I learned today from a Republican Senate source that Sen. Reid plans to force a floor vote on the health-care legislation during or around Columbus-Day week (the holiday is October 12, 2009).
Specifically, the Finance Committee is going to begin mark-up tomorrow of the Baucus bill to cover the at-present 564 proposed amendments (and counting). Once that is complete, Reid has said that he - himself - will be involved in merging that revised bill with the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee bill. This effort could begin as early as next week. Thereafter, he intends to force the floor vote. Whether or not he goes nuclear is yet to be seen.
The surprise date for the vote came from a question I had based on conversations last week with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) . Rep. Rodgers said that the Democrat leadership in the House was going to push any controversial votes - including health care - until after the November elections (NJ and VA governorships), not wanting to give voters yet another reason to vote for the Republicans that are ahead in both races (see here and here). My Senate source said that the same philosophy was running through the Senate for all controversial bills except for health care.
Also discussed Gen. McChrystal's Initial Assessment on Afghanistan. The document, dated August 30, calls for a near-term increase in troops at the risk of a failure of mission if denied. President Obama, who has spent precious little time on anything meaningful in foreign policy all summer - let alone Afghanistan, has said that he wants to make sure the strategy is the right one before committing more troops. It seems that Little Bobby Gibbs, White House spokesman, was being cute last week when he denied that the request had been made. It's clear that the formal troop increase has not been submitted to the Pentagon, but the need is made apparent in the report.
There's a call for Congressional Hearings on the matter. Remember that the dems were very anxious, demanding even, to have hearings with Gen. Petraeus on the Iraq Surge. Hearings can be scheduled easily during late September - let's see if the dems support the request. Note that Sen Levin is already pushing the question as far out as he can (see the last paragraph of the above article.)
There's a pressing need in the next 8 to 10 weeks for Congress to increase the debt limit. Republicans in the Senate are calling for an end to the TARP program, recouping those unspent monies, and thereby obviating a need for the increase. You think the dems would do something so fiscally wise?
The infamous "card-check" system so beloved by the unions to cram membership down the throats of unwilling workers appears to be dead. Although not formally taken out of the Employee Free Choice Act legislation, it has been agreed to be dropped in favor of mandatory arbitration. The particulars of the arbitration provisions are still being discussed informally.
Finally, there's a realization that the Newspaper Revitalization Act - bailout for NYT - cannot pass the Senate as a free-standing measure. Although it is possible, it is unlikely that the dems will try to attach it to one of the Appropriations bills or associated Continuing Resolutions. The most likely backdoor would an Omnibus spending bill at the end of the year.
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