Author: David Dayen

Last night, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office confirmed that Eric Massa, the freshman Democrat who will retire from Congress after only one term, citing health reasons, faces an allegation of “misconduct” charges from a former male staffer. However, the AP would not characterize the allegation beyond that. Further, the New York Times story on the retirement would only say there was an allegation that he “harassed” a member of his staff. This is consistent with Massa’s take that he used “salty language” on occasion.

Massa’s office had a bit of turnover, but nobody that I have discussed this with has found it as much more than a former Navy man yelling colorfully.

The word missing from both the NYT and AP stories is “sexually,” as in “sexually harassed,” what the Politico used to describe this based on anonymous sources before Massa announced his retirement. Somewhere along the line, that got dropped, but not before Politico titillated DC and conjured up a series of comparisons to Mark Foley, basically besmirching the good name of a guy who had his third cancer recurrence scare in December.

This is a guy who was told in 1996 that he wouldn’t last six months. He survived, but now must leave Congress as a result. And Politico thinks it’s completely cool to slap him with the male predator label, when this allegation, which basically can be made by anyone, has been described in such a way by the major media today as more like someone Massa yelled at too much.

To be fair, they did win the afternoon.

Tags: Eric Massa, establishment media, NY-29, Politico

 

Almost more astonishing than the fact that Jim Bunning spent a week blocking a short-term extension of unemployment benefits is the fact that 19 Republican Senators actually voted no on the final bill. Meteor Blades has the list:

Lamar Alexander, John Barasso, Bob Bennett, Jim Bunning, Richard Burr, Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, John Cornyn, Mike Crapo, Jim DeMint, John Ensign, Mike Enzi, Judd Gregg, Orrin Hatch, Mike Johanns, Mitch McConnell, James Risch, Jeff Sessions and John Thune.

As you can see, this includes the Senate Republican leader and its #3 in the leadership, Lamar Alexander. The former head of the Republican campaign arm in the Senate, John Ensign, as well as the CURRENT head, John Cornyn, a guy who said that Bunning’s action did reflect the opinion in the caucus, also joined Bunning.

But I want to zero in on one other vote – North Carolina’s Richard Burr. It’s simply amazing that Burr would gift-wrap this vote for his opponents in a year when he’s facing difficult re-election prospects.

Elaine Marshall, the leading Democratic candidate at the moment, wasted no time in blasting Burr for his vote. “Richard Burr has turned his back on 400,000 unemployed North Carolinians,” she said. “For many of these people and their families, the extension was a lifeline. Senator Burr has shown a disturbing lack of compassion for his fellow citizens. He is clearly out of touch with the people he represents.”

There aren’t all that many Republicans in serious trouble for re-election. In fact, the list begins and mostly ends with Burr. How could he possibly take this vote? You can only conclude that he really believes that people who are unemployed because of an historic recession rather than their own abilities or skills don’t deserve any help. I think this won’t be the last time we hear about this.

Tags: 2010 Election, Democrats, Elaine Marshall, North Carolina, Republicans, Richard Burr, unemployment insurance

 

Every living cast member of Saturday Night Live who played one of the US Presidents appeared in a video directed by Ron Howard, urging President Obama (in this case Fred Armisen) to push for a standalone Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Howard replaced the late Phil Hartman, who portrayed Ronald Reagan on SNL, with Jim Carrey.

This is a difficult time for the CFPA, which may get sited inside the Federal Reserve, the body that had consumer financial protection responsibility already and ignored that mandate consistently over the years. While some see this as a breakthrough, House and Senate Democrats reacted unfavorably to the CFPA-to-the-Fed plan, which as Harold Meyerson notes today “could be like putting the Food and Drug Administration inside, say, Pfizer.”

As the banks continue to own Washington, this effort is designed to raise awareness to a broader audience about the obscure CFPA policy. The end of the video pushes to a website for the Main Street Brigade, and urges viewers to contact their Senators. Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition not unlike what HCAN is to the health care debate, helped with the video.

In the sketch, Barack Obama (Fred Armisen) is visited by George W. Bush (Will Ferrell), Bill Clinton (Darrell Hammond), George H.W. Bush (Dana Carvey), Reagan (Carrey), Jimmy Carter (Dan Aykroyd) and Gerald Ford (Chevy Chase), all of whom implore him to pass an independent agency that would protect consumers from predatory activities on banking, mortgages and credit cards.

Former SNL writer Adam McKay and Simpsons writer Al Jean penned the script.

[Ed. Note: Lisa has more at La Figa.]

Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, CFPA, Chevy Chase, comedy, Dan Aykroyd, Dana Carvey, Darrell Hammond, financial industry, George W. Bush, Jim Carrey, Jimmy Carter, Maya Rudolph, Regulations, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, SNL, Will Ferrell

 

Throughout the next two months, we will hear a common complaint from Blanche Lincoln as she runs for re-election against Bill Halter: that outside interests are coming into Arkansas and telling the people who should represent them. Surely she’ll say that about MoveOn.org, national labor groups, and the Sierra Club, which just launched a series of IE ads in Arkansas.

Of course, it’s the Arkansas chapter of the Sierra Club objecting to Lincoln’s support for stopping the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. And similarly, the state AFL-CIO, the local coalition for working Arkansans, just endorsed Halter in the primary.

The Arkansas AFL-CIO says it’s backing Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s bid against Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the Democratic primary.

Arkansas AFL-CIO President Alan Hughes says the union’s executive board voted to support Halter. The union backed Lincoln in her re-election bid in 2004, but had soured on her because of her positions on health care and key union organizing legislation.

