ObamaCare: the Stupak bloc and the process

posted at 2:24 pm on March 10, 2010 by Karl
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The two most immediate obstacles to ObamaCare are the “Stupak bloc” of pro-life Democrats and procedural obstacles caused by (a) the mutual distrust among House and Senate Dems; and (b) the election of Scott Brown in the Senate. Although the first is probably more exciting to readers than the second, there is enough overlap to consider their synergy.

Indeed, Rep. Stupak seems to be tying policy and process together — and not just on abortion:

Stupak highlighted other problems with the bill: The president’s proposal has not been translated into legislative language and it still leaves some special deals in place. “If you look at the President’s proposal,” Stupak said, “it says that the Cornhusker agreement is out, but the Louisiana Purchase is in.”

“Members don’t have a whole lot of appetite to vote for the Senate bill as a stand alone bill–that’s for sure,” Stupak said. “If you’re going to correct these inequities in the Senate bill, you better tie bar it to something. No one wants to vote for a freestanding bill so they can be accused of voting for a special deal for Nebraska on Medicaid.”

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“You have to tie-bar it or substitute it or something,” Stupak said of the legislation. By “tie-bar,” Stupak means that all the fixes, including his amendment on abortion, would pass or fail all at the same time. Stupak says that congressional leaders are “going back and forth in different ways” to find a compromise. But again, “it is so confusing,” he said, “on what the parliamentary procedures are going to be” to make the fixes.

These sorts of concerns are probably why the House is considering using a “self-executing rule” to avoid an actual vote on the Senate bill:

Under this scenario, the Senate bill would be automatically attached to the reconciliation package, if the House passes reconciliation. In other words, Bill A would just become part of Bill B if the House passes Bill B, and the Senate could then vote on a reconciliation package before sending it to the president. This allows House members to approve the broader measure without actually voting on it.

The most immediate hitch to the “Slaughter solution” is that the House and Senate parliamentarians may rule it out of bounds by ruling that Pres. Obama must sign the underlying bill into law before reconciliation can occur. Whether that hurdle can be jumped by extraordinary measures (e.g., having VP Joe Biden overrule the Senate parliamentarian) remains unclear.

Second, if you are thinking that this type of procedure cannot address abortion — on the ground that abortion policy cannot be done through budget reconciliation — you would be wrong, sort of.

The Stupak abortion language could be inserted in a reconciliation bill, but would be subject to a point of order. The House may waive a point of order by majority vote, which raises the question of whether a House Republican would raise a point of order, and how the House GOP would vote on it, given that the House GOP supported the Stupak amendment in the first instance.

The more obvious obstacle is the Senate, where a pro-choice Republican like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, or even Scott Brown could raise the point of order — which requires 60 votes to waive (under the so-called “Byrd rule”). The Stupak language, when last offered by Sen. Ben Nelson, failed in the Senate by a 54-45 vote. Waiving the point of order in the Senate would almost certainly require cooperation from the GOP.

Could the Senate Dems get that cooperation? Senate Republican leaders signaled Tuesday that they plan to object to any abortion language included in a proposed reconciliation package — even if they agree with the provision on policy grounds. The House GOP supported the Stupak amendment under pressure from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Right to Life Committee. The Bishops have said they would work to get a sidebar bill through the Senate. But NRLC and other pro-life groups are reportedly working to get every House member possible to vote against the Senate bill, precisely because there are not enough votes to ban abortion funding in the Senate.

All of which means that the fate of ObamaCare may well rest on the ability of House Dems to force pro-life Dems to cave. Rep. Dale Kildee already has. Had the House GOP voted “present” on the Stupak amendment in the first instance, the bill would have died, or the right and pro-lifers could already have been targeting people like Kildee. As it stands now, no one knows how many Kildees are lurking in the shadows.

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Update: Jay Cost looks at what happens if Dems do not pursue the Slaughter Solution, in which case he deems the GOP threat non-credible.

Update: After getting an earful from pro-lifers, Kildee’s legislative staffer says the media reports were inaccurate, and that the representative has not decided to vote for the Senate language bill. Which doesn’t mean that he’s a “no,” but demonstrates the value of identifying and pressuring faux-lifers.

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