Senate Democrats are looking to force Jim Bunning, who has single handedly blocked a bill extending unemployment insurance benefits (amongst other provisions) causing them to lapse on Sunday, into an actual filibuster. Well, sort of. Roll Call reports that Dems are lining up a series of senators who will attempt to move for a vote on the …
Senate
Bunning Budges?
Third Floor U.S. Senate
The GOP Senate conference is downstairs having their weekly policy lunch on the second floor of the Senate. I hear Kentucky’s Jim Bunning is getting an earful in the meeting and rumors are swirling that he may cave and accept Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s offer to have a vote on his plan to use stimulus …
Health Care Endgame: A Timeline
Inside Heath Policy (pay wall) gets a peek at a Democratic memo nailing down specific target dates for passing health reform. The three steps outlined in the missive largely track with what we already know to be the most realistic path to passage, and they gel with the Easter recess deadline being bandied about by Democrats and …
Morning Must Reads
–As if Blanche Lincoln’s re-election effort wasn’t hard enough already, it just got worse for the Senator. Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, a fellow Democrat, just threw his hat into the ring for a primary challenge.
–Jim DeMint continues to seek a role as conservative king-maker in Republican Senate primaries, setting up an …
Morning Must Reads
–Paterson’s friends are leaning on him to abandon his campaign, while the never subtle Post and Daily News trumpet “Time To Go.”
–As Michael mentioned, Charlie Rangel is being officially admonished by the House for an ethics violation stemming from a failure to disclose financial details of some Caribbean trips. The Times has the …
A Last Word On The Health Care Summit
Common ground? Not so much. Here’s my story for TIME.com.
Bunning Hijacks the Senate
I didn’t think it was possible for Senator Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, to get more unpopular with his colleagues: he was forced, feet dragging, to announce he wouldn’t run for reelection after fellow Kentuckian and minority leader Mitch McConnell wouldn’t even endorse him. But tonight, he is pariah to a whole new level. …
Morning Must Reads
–Robert Gibbs insists today’s health care summit won’t be “kabuki theater.” Biden goes off message and says it might.
–Mike Allen has an excerpt of Pelosi’s opening remarks.
–Mark Blumenthal reminds us that not too many people actually watch these things.
–It looks like Michael Bennet’s public option letter may have panned …
Why Olympia Snowe Won’t be There and Other Summit-Related News
Can you feel the excitement in the air? Cable news can. There was a flurry of health care-related news today, most of it summit specific.
For starters, this morning, the White House specifically invited Olympia Snowe to the event. (She is the only Senate Republican to have cast a vote in favor of health reform in 2009 – for the Senate …
Broken Government: Term Limits
As Karen and Michael noted we all did stories for the Broken Government project with our sister company CNN. Mine was on term limits (thank you deconstructiva for reminding me to post). Love ’em or hate ’em, they aren’t likely to happen any time soon as, thanks to a 1995 Supreme Court ruling, it’ll take a constitutional amendment to enact them.
Midday Reads
–A CNN poll finds 67 percent of Americans say congressional Republicans aren’t doing enough to foster bipartisanship, and they are about split on whether Obama is reaching out in good faith. It seems highly improbable tomorrow’s kabuki health reform summit moves the needle.
—Greg Sargent argues that in the end, voters are more …
Jobs Bill Passes Senate
The Senate just passed Harry Reid’s jobs bill 70-28. Reid plans on repeating this strategy over and over and over again till Election Day. Okay, maybe not Election Day – but definitely until Easter recess.
And Speaking of Reconciliation…
NPR’s Julie Rovner debunks Republican claims that this process has never before been used to make sweeping changes in health care law. Indeed, the COBRA law that allows those who lose their jobs to continue buying their employer’s coverage is actually an acronym for (*cough*) Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 …