Speaker Pelosi: "There is a Path," Crash the Gate!!!

President Obama in the State of the Union speech showed he would continue to fight for health insurance reform:

"Do not walk away from reform," he said. "Not now. Not when we are so close."

Following up on President Obama's strong words of "no quit" on health insurance reform, Speaker Pelosi is showing the determination and fight needed to pass a good bill:

"You go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in. But we’re going to get health care reform passed for the American people."

The Plum Line: Pelosi: Obama’s Health Care Appeal "Very Powerful" And "Helpful To Us"

"There is a path" to getting it done. It's "majority rule" to fix the bill and to pass both and send to President Obama.

Speaker Pelosi welcomes the President's strong words of fight:

"I think that the President’s, not only his appeal to pass it but his explanation to the American people as to what the possibilities were was a very powerful statement that will be helpful to us," Pelosi said.

The Plum Line: Pelosi: Obama’s Health Care Appeal "Very Powerful" And "Helpful To Us"

From her press conference, she lays out the path to success on reform:

So what I’m saying to you is, Senate bill standalone, I don’t see any chance for it. Reconciliation, resolving some of the issues, then we can pass this thing. There’s a path, there is a path –

E.J. Dionne. What I understand to be the case is that, you are now at the point in the House where with this dual track strategy you may actually be close to assembling majority, it’s only if the Senate passes the reconciliation bill, sends it to you so you can trust that it’s there –

Speaker Pelosi. No, whatever the order is, but the whole thing has to be finished, with the reconciliation House and the Senate, before we take up the Senate bill.

snip

Speaker Pelosi. Well they don’t know, but let me talk about that point, because you hear people say, well I don’t like doing majority vote. Well if they’re not going to do majority vote on this, you know, I don’t know how much is going to be accomplished in the Senate, because if reconciliation rules which are established for this purpose — now, recall that many people, Democrats and Republicans all supported — not all of them, but both — supported President Bush five times on his reconciliation bills, President Clinton passed welfare reform, President Reagan COBRA and his tax cuts, President Bush his tax cuts.

So some good, some not so good, but nonetheless, for the Republicans to be saying, oh my gosh, this is extraordinary and exotic. No, no, no, it’s the regular order for when you’re doing a budget bill or something that has those ramifications. And so I think it’s really important for each of you to be a messenger to the public to say this is the regular order. 60 votes for a Mother’s Day resolution and everything else in between is not the regular order, that’s an obstruction.

So this is the kind of event, legislative event, that the reconciliation was established for. Now it has its constraints, the Byrd rule in the Senate, we could do more reconciliation than they could, but we can’t because it has to pass the Senate and then — so you have the discipline of it plus the Byrd rule on top of it, so it narrows the number of things you can do. Doesn’t mean some senators aren’t calling me and saying, put the public option in the reconciliation. You know, you can’t do that, you couldn’t pass it in the Senate, that’s not one of the things that falls into that category.

Transcript of Nancy Pelosi Press Conference  

There is a path and we can help make it happen.

Karen Tumulty at Time Magazine explains how the "majority rule" path (a.k.a. sidecar reconciliation) would work:

But a top Pelosi aide I talked to told me that this is entirely doable. Here's how the sequencing could work: The House and Senate would pass the reconciliation legislation first, then the House would pass the Senate version of the health care bill. But the Senate health bill would be sent to Obama's desk first, and signed into law. The President would then sign the reconciliation bill, revising the original health care bill.

Here's what we can do to make it happen.  Call a Democratic Senator and tell them that you want the bill fixed through majority rule (reconciliation)  We only need 50 for reconciliation to fix the bill!

The Senate is broken.  Tell them you are sick of the obstruction.  You want MAJORITY RULE and you know they can do it through reconciliation.  No more excuses from the broken Senate.

Contact information for individual Senators. You can also call the Capitol switchboard at [phone] and ask to be connected to your Senator.

[WE NEED TO LIGHT A FIRE UNDER THE SENATORS' ASSES.  NOW!!!!!!
WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE! MAJORITY RULE. NOW!!! !!]

1-800 numbers for Capitol switchboard

1 888 436-8427
1-800-828-0498

(h/t to Leema in the comments for these)

Capitol switchboard: [phone]

Akaka, Daniel  - (D - HI)
[phone]
E-mail:  [e-mail]

Baucus, Max  - (D - MT)
[phone]
Web Form:  baucus.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Bayh, Evan - (D - IN)
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Begich, Mark (D - AK)
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Bennet, Michael  - (D - CO)
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Bingaman, Jeff - (D - NM)
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Boxer, Barbara  - (D - CA)
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Brown, Sherrod  - (D - OH)
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Burris, Roland  - (D - IL)
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Byrd, Robert  - (D - WV)
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Cantwell, Maria - (D - WA)
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Cardin, Ben - (D - MD)
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Carper, Thomas - (D - DE)
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Casey, Robert P., Jr. - (D - PA)
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Conrad, Kent  - (D - ND)
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Dodd, Christopher - (D – CT)
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Dorgan, Byron - (D - ND)
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Durbin, Richard - (D - IL)
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Feingold, Russell  - (D - WI)
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Feinstein, Dianne - (D - CA)
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Web Form:  feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.Home

Franken, Al - (D - MN)
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Gillibrand, Kirsten - (D - NY)
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Hagan, Kay - (D - NC)
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Harkin, Tom - (D - IA)
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Inouye, Daniel - (D - HI)
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Johnson, Tim  - (D - SD)
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Kirk, Paul - (D - MA)
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Kohl, Herb - (D - WI)
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Klobuchar, Amy - (D - MN)
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Landrieu, Mary  - (D - LA)
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Lautenberg, Frank - (D – NJ)
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Leahy, Patrick - (D - VT)
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Levin, Carl - (D - MI)
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Lincoln, Blanche - (D - AR)
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McCaskill, Claire - (D - MO)
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Menendez, Robert - (D - NJ)
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Merkley, Jeff - (D - OR)
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Web Form:  merkley.senate.gov/contact/

Mikulski, Barbara - (D - MD)
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Murray, Patty  - (D - WA)
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Nelson, Bill - (D - FL)
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Nelson, Ben - (D - NE)
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Pryor, Mark - (D - AR)
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Reed, Jack - (D - RI)
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Reid, Harry - (D - NV)
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Rockefeller, John - (D - WV)
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Sanders, Bernie - (I - VT)
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Schumer, Charles - (D - NY)
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Shaheen, Jeanne - (D - NH)
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Specter, Arlen - (D - PA)
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Stabenow, Debbie - (D - MI)
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Tester, Jon - (D - MT)
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Udall, Mark - (D - CO)
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Udall, Tom - (D - NM)
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Warner, Mark - (D - VA)
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Webb, Jim - (D - VA)
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Whitehouse, Sheldon - (D - RI)
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Wyden, Ron - (D - OR)
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Web Form:  wyden.senate.gov/contact/

We need to be as determined a Speaker Pelosi:

"You go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in. But we’re going to get health care reform passed for the American people."

Update I: Revised the title to refer to Markos' book, "Crashing the Gate" because it fit her quote.  We have to crash, go through, jump over, do whatever it takes, and we can make change!  

Update II: President Obama reminded us all of something last night:

But remember this: I never suggested that change would be easy or that I could do it alone. Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That's just how it is.

snip

We don't quit. I don't quit. Let's seize this moment, to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.

Let's show him we have his back and we are fighting with him for a good bill!