Legal Commentary

Lincoln, Bayh Reject Reconciliation For Health Bill

By Big Tent Democrat

In case anyone was counting on Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln to vote for the reconciliation fix to the health bill, your faith was misplaced:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) rejected using the budget reconciliation process to pass health reform legislation on Tuesday.

Lincoln joined Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) to reject using the parliamentary maneuver bypassing the 60-vote majority needed in the Senate to bypass a filibuster in order to pass Democrats' health reform bill. “I am opposed to and will fight against any attempts to push through changes to the Senate health insurance reform legislation by using budget reconciliation tactics that would allow the Senate to pass a package of changes to our original bill with 51 votes," she said in a statement.

I would not count on Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman either. That leaves 5 Dems to spare. Who would want to wriggle out the most? Landrieu? Pryor? McCaskill? Byrd (based on his bizarre House of Lordism)? Feingold? Even if you lost all of these (which I doubt), you still have 50 votes. That gets it done.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 26, 2010 (boomark / email).