We’ve written a lot about the controversy over whether the Democrats will try to pass big Obama agenda items (most notably health reform) via the budget reconciliation process. But one dynamic that’s presented itself in the last week is the schism, of sorts, between Democratic legislators who strongly oppose the maneuver and those who oppose it in general but want to keep the option on the table. How many in that latter category would agree to support it (however reluctantly) if, months down the line, after a long debate, Republicans refuse to sign on to a bipartisan and comprehensive health reform bill?
At a news conference yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a fairly full-throated endorsement of the idea: “I believe that it is absolutely essential that we come out of this year with a substantial health-care reform,” Pelosi said. “I believe that is best served by having reconciliation in the package.”
Earlier this week her deputy, Steny Hoyer, released a flyer attacking powerful Republicans who’ve flip flopped since the days when they supported Bush efforts to ram his agenda through using the same process. And on the senate side, Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that he’s not prepared to “take anything off the table.”
Ted Kennedy is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee and the face of health reform in the Senate. But he’s also battling brain cancer and has been unable to take as active a role in legislation as he would have under different circumstances.
That’s left an opening for Chris Dodd, HELP’s ranking Democrat, who issued a statement to me today aligning himself with Reid and the House leadership:
“Everyone’s preference is to enact comprehensive health care reform with broad bipartisan support, with no need to use reconciliation. That being said, health care reform is too important an issue not to be done this year; we cannot allow the objections of a handful of people to thwart our efforts on something this important. As we begin grappling with the toughest of issues in health reform in a bipartisan setting, I believe we need to keep all our options on the table.
That’s a lot of firepower! But arrayed against it are powerful Democrats who strongly oppose using the tactic under any circumstances — most notably, Senate Budget committee chairman Kent Conrad–whose budget resolution did not include a directive to use reconciliation–says it’s a non-starter. Nobody’s yet asked Conrad if he thinks the reconciliation option is so verboten that he’d rather health reform wait another year (or more) than see it passed under those conditions. I’ve placed numerous calls and emails to his office about that very question, but none have been returned.
Significantly, Conrad is joined by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), whose powerful Senate Finance committee is the committee of jurisdiction over health care, and who has taken an early lead in inter-body negotiations over the ultimate shape of reform. He wants reconciliation instructions kept out of the budget altogether. His spokesman, Dan Virkstis, told me today, “he believes that reconciliation would be bad for health care reform,” though he wouldn’t say one way or another whether Baucus would oppose a reconciliation bill, complete with health reform legislation, if it came to the floor for a vote.
In between the two factions is Sen. Ron Wyden, a finance committee member, and author of a universal health care bill, which is viewed with suspicion by many progressives, but has over a dozen bipartisan cosponsors. I spoke with him today about the possibility that health reform might not happen without reconciliation.
Wyden took issue with that assumption, insisting that comprehensive reform could pass on its own, and with the support of several Republicans. But he was very adamant that health reform would not be lasting if it wasn’t bipartisan. “To pass enduring reform, it needs to be bipartisan,” Wyden said, though his justification for that belief is somewhat vague: “The history of big issues is you’ve gotta find some common ground and I think there is common ground.”
Still, he refused to engage in any speculation about the question of reconciliation itself. “I’m not going to speculate about any of that, reconciliation being on the table, off the table,” he said. “I strongly support the presidents push to do this this year.”
Yet, on either side of him sit senators with stronger positions on that question, and, as such, Wyden’s role may ultimately have less to do with bringing Republicans over to the cause of health reform than it does with bridging a growing divide between Capitol Hill’s most powerful Democrats.
Late Update: An aide to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)–a member of the finance committee–emails to say, “Senator Kerry believes that we have to reserve the right to use reconciliation, but it is not his preference to do it that way.”
