-care reform Obama envisions under this approach. Reconciliation is reserved for legislation related to the budget.”
Connolly’s and Murray’s answer to the question is both biased toward the 60 vote frame, and also incomplete. Their discussion of reconciliation is biased because it tacitly assumes that 1) Democrats must pass “the sweeping health care reform Obama envisions,” rather than some other sweeping reform bill, even though it is not yet clear exactly what that sweeping reform contains, and 2) the reform must be passed in a single bill under reconciliation rather than multiple related bills. I’ve proposed a strategy Democrats could follow under reconciliation some time ago that would require only 51 votes for the aspects of reform that are more controversial and likely to be opposed by Republicans and Democrats; while other less controversial aspects of reform would then be passed in separate bills with 60 votes.
Apart from the biased introduced by unnecessarily constraining assumptions, their answer is incomplete because it ignores the “nuclear option.” Using it, a controversial bill could be passed using 50 votes from Senators plus the Vice President’s vote. My last post outlines the procedure. Objective reporting would have mentioned its existence and pointed out that it lies within the Democrats’ capability to use it, and that so far they have chosen not to. Of course, since WaPo is opposed to using the “nuclear option,” its “reporters” don’t even mention that the Democrats could choose to use and escape the 60 vote burden; not just for health care reform, but for the rest of the Democrats’ agenda as well.
To end this post, I’m going to repeat what I said in my last post because the 60 vote frame continues to be so important, as illustrated not only by WaPo today, but by almost every discussion we see in the MSM so far this week.
”What we should be doing now is generating a deafening blog chorus about the Democrats having the power to remove the 60 vote requirement in favor of the constitutional 51 vote one, by getting rid of the filibuster once and for all. But we are not doing that. Instead we are accepting the legitimacy of the filibuster and discussing the arcana of navigating the PO through what may prove to be multiple 60-vote barriers, before even a very weakened PO can finally emerge. What kind of progressivism is this?
”Let’s spotlight the fact that the Democrats can get rid of it, and pass not only health insurance reform, but much else besides and get it spread throughout the left blogosphere. And let’s break through the MSM conspiracy of silence on this subject and get them to begin talking about it too. We need to get this idea out. It’s very important to have people look squarely at the fact that we can have much better health care reform, if not single-payer, enhanced Medicare for All, immediately, if Democrats are willing to give up the filibuster. So which is more important to them, and to Harry Reid, and Barack Obama, the filibuster, or a health insurance reform with a strong PO?”
(Also posted at firedoglake.com where there may be more comments)