TPMDC’s update on the biggest legislative initiatives on the Hill:
- Health Care: A staffer leaked some preliminary details of the public option Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee plan to include in their reform legislation. Those details imply a significant retreat from the bold plan the committee intended to offer at the outset of the process, but still leave room for a robust public insurance option. Still unknown: whether those details will be acceptable to Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) who’s been unwilling up until now to accept a public option, and whose vote may be required to move the bill out of committee.
- Senate politics: This doesn’t really belong under the “legislative initiatives” rubric, but it will impact all of them, and much, much more. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Sen.-elect Al Franken, and Norm Coleman conceded defeat. Franken will likely be seated next week, becoming the Democrats’ 60th caucus member–which, as we’ve detailed before, will change Senate politics and legislative math in a number of ways.
