As a New Hampshire resident, I am ashamed and angry to say that Judd Gregg, Senator from this state, is leading the effort to derail health care reform in the Senate. He has written and distributed a guide to using procedural details in lawmaking to stop the Senate from even voting on reform. Although Gregg won't be running for re-election next year, the likely Republican candidate, Kelly Ayotte has endorsed Gregg's guidelines.
If you want to raise your blood pressure, here is the text of the guidelies Gregg has distributed to every Republican Senator.
http://www.adobe.com/...
One of Gregg's deadly suggestions is to add lots of amendments to the health care bill. Each amendment requires debate and a vote and each can be an occasion for a filibuster. Although the Democrats won the vote for cloture on the issue of whether to begin debate, it was won by the minimum number of votes possible, 60, with not a single Republican voting for cloture. It would only take one lost cloture vote to prevent passing health care reform for a long time, perhaps until the fed up voters kick out even more Republicans out of the Senate. Certainly Paul Hodes, Democratic candidate for the Senate would do a better job representing the interests of the people of NH better than Gregg or Ayotte.
There is something that can be done, if Reid has the guts. As majority leader of the Senate he can fill the limited number of amendment slots before the bill comes to the floor. This was done a number of times by the Republicans when they were in power in order to pass their agenda over the votes of the Democrats. Our more socially conscious Democrats usually don't do this as it makes it look as if we don't want to listen to the other side. However, when the Republican's aren't acting in good faith to come up with the best bill possible, not listening to them makes perfect sense. It isn't as if they are going to vote yes to anything proposed. They've got their hands over their ears and are going lalalalalalala as loudly as they can. Meanwhile people are needlessly suffering and dying while the Republicans seek health care lobby dollars.
I suspect that Judd Gregg has a new job when he leaves the Senate that pays very well. Could he be working for some health care firm? I wonder.
Here again is the link to Gregg's guidelines: If you cannot open the PDF attachment, get the free Acrobat Reader:
http://www.adobe.com/...