Nancy Pelosi is talking a confident game. The House Speaker says she has the votes to pass health care. In fact, she says there’s “no question” she has the votes to pass health care.
In a meeting with health care reporters yesterday, she said passing health care will be considerably easier than some of the other issues that, despite an impressive Democratic majority, she’s had to muscle past with elbow grease.
“Health care is not the hardest vote I’ve had this year,” she said. “Not by far.”
That was the [war] supplemental. That was the worst. Energy was a heavy lift…. But we had never thought we’d have to do another supplemental. Not that we would have to vote for. But then the president brought home the IMF and Republicans all took a hike. Then we were stuck with it. Oh brother!
Blue Dogs dispute that interpretation, of course. But Pelosi’s the one with a lot to lose here–and you wonder why she’d be going out on such a limb if she wasn’t pretty confident. At the same time, though, it’s not clear now when that vote will come. It’s still feasible that the House could pass a bill before adjourning in August. But unless the Senate delays its own recess, or delays a vote on the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor, or both, the chances of holding a vote in the upper chamber before September look all but vanished. And it’s feasible that House leaders will want to delay its vote as well, in order not to put their members’ necks out ahead of a politically fraught recess.
