(February 18, 2009 - Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images North America)
With closed doors meetings anonymously highlighting the healthcare debate this week, many have filled their time playing the numbers game of calculating potential votes as legislation moves toward the floors of both Houses. Dem’s are clambering to maintain their filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes in the Senate, but the Public Option appears to be a formidable foe even for the Party thought to universally want it. The problem rests with two or three senators either way essentially that can shift the power in the Senate on this issue alone. A handful of moderate Democrats are thought to oppose the public option and only one Republican has intimated that she might be able to support it.
The real problem for Democrats however, is the gaggle of Senators who have taken the position that they will not support any bill that doesn’t have it. One of these is the much-maligned Senator from Illinois, Roland Burris who only now has earned the attention of his colleagues. In an interview with the Associated Press(via MSNBC), Burris said “I would not support a bill that does not have a public option.” He went on to add that his “position will not change.” If he is true to his word, a public option may be a requirement for super-majority support rather than an option open for debate. If this is the case, you can count bipartisan out at the onset – and no Olympia Snowe does not count.
I think there is no doubt that Senators like Burris stand to be the dealbreakers on this issue. I am not convinced that he has the political clout to stand alone on this in the Senate, but one vote may give him just that power. The more likely scenario is that there will be 4-5 senators who find themselves in his position blocking a plan democrats would have dreamed for ten years ago. How far we have come in just a decade.
sorry to follow you yet again John,but I have to tell you that I think one vote will be all that Republicans need to find courage to oppose the bill 100%. Snow cannot abandon them for the other side if their own do not support it.
I think you are giving Snowe far too much credit. Public option dems can vote no and allow the bill to pass without them substituted by her vote which she will consider a victory in compromise because the public option was avoided.
[...] reportedly drafted the change in plans with 10 Senate Democrats- 5 “moderates” and 5 liberals, so we could probably assume that he has now secured the support of his entire caucus. That would [...]