Lincoln is no stranger to support from outside the state. Her joining with Lisa Murkowski to block the EPA regulations may be due to hundreds of thousands of dollars from electric utilities. And her contribution list reveals a litany of outside money. But the strongest rebuttal to her argument about extremist outsiders can be made by the state President of the AFL-CIO, who once backed Lincoln. Arkansas has seen its labor population dwindle, but the optics matter to knock down Lincoln’s narrative.

UPDATE: Here’s outsider coastal elite Bob Menendez of the DC outsider Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee supporting Blanche Lincoln.

Tags: AFL-CIO, AR-Sen, Arkansas, Bill Halter, Blanche Lincoln, endorsements, primary race, state labor coalition

 

This is very good news, if true. Republicans frequently gun for Pete Stark because he’s fearless and he doesn’t back down from a fight. I was concerned that House Democrats would shy away from elevating Stark to such a powerful position, but Pelosi did indeed select him to replace Charlie Rangel as the head of the panel. And since John Boehner is objecting to the temporary nature of Rangel stepping down, Stark may get the seat permanently.

Here’s who Pete Stark is:

Two years ago, a source on Capitol Hill who used to work in Representative Pete Stark’s office told me a great anecdote about Representative Stark.

One day, a lobbyist from a large energy company entered the lobby of Representative Stark’s office. When he heard who was in the lobby, Representative Stark yelled from another room “get the f*ck out of here!” When the lobbyist laughed a bit and didn’t leave, Representative Stark came into the lobby and yelled again “no, get the f*ck out of here!” The lobbyist then left.

Stark has chaired the Health Policy Subcommittee at Ways and Means, and he introduced a bill last year that would essentially provide Medicare to everyone. He’s a good ally at Ways and Means.

Tags: Charlie Rangel, House Ways and Means Committee, Pete Stark, progressives

 

Ending one of the shorter political careers in recent memory, Rep. Eric Massa, a freshman Democrat in a swing seat, will not seek re-election, possibly because of a recurrence of the cancer that almost took his life several years ago.

As I reported last month, Massa was diagnosed with terminal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and was given just a few months to live. He survived, became active in politics and won his Congressional seat on his second try. Since then, he has become one of the more outspoken freshman members of Congress in the country.

CQ reports that the cancer has returned, but attributed it to a source. Massa has been raising money for another run, so my assumption is it would have to be something like that for him to abruptly leave. Massa scheduled a conference call at 3pm ET to make the announcement.

Update: Politico is among those reporting that Massa is facing an eithics investigation over charges that he harrassed a male staffer.

Tags: 2010 Election, Eric Massa, ethics, House of Representatives, New York, NY-29

 

Barack Obama is set to announce a “way forward” on health care in just a couple hours, and every indication is that he will press for a reconciliation “sidecar” approach if Republicans, as expected, refuse to work on a bipartisan package. That pivot could come as soon as the next few weeks, if previous published reports calling for final passage by the Easter recess are accurate.

The president will outline the plan to pass the bill, including having the House of Representatives pass the Democratic Senate health care reform legislation as well as a second bill containing various “fixes.” He will call for an up or down vote, as has happened in the past, and though he won’t use the word reconciliation, he’ll make it clear that if they’re not given an up or down vote, Democrats will use the reconciliation rules. White House officials will make the argument these rules are perfectly appropriate because the procedure is not being used for the whole bill, just for some fixes; because reconciliation rules are traditionally used for deficit reduction and health care reform will reduce the deficit; and because the reconciliation process has been used many times by Republicans for larger legislation such as the tax cuts pushed by President George W. Bush.

Republicans have already rejected Obama’s inclusion of a few of their health care proposals in the bill, so expect reconciliation to be the next move, after the House presumably passes the Senate bill. I say “presumably” there because it remains to be seen whether Nancy Pelosi can corral the needed 216 votes to pass the Senate bill, especially before reconciliation fixes are put into motion. Under the plan floated, President Obama would actually sign the Senate bill into law before the reconciliation fixes are completed, which has to make House members nervous. But the unpopularity of the bill and the politics of the midterms has even those who voted for the bill previously uneasy about taking the leap again. Mike Arcuri (D-NY) is a good example.

U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, said Tuesday he would vote against the Senate version of the health care bill that could soon go before the House of Representatives for approval. Arcuri, who voted in early November in favor of the House version of the health care bill, said he is against the Senate bill for three main reasons: * He doesn’t want to see the bill passed as a “mega bill,” and he believes more success would be had by breaking the bill apart and passing aspects of it incrementally, he said. * Arcuri also said he isn’t comfortable with the possible Democratic strategy of passing the bill through reconciliation. This would get around Republican opposition by having the House pass the Senate bill, then the Senate would make amendments requested by the House, and the House would pass the new Senate bill. In other words, a Republican filibuster in the Senate could likely be avoided. * The Senate bill differs from the House bill in ways Arcuri said he dislikes. He cited a provision that would tax benefits on insurance policies, expand Medicaid eligibility, provide an unfairly low amount of funding to the state and not allow for negotiations on prescription drug prices. “There would have to be some dramatic changes in it for me to change my position,” Arcuri said.

Some of these points are completely valid, some less so (he cares about the reconciliation process while sitting in a majoritarian body?). But the actual content of his complaints are less vital than the fact of the complaints themselves. This will play out a hundred times, with leadership needing to talk down, cajole and/or threaten skittish Congresscritters. But sometimes skittishness wins. In Arcuri’s case, his own opponent calls this proposed vote against health care “flip-flopping […] pandering, politics and opportunism.” There’s little benefit to flipping to a no vote when your opponent will merely use the previous yes vote as the basis for his campaign. But such logic frequently escapes Democrats. I can see lots of House Democrats making legitimate arguments to vote against the Senate bill, and Arcuri’s lament is just a bellweather for what’s to come in the next couple weeks. If March 19 comes and goes without passage in the House, you’ll know Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the votes.

