The House returned to session yesterday, and I was there to greet them as they came back. Some of you will recall that the House was asked to take a tough vote on health care (like climate change before), and then turn things over to the Senate. The House did their part, then went home for the holidays.
While House members were at home getting an earful from their constituents (both left and right), the Senate got to work on their bill. Eventually, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, and to a lesser extent, Olympia Snowe, got what they needed and passed a bill most progressives think sucks pretty hard. But hey... Something passed, at that was a big accomplishment.
So the Senate went home and for the next few weeks, the media has been telling us that since there are no spare votes in the Senate, their bill will be the foundation of whatever finally emerges for the President's signature.
One problem with that: it seems nobody asked the House.
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Yesterday, I caught up with a quite a few Democratic members. Some were willing to give me a statement, but a lot more were only willing to speak on background.
They are pissed.
They were asked to cast a tough vote on health care. They came up with what they consider to be a pretty damned good bill. And now, the House, the co-equal branch of our bicameral legislature that is closest to the people, is being asked to accept irrelevancy? They are being told only the Senate matters?
Virtually every single Representative I spoke with chaffed at the idea. It's not an idea being swallowed easily by the caucus. Divisions over policy within the Democratic caucus are common and often intense. But this is not policy, and here, Democratic House members are strikingly united in taking affront to the assumptions that underly the idea that the House will cave to the Senate bill. Members of the Blue Dogs, New Democrats, Progressive Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus, and at least two unaffiliated members each expressed varying levels of dismay at the idea.
One of the members willing to speak out was Rep. Peter Defazio (D, OR). His statement needs to be seen to be believed:
Here's the transcript:
DEFAZIO: I think the Senate bill is a disaster. I mean, anybody who’s watching this noticed that insurance industry stocks has gone up since the Senate bill passed, because It gives them a lot of new customers and no meaningful controls. They took out my language stripping the industry of the anti-trust immunity. They established meaningless, spineless weak state exchanges instead of a national exchange.
They want to tax union workers and others who have good health insurance. Those are all total non-startes with me and I believe with other members of the caucus, and I think, you know, I mean, we can play the same game as the Senate. “You know gee, we’ve got to have a bill Joe Lieberman likes”…. well they’ve only got two votes to spare in the House. so I think this is going to be a tougher negotiation than they think.
STARK: And when you say it’s a non-starter with a lot of members of the caucus, what that translates to is, not vote?
DEFAZIO I have been in Oregon, I’ve only talked to a few people on the phone. But there are a number of people upset with the direction this is going, and we don’t feel like we need to be jammed by the Administration who is just in a hurry to get something on the checklist for the State of the Union. We’ve got to get it right, and if that means standing up to the Senate, then we’ve going to do that. I hope.
STARK: Congressman I don’t think I’d be doing my job if I didn’t convey the thanks and appreciation from the progressive community that’s really concerned about retaining a Democratic majority and see disaster on the horizon…
DEFAZIO: Well meaningful Democratic majority that does things Democrats should be doing, it would be good.
Over at StarkReports.com, I've got additional statements from Rep. Joe Courtney and Emmanuel Cleaver. Both had interesting things to say; come on over and check it out.