Legal Commentary

Waiving the Byrd Rule for Stupak

By Big Tent Democrat

The strategy to placate Stupak is emerging, and it is an interesting one:

[T]he Catholic bishops want to show a measure of dominance over the US government, and they want their way on this. And they have convinced Stupak to reject the “third bill” strategy, which House leaders offered to him.

What they want to do is to put the changes to the abortion language in a reconciliation sidecar bill, the second bill. This ensures that it will get passed as part of the package, since the President and Senate leaders have already promised that the sidecar will become part of the agreement. [. . .] How could the Stupak amendment language on abortion survive the inevitable point of order on the Byrd rule? Well, the bishops want [. . .] 60 votes from the Senate to waive the point of order.

I think this is an unrealistic approach as it would undermine the Republican strategy of treating reconciliation as some sort of illegal power grab (and they will need a lot of GOP votes for it as too many Dems will vote to NOT waive the point of order.) I still think a separate Stupak bill is the more likely strategy.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 06, 2010 (boomark / email).