Tags: Barack Obama, budget reconciliation, Health care, House of Representatives, Mike Arcuri, Nancy Pelosi

 

The District of Columbia will become the latest region of the country to legalize same-sex marriage when they begin to grant licenses on Thursday. Wednesday, the Supreme Court, in a three-page ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts, declined to intervene in the legislative action that passed the DC City Council earlier this year. Petitioners sought a public referendum on same-sex marriage before the law went into effect, but Roberts refused to stay the enactment of the law.

The D. C. Charter specifies that legislation enacted by the D. C. Council may be blocked if a sufficient number of voters request a referendum on the issue. D. C. Code §1–204.102. The Council, however, purported in 1979 to exempt from this provision any referendum that would violate the D. C. Human Rights Act. See §§1–1001.16(b)(1)(C), 2–1402.73 (2001–2007). The D. C. Board of Elections, D. C. Superior Court, and D. C. Court of Appeals denied petitioners’ request for a referendum on the grounds that the referendum would violate the Human Rights Act.

Without addressing the merits of petitioners’ underlying claim, however, I conclude that a stay is not warranted. First, as “a matter of judicial policy”—if not “judicial power”—“it has been the practice of the Court to defer to the decisions of the courts of the District of Columbia on matters of exclusively local concern.” Whalen v. United States, 445 U. S. 684, 687 (1980); see also Fisher v. United States, 328 U. S. 463, 476 (1946).

Roberts added that the Congress, which could block the DC City Council’s action through a resolution of disapproval, did not do so in the 30-day window, and that the petitioners can pursue a ballot initiative after the same-sex marriage ordinance becomes law.

Five states currently allow same-sex marriage: Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire. In addition, three states – New York, Rhode Island, and Maryland – recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. And in California, the approximately 18,000 same-sex couples who married when it was legal between May and November 2008 are still legally married.

Tags: gay marriage, John Roberts, same sex marriage, Washington DC

 

Bill Halter’s support for the public option symbolizes a thread of liberal politics that will last well beyond this current Congress, regardless of what happens with health care. The public option now becomes a litmus test on the Democratic side in political campaigns.

Halter told Arkansas reporters today, as seen in the video to the right, that he would favor “an option for members of the public to voluntarily buy into a program like Medicare. And I think you’ll see that people understand that, if it’s voluntary, if it’s something that they can buy their way into, if it’s something that, where the costs are met, I think you’ll see a lot of support for that.”

Following up on this, Greg Sargent reports that Halter would also back the use of reconciliation to pass a health care bill, and speaking of the public option, he said, “I think that that’s gonna be an issue of course in this campaign.”

I don’t know a ton about Halter, but his willingness to back a public option makes clear that he feels support from a national base is conditioned on his answer to that question. The attacks from the netroots on Blanche Lincoln already reference her work in killing the public option as “her greatest accomplishment” as a senator. Clearly, if Democrats want support from a healthy portion of the base, they need to support the public option during their campaigns.

That’s what’s also driving the sitting Senators to endorse the public option as part of a reconciliation sidecar bill (the total number of Democrats in support has grown to 33). They don’t want to raise the ire of the base, and would rather bask in their applause.

Whether this gets you to majority support for the measure in this bill is unclear, and frankly, somewhat remote. But its resonance as an electoral issue is unquestionable. And over time, that can translate into eventual support.

This will not be the pnly primary where the public option becomes an issue, put it that way.

Tags: 2010 Election, AR-Sen, Bill Halter, Blanche Lincoln, Health care, public option, Senate

 

In a letter to the Congressional leadership, President Obama gave a wrap-up of the health care summit and highlighted several proposals offered by Republicans that he will include in his final proposal for a bill. But he rejected any calls to either start over or scale back the comprehensive measure which has already passed both chambers.

Obama’s letter, available here, characterized the 7-hour session from last Thursday as productive, and stressed that both parties found areas of agreement – insurance market reform, the ability for small businesses and individuals to pool their resources and increase purchasing power (the exchanges, basically), and squeezing out waste, fraud and abuse from health care services. Disagreements cited by the President included the level of oversight of the insurance industry.

But the meat of the letter was a designation of four proposals offered by Republicans at the meeting which President Obama would like to see in a final bill:

1. Although the proposal I released last week included a comprehensive set of initiatives to combat fraud, waste, and abuse, Senator Coburn had an interesting suggestion that we engage medical professionals to conduct random undercover investigations of health care providers that receive reimbursements from Medicare, Medicaid, and other Federal programs.

2. My proposal also included a provision from the Senate health reform bill that authorizes funding to states for demonstrations of alternatives to resolving medical malpractice disputes, including health courts. Last Thursday, we discussed the provision in the bills cosponsored by Senators Coburn and Burr and Representatives Ryan and Nunes (S. 1099) that provides a similar program of grants to states for demonstration projects. Senator Enzi offered a similar proposal in a health insurance reform bill he sponsored in the last Congress. As we discussed, my Administration is already moving forward in funding demonstration projects through the Department of Health and Human Services, and Secretary Sebelius will be awarding $23 million for these grants in the near future. However, in order to advance our shared interest in incentivizing states to explore what works in this arena, I am open to including an appropriation of $50 million in my proposal for additional grants. Currently there is only an authorization, which does not guarantee that the grants will be funded.

3. At the meeting, Senator Grassley raised a concern, shared by many Democrats, that Medicaid reimbursements to doctors are inadequate in many states, and that if Medicaid is expanded to cover more people, we should consider increasing doctor reimbursement. I’m open to exploring ways to address this issue in a fiscally responsible manner.

4. Senator Barrasso raised a suggestion that we expand Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). I know many Republicans believe that HSAs, when used in conjunction with high- deductible health plans, are a good vehicle to encourage more cost-consciousness in consumers’ use of health care services. I believe that high-deductible health plans could be offered in the exchange under my proposal, and I’m open to including language to ensure that is clear. This could help to encourage more people to take advantage of HSAs.

