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House passed Health Care Reform near midnight
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi, center, is joined by (L-R) House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. at the U.S. Capitol, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009 after the passage
of the health care reform bill. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Almost midnight in the garden of good and evil:
The hands on the legislative clock approached midnight, November 7, 2009 when the final votes were cast on health care reform in the U.S. House of Representatives. The final tally was 220 to 215 in favor of the Democrat Proposal, H.R. 3962.
Cheers and boos broke out simultaneously when the necessary 218 vote majority was passed and again when Speaker Pelosi announced the final result.
A lone Republican Ranger:
A single Republican voted for the bill. He was Representative Joseph Cao of Louisiana. “"I have always said that I would put aside partisan wrangling to do the business of the people. My vote tonight was based on my priority of doing what is best for my constituents," said Cao.
A public show:
Partisan wrangling and concerns about personal re-election dominated the posturing on the house floor as representatives from both sides of the aisle spent their day making one to two minute statements for the cameras so each could stake out public positions for reelection commercials to be run next year.
Timorous conservative Democrats voted “Nay” on principle, independent from their party line. The Republican minority pulled out almost every parliamentary trick out of their political bags in a failed effort to delay and derail. One representative brought an infant onto the floor to illustrate the infant would one day be paying for this “outrageous” law. Several others held up a copy of the nearly 20 pound proposal wrapped with a black ribbon.
Republican members could not even agree on the cost of the bill among themselves. Each successive speech quoted a higher than ever cost with the aim of making the proposal sound more and more damaging. All that was missing was someone dressed as the grim reaper and a Betty Davis impersonator intoning “Buckle your seat belts, its going to be a bumpy ride.”
Red zone offense:
The exercise changed no one’s mind. Positions hardened long prior to the actual floor debate. Does yesterday’s vote settle the matter? No, but in football terms, the Democrat team passed a sideline marker and achieved a first down in the red zone. "
The legislative equivalent of the two minute warning has sounded. The next evidence of the Democratic success will be the closing off an inevitable attempt to filibuster on the Senate floor. Democrats must gather up 60 of 100 Senate votes to bring their significantly different version of the measure to the discussion and vote stage on the opposite side of the Capitol.
The next steps:
Failing to gather up the 60 vote supermajority, a process called reconciliation is possible, but unlikely.
Following passage of similar bills in both houses, a conference committee will meet to hammer out differences between the versions before a second vote to approve and a trip down Pennsylvania Avenue for the President’s signature.
Al Portner is a former daily newspaper editor and publisher in seven states and author of the forthcoming “Mark Twain and the Tale of Grant’s Memoir.” He can be reached at alanportner@gmail.com
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