Update: Lawrence O'Donnell on "Countdown" just reported that the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled against the GOP on what they thought would be their "silver bullet" argument, the impact of the excise tax on Social Security revenues.
Kudos to Speaker Pelosi and the rest of the House of Representatives for last night's historic vote. But, as Rep. Weiner says, we're not done yet. The Senate has to pass the reconciliation package, and do it in the face of more Republican obstruction. Greg Sargent:
It’s going to get its first big test today. Staffers for the GOP and Dem Senate leadership are set to sit down this afternoon with the Senate parliamentarian and each make their case on the GOP’s first effort to stick a stake in the heart of reconciliation, staffers say.
Specifically: GOP staffers will argue to the parliamentarian, Alan Frumin, that the so-called "Cadillac" tax would have an impact on Social Security revenues, a GOP aide says. They will further argue that this should trigger a so-called "point of order," which, under arcane Senate rules, would mean it would require a 60 vote threshold.
Both parties have presented their case to the parliamentarian, who has yet to rule, the Sargent reports that Dems are confident they will prevail. But as Rep. Weiner notes, the pressure can't be let up on them. While Reid promised Pelosi that he had 52 votes in support of reconciliation, those 52 Senators so far haven't been willing to go public [sub req] "because many Democratic Senators are squeamish about sticking their necks out before the House has passed the bill."
Now that 219 House members stuck their necks out to vote for the flawed Senate bill, getting the fixes passed and the entire package signed into law is critical. So if you spent the last week calling your representative, spend some time in the next few days calling your Senators (yeah, no need to bother with the Republicans) to make sure they'll be there to back up their House colleagues.
Unfortunately, to finish this, it'll have to happen without further Democratic amendments, which means for the purposes of this legislation, the public option is dead, as are any number of potential improvements to the effort. But it's not plausible to think that the House will again go through convulsions like we saw this weekend to pass--again--a bill. Which would have to happen if this bill were to be amended again.
That doesn't mean, however, that we don't hold Tom Harkin and Harry Reid to their promise of following up on the public option. In the meantime, though, there's something they can do to prove their stated intention to continue improving this bill: scheduling a vote on the antitrust exemption repeal that the House passed last month.