So what are these pieces? Coburn’s “undercover patient” plan sounds like an interesting job description for someone (“I’m sick for a living”), but I have a hard time believing this will do a whole lot. $50 million more for medical malpractice reform amounts to a rounding error in the bill. Increasing Medicaid doctor reimbursement could be costly, depending on the increase, and seemingly goes against the point of health care reform, to lower the price of basic care. The phrase “fiscally responsible manner” does a lot of work in that paragraph. As for #4, basically adding a high-deductible catastrophic care option in the exchanges that can pair with HSAs, it’s bad policy and would starve the insurance pool of funds, but as I understand it there was already a “young invincibles” policy available in the exchanges.

In addition, the President nodded to a point made at the summit by John McCain, by striking the transitional Medicare Advantage benefit to residents in Florida, among a couple other deals that initially were present to placate individual lawmakers.

So basically, the President offers yet another set of olive branches to Republicans, which they will promptly throw on the ground and kick. These aren’t the most consequential olive branches, in my view, although #3 could get expensive (but as Obama says, lots of Democrats want to increase reimbursement rates, too; it’s more parochial than ideological).

Obama closes the letter with this:

I also believe that piecemeal reform is not the best way to effectively reduce premiums, end the exclusion of people with pre-existing conditions or offer Americans the security of knowing that they will never lose coverage, even if they lose or change jobs.

My ideas have been informed by discussions with Republicans and Democrats, doctors and nurses, health care experts, and everyday Americans – not just last Thursday, but over the course of a yearlong dialogue. Both parties agree that the health care status quo is unsustainable. And both should agree that it’s just not an option to walk away from the millions of American families and business owners counting on reform.

After decades of trying, we’re closer than we’ve ever been to making health insurance reform a reality. I look forward to working with you to complete what would be a truly historic achievement.

So he clearly rejects any incremental approach, or any call to scrap the bill entirely. We’ll know more tomorrow about his specific plan of action, when he makes a public statement about the way forward.

…Jon Cohn has a bit more.

Tags: HSAs, insurance exchange, Medicaid, medical malpractice, reimbursement rates, Tort Reform

 

Sometimes you write a story, you add a little kicker, and then you realize – a bit too late – that the kicker was actually the big story. Such it is with my post about Blanche Lincoln from this morning, about her collection of agricultural subsidies through her family’s rice farming operation.

In it, I noted that Lincoln was the only Democrat to vote against the Senate’s version of the 2002 farm bill, which placed some limits on subsidies to agribusiness. At the time, she was COLLECTING those subsidies. While a coalition of farm-state Senators succeeded in getting the subsidy limits into the bill, Lincoln stood in opposition to them. This 2002 NYT story explains (remember, at the time, Democrats actually held a 51-49 majority in the Senate, thanks to Jim Jeffords’ party switch):

The Senate passed a farm bill today that increases basic subsidy programs, doubles spending for conservation programs and puts strict limits on how much money a single farmer can receive […]

The measure passed 58 to 40 with nine Republicans joining the Democrat majority, and it stands in stark contrast to the House farm bill approved last fall. That bill gives less money to conservation and nutrition programs, places no limits on individual subsidy payments and gives an additional $9 billion to commodity subsidies over a decade […]

Western senators of both parties worried about restrictions on water and packing houses. Southern senators complained about restrictions on subsidy payments.

Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, voted against her party to protest payment limits that fell most heavily on rice and cotton farmers.

The Senate bill passed an amendment limiting any farm to no more than $225,000 in subsidies. Lincoln voted against that amendment. The conference report of the bill, combined with the Republican-controlled House, raised the subsidy cap to $360,000. Lincoln ended up voting for the final bill after the caps were raised. Her votes tracked with her Republican colleague from Arkansas at the time, Tim Hutchinson; no on the Senate bill, yes on final passage after the subsidy caps increased.

As I said, throughout this time, when Lincoln was siding with Republicans and pleading for less stringent subsidy caps for farmers, her family farm was receiving payments from the USDA, and her family members were as well.

To be clear, Lincoln (known as Blanche Lambert, her maiden name, for the purposes of collecting subsidies) and her family received around $715,000 over a ten-year period from 1995-2005, less than the caps put in by the 2002 farm bill and even the Senate version. But there’s something very sleazy about fighting for bigger Ag subsidies while collecting them.

Tags: agriculture subsidies, Arkansas, Blanche Lambert, Blanche Lincoln

 

With the health care vote taking shape in the House, Bart Stupak is waging a last-ditch campaign to stop it – and extending beyond his objection to the abortion funding language.

Barack Obama will make a speech tomorrow laying out the way forward on health care. It’s widely expected that he will endorse a reconciliation sidecar approach to pass what amounts to the Senate bill with a series of fixes outlined in his white paper on the subject. The process would begin with the House passing the Senate bill the week of March 19. The House would then pass a reconciliation bill and send it to the Senate the week of March 26. The timing is designed to stop Republicans from an endless series of amendments, which would eat into their Easter recess. I don’t think this will stop them, but some rulings from the chair calling non-germane amendments dilatory and out of order presumably would.

This is an extremely rough outline – we don’t know the substance of the sidecar bill. But procedurally, it does look like the House would go first, passing the Senate bill before the changes come into play (it would then be held and not signed into law without the changes). It’s unclear what kind of collateral House Democrats would need from the Senate – a signed pledge, a televised statement, who knows – before feeling free to pass their bill.

You can tell that the House is gearing up to pass something with respect to health care, because the Democratic media shop has floated to the AP some names of possible vote-switchers on the bill, which would be needed to move forward.

Ten House Democrats indicated in an Associated Press survey Monday they have not ruled out switching their “no” votes to “yes” on President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, brightening the party’s hopes in the face of unyielding Republican opposition.
The White House tried to smooth the way for them, showing its own openness to changes in the landmark legislation and making a point of saying the administration is not using parliamentary tricks or loopholes to find the needed support […]

In interviews with the AP, at least 10 of the 39 Democrats — or their spokesmen — either declined to state their positions or said they were undecided about the revised legislation, making them likely targets for intense wooing by Pelosi and Obama. Three of them — Brian Baird of Washington, Bart Gordon of Tennessee and John Tanner of Tennessee — are not seeking re-election this fall.

The others are Rick Boucher of Virginia, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Frank Kratovil of Maryland, Michael McMahon of New York, Walt Minnick of Idaho, Scott Murphy of New York and Glenn Nye of Virginia. Several lawmakers’ offices did not reply to the AP queries.

You can even see a messaging strategy, with “up or down vote” and “majority rule” replacing “reconciliation” in the lexicon.

Campaign Diaries has the definitive rundown of the whip count, which I’ve been tracking for some time and will continue to do as we near a vote. But I do want to say one thing to those who claim that Nancy Pelosi has special powers, and that she doesn’t lose a vote in the House ever, which has been floated by commentators and members of Congress alike. Let’s be clear about this – Pelosi DID lose the vote in November. She won final passage of the health care bill, but if she had her way, the Stupak amendment would never have gotten a vote. She ignored and ignored Stupak for several months, hopeful that she could round up enough votes for the bill without him. And ultimately, she was unsuccessful, forced to roll back women’s rights as a consequence of passing health care reform.

Now, she doesn’t have that out. The Nelson amendment governs the abortion language in the Senate bill, and as changing that through reconciliation is unlikely to pass the Byrd rule, basically that cannot be changed. Which means she will have to find 216 votes (see here for why that number has changed) without Stupak.

For his part, Stupak is raising objections to other parts of the bill besides the abortion language:

In an interview today, Stupak said abortion isn’t the only issue that will keep him from voting for the Senate bill if Speaker Nancy Pelosi brings it to the House floor. “It’d be very hard to vote for this bill even if they fixed the abortion language,” he said. Asked whether there was any way he would vote for the current package, he had one word: “Nope.”

Stupak said the White House hasn’t included enough provisions from the House bill in its proposed package of changes to the Senate version. He cited some of the House’s tighter restrictions on insurance companies and new payment methods to encourage doctors to provide quality treatment that he thinks should be in the bill. And even though the White House peeled back the tax on high-value insurance plans, he’s upset that it’s still in there at all.

A big concern among House members, Stupak said, is that they will be forced to vote on the Senate bill with no assurance the package of changes aimed at appeasing House members will ever get approved.

“You’re going to make members vote for a bill that’s going to be hung around your neck come Election Day,” he said. “After sending so much legislation to the Senate, we just don’t trust that they’re going to do it.”

Stupak basically laid out the objections of many, if not the majority, of House Democrats. He may not welcome the prospect of being responsible for killing health care reform or becoming a national villain, so he’s pivoting to other objections. Or, he’s losing his block of members and wants to hold them for other reasons. Or he’s just talking out loud and expressing the frustrations of his colleagues. It’s hard to say.

Regardless, the vote in the House on the Senate bill, when it comes, will simply be brutal. FDL News will try its best to track every member and how they’re voting.

Tags: abortion, Bart Stupak, health care reform, Pitts-Stupak Amendment, Reconciliation, reproductive rights

 

The snow has been falling in the Sierras for months now, but Jerry Brown, who once said that would be the marker for when he would announce a gubernatorial run, has been silent. Apparently, the Sierras just got chillier and snowier:

Attorney General Jerry Brown will declare his Democratic candidacy for governor Tuesday online, ending months of speculation about his intentions in which Brown insisted he had not yet decided whether to run.

Brown has not planned any campaign events timed with the announcement but will grant media interviews Wednesday and Thursday. He’s scheduled to appear on KTTV Fox 11 at 8 a.m. Wednesday.

Brown served two terms as Governor from 1974-1982, and can seek a third because the term limits law for the state changed after he finished his tenure.

Brown has been criticized for spending months without announcing his candidacy, while billionaire Republican Meg Whitman ran positive biographical ads all over the state airwaves, raising her profile and her stature. She is within striking distance of Brown in recent polls, after he started out with a lead.

The online-only announcement, with no other public events scheduled, has struck a few California political observers as odd, but then, so has practically everything else Brown has done in his successful 30-plus year career. Whether Brown will understand the changes in California’s statewide political picture from the 1970s to today is a larger question. Joe Mathews had the definitive piece on this last year.

Tags: 2010 Election, CA-Gov, California, California Governor, gubernatorial race, Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman

 

Jim Bunning’s one-man filibuster of a temporary extension of unemployment benefits (which actually may not have been a one-man filibuster at all) has drawn fire from Congressional Democrats today, even while leaders today introduced a broader measure, including a one-year extension of UI and the COBRA subsidy, along with dozens of other tax extenders and additional measures.

Democrats are certainly trying to make a political point over Bunning’s rejection of unanimous consent to move a short-term extension on several items which expired on Sunday. Bunning continued his refusal this morning.

Not only have hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans lost their unemployment benefits (14,000 in Bunning’s home state of Kentucky) and 65% subsidy to pay for COBRA health benefits. In addition, doctors just received a 21% pay cut for Medicare patients, as per the so-called “sustainable growth rate” (SGR). Congress typically patches the SGR to avoid the cut, known colloquially as the “doc fix,” but the patch elapsed, leading to the immediate reimbursement cut. As a result, doctors may refuse to accept millions of Medicare patients. Likewise, an expiration on highway funding means that thousands of construction workers just got furloughed for construction and infrastructure projects.

Also, in perhaps the greatest suffering you can extend to any American, millions of satellite TV subscribers in rural areas could lose access to local TV channels, as a result of an expiring mandate on satellite providers.

McClatchy actually had a good breakdown of all the expired deadlines triggered by Bunning’s action.

Progressives have begun to organize against the Bunning filibuster, and locals in Louisville have a protest scheduled for tomorrow at his office.

This, in addition to the torrent of criticism from national Democrats, is starting to get to Bunning. He ran away from reporters today.

Said Bunning: “I’m not talking to anybody.”

When producers asked him to stay and talk on camera, Bunning “walked toward the elevator and shot the middle finger over his head.”

A video clip shows Bunning kicking correspondent Jon Karl off the elevator, yelling “Excuse me! This is a Senator’s only elevator!”

(That’s not actually true.)

Even Jon Kyl, a member of the Republican leadership, said this weekend that the Senate would pass a temporary UI extension over Bunning’s objections, though he clearly hasn’t lifted a finger to get Bunning to relent.

Even while Democrats pressure Bunning to lift his objection to a temporary extension, however, Harry Reid and Max Baucus have readied a bill that would extend unemployment benefits and the COBRA subsidy to the end of the year, and offer retroactive payments to anyone who lost their benefits. The American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act has a number of provisions beyond that, however, including SBA loan programs for small businesses, disaster relief and flood insurance provisions, an important extension of federal assistance for state Medicaid programs that states with struggling budgets sorely need, retroactive extensions of highway funding, the doc fix and the satellite TV mandate, and a series of “tax extenders” that provide tax cuts which expired late last year.

You can access the bill at the Senate Finance Committee website. The tax extenders are a very mixed bag, with some important credits for renewable energy companies, teacher expenses (so they don’t have to shell out for their own classroom supplies) and others, but also corporate giveaways like the R&D credit and many others. Basically these are many of the measures Reid stripped from an earlier jobs bill, which passed last week.

But this bill would cost much more than that $85 billion dollar measure – $150 billion, to be exact. There are only about $37 billion in offsets in the bill.

So while Bunning feels the heat from Democrats, the bill that would cover unemployment and COBRA till the end of the year, along with a multitude of other measures, could get a vote as early as this week, overriding Bunning’s UC objections.

UPDATE: Looks like we could see an estate tax change attached to this bill as an amendment. Keep in mind that the changes sought to the estate tax could deprive the government of at least $233 BILLION in revenue over ten years, all of it going to super-rich heirs to family fortunes.

Tags: COBRA, filibuster, Jim Bunning, unemployment insurance

 

Jim Bunning got away with blocking an extension of unemployment benefits and COBRA on Thursday night because “coordinated support materialized” among Republicans to help Bunning in his cause, Sen. Jeff Merkley explained in a conference call this morning.

Merkley (D-OR), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Jack Reed (D-RI) participated in the call, about the urgent need to pass an extension of unemployment benefits and the 65% COBRA subsidy, which will run out for hundreds of thousands of Americans on Sunday. Bunning (R-KY) waged what amounted to a one-man filibuster at the end of the week, refusing unanimous consent to move to a short-term extension of benefits before the deadline. Bunning wanted the package of extensions to be paid for, but when Harry Reid offered Bunning an amendment to that effect, he said he wouldn’t accept that because the amendment wouldn’t pass. (Really.)

All three Senators, whose states are experiencing high unemployment rates, expressed outrage at Bunning’s action, discussing the real-world consequences for their constituents. Stabenow said that 62,000 Michiganders would lose their unemployment benefits on Sunday, and by the end of March, across the country 1.2 million would lose them if no action was taken. Furthermore, almost half of those now receiving unemployment benefits are getting them through some form of extension, so the result of inaction could be catastrophic.

Reed added that historically, whenever the unemployment rate exceeded 7.4%, Congress has always extended benefits, and that such extensions generally create $2 in the economy for every $1 spent (you could say that they pay for themselves, which was Bunning’s entire objection). Merkley noted the expense to state unemployment agencies to send out notices to shut down benefits, only to start them up again if they are extended. “The Republican filibuster is irresponsible,” he said. “Republicans didn’t filibuster to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, but when families are struggling, they take this outrageous action.”

I asked the Senators why they didn’t continue asking for unanimous consent agreements on Thursday night, forcing Bunning to stay on the floor and continue his crusade. He was already getting belligerent, and could have just faded through the exhaustion of an all-night filibuster, but the Senate adjourned around midnight. Many Senate observers have described this as letting Bunning win.

Sen. Merkley, the only one of the three who was on the floor that night, responded. “When it was Bunning by himself, the prospect of breaking him was very real,” he said. “But when coordinated support materialized, it became clear we weren’t going to be able to overcome this on the floor.” In other words, other Republican Senators stopped by on the floor in reserve, and if Bunning could no longer continue, they stood ready to step in and object to any unanimous consent agreement. Obviously, UC agreements require… unanimous consent, so any Senator can block them. Merkley identified Bob Corker (R-TN) as one of the Senators who reached the floor late at night, and Stabenow added that Jeff Sessions (R-AL) showed up earlier in the evening.

“The most important thing is the people impacted,” Stabenow said, “But on the process, Bunning was concerned about paying for the extension, he was offered an amendment and he didn’t accept it. In the Senate we’ve seen a hijacking of the legislative process. In a legislature you debate a policy and then you vote. Voting is the American way. Instead, Bunning chose to use the filibuster in blocking and hijacking the system.”

You can argue that the Senate used bad time management in not giving enough space to file cloture and getting a vote to override Bunning with a short-term extension of what would expire, not just unemployment benefits and the COBRA subsidy but also the Medicare doctors fix and some other matters. But if Republicans were prepared to switch off in objecting to UC requests, then they could have held out at least until the Sunday deadline, it seems.

Therefore it’s wrong to call this Jim Bunning’s filibuster. It was a Republican filibuster, as they offered “passive support,” as Stabenow put it. “We’re going to see benefits run out on Sunday” as a result, she concluded. “Where is the Republican leadership? Where will it be next week?”

 

Education Secretary Arne Duncan stepped up the campaign today to end the privatization of the student loan market and save the federal government $87 billion dollars that can be plowed into Pell Grants to make higher education affordable to students. Duncan frames the situation well.

For too long, bankers have gotten a free ride from the U.S. Department of Education.

Under current law, taxpayers provide as much as $9 billion each year to subsidize guaranteed student loans issued by banks. The banks earn profits on the interest; if students default, taxpayers take the loss, not the banks. In other words, working Americans pay while bankers get rich […]

The banks have had plenty of help with government bailouts and other subsidies while working families and students are increasingly squeezed. President Obama wants to eliminate the subsidy for banks and use that money to help poor and middle-class students and adults attend college.

Duncan directly challenges the pervasive myth from lobbyists that 35,000 jobs are at stake if Congress passes the student loan bill, a dubious statement if there ever was one, considering that credible studies estimate only 30,000 employees in the student lending market TOTAL, and that private companies are likely to get the contracts to administer the federal loans. As Duncan says:

The president’s plan actually creates jobs and draws on free-market principles by selecting private companies through a competitive process to service student loans issued directly by the Education Department. These private companies, including Sallie Mae, compete for our business and are evaluated on the quality of their customer service and their default rates […]

The banking industry’s claims that it wants to protect American jobs are also suspect. The fact is, Sallie Mae sent thousands of American loan servicing jobs overseas in 2007 to further increase profits, and it agreed to bring them back last year only to compete for our loan-servicing business.

As the fact sheet from the House Education and Labor Committee makes clear, the government guarantees all of these student loans currently, and simply pays out a subsidy to the banks for the privilege. There’s absolutely no justification for protecting corporate welfare to the banks in this case. George Miller, the chair of the committee, put it best: “It’s not news that lenders don’t like this bill, but college students overwhelmingly do. We can’t let their voices, or the points above, get drowned out by well-heeled lobbyists.”

The student loan lobbyist’s counter-proposal would cost taxpayers $17 billion dollars more in pure subsidy, directly to the likes of Sallie Mae and JP Morgan. I don’t know how you call this anything other than a war on students.

This blog post offers a good indication of the important swing votes on the legislation. The student loan bill could be passed through the reconciliation process.

 

This was first reported at Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, and we’ve been hearing about it too, but today the larger media organizations jumped on it. The federal government is strongly considering adopting a “High Road Contracting Policy” which would give preference in procurement contracting to companies which offer a living wage, health insurance, pensions and paid sick days. Essentially, Obama would leverage the government’s purchasing power to enact worker-friendly policies, adding that to the other criteria for contracts, like bidding price and performance. And he may enact this new policy via executive order.

Steven Greenhouse reports for the New York Times:

By altering how it awards $500 billion in contracts each year, the government would disqualify more companies with labor, environmental or other violations and give an edge to companies that offer better levels of pay, health coverage, pensions and other benefits, the officials said.

Because nearly one in four workers is employed by companies that have contracts with the federal government, administration officials see the plan as a way to shape social policy and lift more families into the middle class. It would affect contracts like those awarded to make Army uniforms, clean federal buildings and mow lawns at military bases.

Although the details are still being worked out, the outline of the plan is drawing fierce opposition from business groups and Republican lawmakers. They see it as a gift to organized labor and say it would drive up costs for the government in the face of a $1.3 trillion budget deficit.

The government may be adopting policies favored by organized labor, but nowhere in any of the briefs does it say they would only offer contracts to unionized shops. The US Labor Department, currently headed by Hilda Solis, would have the responsibility to score the labor records of federal contractors.

Business leaders are upset that they have to actually do right by their workers. It’s fairly simple to welcome their hatred on this one. Furthermore, the government contracting process has become so ugly – with billions in cost overruns, waste, fraud and abuse, that citing good labor standards as a basis for receiving a contract would at least ensure that some of this bloat gets into the hands of the worker. Businesses really have no standing to complain, having essentially stolen taxpayer dollars for this long. And, by promoting worker-friendly policies in procurement, thousands of the working poor across the country may not need to rely on food stamps or Medicaid if they get a living wage and health benefits at work. That would arguably save the government money in the long run.

Bill Clinton enacted regulations similar to this during his Administration; George W. Bush quickly vacated them.

Senator Susan Collins has already written to the White House pleading with them not to enact this procurement policy. She wrote, “We are concerned that the imposition of these requirements, during a time of significant economic turmoil in the private sector and tight federal budgets, could have serious, negative consequences, especially for our nation’s small businesses.”

There’s a chance that Obama will simply write this into law by a stroke of the pen:

Some supporters of the new procurement policy — and even some opponents — say Mr. Obama could impose it through executive order. They assert that the president has broad powers to issue procurement regulations, just as President John Kennedy did in requiring federal contractors to have companywide equal employment opportunity plans.

But some opponents argue that legislation would be needed because an executive order may collide with laws that require federal contractors to pay the prevailing regional wage for the type of work being done. The executive order, they fear, would call for higher wages.

Let’s hope Obama lines up with John Kennedy on this one. And he should tout this very strongly, explaining how he is staying on the side of the people instead of companies that wrong their workers.

 

For those who have always wanted to “make ‘em filibuster,” you actually saw a variant of it last night, if you were paying attention. Jim Bunning, the slightly kooky retiring Senator from Kentucky, refused unanimous consent to move to a bill extending unemployment benefits and the COBRA subsidy for 30 days, basically ensuring that millions of people will see their benefits run out on Sunday, barring some miracle today. Democrats went until midnight on the floor of the Senate trying to get past Bunning, but he stuck it out for a few hours, refusing to consent. And he had the gall to complain that he missed the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game, while denying help to the jobless and the suffering.

And while he said the Senate spent almost three hours “telling everybody in America that Senator Bunning doesn’t give a damn about people who are on unemployment,” he assured those still watching that he was indeed interested in renewing the programs as long as it can be done to his satisfaction.

Senator Richard Jr. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat, said he intended to try to break the impasse again Friday morning but Mr. Bunning indicated he would again be on hand.

Senator Jim Bunning, the conservative Kentucky Republican, insisted that the jobless pay due to run out Sunday night should be paid for rather than added to the deficit as an emergency. During the debate, Mr. Bunning stood rigidly at his desk in the back row of the Senate and objected to repeated Democrat attempts for agreement to extend unemployment coverage through April 5.

“I believe we should pay for it,” declared Mr. Bunning, who said he was determined to remain to thwart the Democrats. “I’ll be here as long as you are here.”

Democrats went one by one giving speeches intended to shame Bunning, but the Senate operates under rules of unanimous consent. And overriding his objections, if he does not leave the floor or otherwise miss a call for unanimous consent (which the Democrats attempted every half-hour) would require a cloture vote, which cannot be accomplished before the deadline. You can accuse the Democrats of poor clock management, but basically they have to bow and scrape just to get something done that will pass 97-1 when it comes to a final vote.

And while this was relatively painless (outside of the basketball game) for Bunning, millions of real people will suffer, the kind of people Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV) calls hobos.

There’s an easy way to handle Bunning’s call for an offset – debate it and put it to a vote. If it wins, great. If it loses, great. Then we move on to a final vote. That’s called legislating, in a functional lawmaking body.

I try to always say that we need a change in Senate rules, not the filibuster, because the rules offer lots more veto points than just those associated with cloture. And because we have an inattentive public and media, making the Republicans bear the cost of obstruction is a nearly impossible task.

 

This is change I can believe in. The Army will deny millions of dollars in bonuses to KBR, a division of Halliburton, for contracting work in Iraq that led to deaths:

Congress has denied millions of dollars in bonuses to KBR, the military contractor linked to the death of a local soldier in Iraq.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth was electrocuted two years ago in a shower in Iraq. He was from Shaler Township. Investigators said he died when an electric water pump malfunctioned. More than a dozen other similar deaths are under investigation.

Byron Dorgan, who has led on this issue for quite a while, released this statement:

“The decision to deny KBR millions in bonuses for its work in 2008 is welcome news, and is a significant change from the Army’s past practice, but the Army clearly needs go much further,” Dorgan said. “Specifically, it needs to review the $34 million bonus and other bonuses it awarded KBR for shoddy work that may have contributed to other electrocution deaths and other serious electrical shocks.”

Dorgan said the Army’s decision “will send a long overdue message to military contractors that they will be held accountable for their performance. But the Army needs to send that message much more powerfully. Not awarding a bonus for widespread sloppy contracting work that killed soldiers is just the beginning, not the end point, of accountability.”

The least we can ask from our government is that they don’t reward incompetence and criminal malpractice from the litany of contractors who have essentially defrauded the people. It’s good news that we’re on the road to that accountability, which is long overdue in Washington.

 

I’m going to hand it to John Boehner on this one. It’s a brilliant little maneuver.

“I write today to respectfully ask that you invite Rep. Stupak to participate in the February 25 health care summit so that the will of the American people – and that of a bipartisan majority in the House – on the critical issue of life will be appropriately represented during the discussion.”

“Regrettably, millions of Americans are already deeply skeptical about the February 25 summit. They have noted with disappointment the decision by the White House to use the existing legislation as the starting point for the discussion – despite the fact that the current bills are opposed by a majority of the American people – rather than starting the discussion with a clean sheet of paper. They have noted with consternation the White House decision to exclude governors and state legislators representing states that will bear the heaviest burdens if the current legislation is enacted. Including Representative Stupak in the February 25 discussion, by contrast, would send a signal that the White House respects the views of a majority of Americans and a bipartisan majority of the House on the critical issue of life.”

Republicans got an extra spot because Ron Wyden got a late invitation. In addition, Olympia Snowe was asked to the summit, but she declined because her leadership didn’t ask her to attend. Instead, they asked Stupak.

It should be noted that Stupak led the Anthem Blue Cross hearings today, and said at them that rate hike problems like this would continue “until reform passes,” and also said that this was why he supported a public option. But Stupak is also a peacock on the issue of abortion funding, and the Republicans know very well that their best chance to kill the bill completely lies with him.

Stupak in the summit raises the possibility of turning it into a circus and shifting focus away from where the White House and Democratic leaders would rather go. They’ve been hiding from this abortion issue throughout this debate, but Stupak won’t go away. Publicly, however, the White House reacted calmly to the news:

A White House official said Obama would welcome Stupak at the table, but it’s unclear whether he will be the consensus pick of House and Senate Republicans.

“They can bring whoever they want,” the official said, as long as the person is a member of Congress.

This summit may actually get more theatrical, anyway.

UPDATE: Stupak was on Fox News today, incidentally, and he basically said that the House couldn’t pass the Obama-backed compromise bill, and not just because of abortion, but due to the long implementation time and the excise tax. I recognize that a lot of this is just posturing right now, but these are significant concerns. Actually, I think Stupak should be there tomorrow. He seems to be the most important stumbling block. Might as well hash this out in public.

UPDATE II: In case you missed it, the other GOP summit picks from the House are here.