The Senate took its first step towards passing its version of the health insurance reform bill. A 60-40 procedural vote held very early this morning cut off a Republican filibuster, with both Arkansas senators voting in favor of it. There are several more votes scheduled this week, with the final up or down vote to be held at 7:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve. If the bill passes, Paul Krugman of The New York Times notes that it will be “an awesome achievement.”
Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post lists the winners and losers of the Senate process. Among the winners he lauds the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee because they’ll have ammunition to challenge Blanche Lincoln in 2010. The reason: she didn’t get anything in return for her vote (compared to Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu, for example).
We’ll see. Pork aside, voting for the bill gives her to the opportunity to talk about all of the good things the bill does – and there are many. It also makes a primary challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter more difficult. Assuming Gilbert Baker gets out of the GOP primary (with Stanley Reed out, it’s an assumption only because Jim Holt may get in), Mr. Baker’s still going to have to articulate why a strategy of Just Say No was the best course of action here. (I interviewed him several weeks back on my radio program, Arkansas Sunday Edition, and he struggled to state a rationale for his position.)
I think that’s a very tough sell to four core constituencies: lower income Arkansans who work, but who cannot afford insurance; seniors; anyone – young or old – who has been denied coverage for a pre-existing condition; and small business owners who are exempt from mandates to provide coverage (thanks to Ms. Lincoln), but who have access to subsidies and health insurance exchanges should they decide to do so.
At a minimum there are 400,000 potential voters in Arkansas who currently are without health insurance that should feel good about having Ms. Lincoln in the Senate today.
I’m of the opinion that this vote also presents a unique political opportunity. If I’m the Lincoln campaign I’d start pounding Republicans on obstructionism. For example,
In the 1960s . . . “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.
This research was conducted by Barbara Sinclair, a political scientist at UCLA, and appears in a chapter of the book Congress Reconsidered from CQ Press.
In defining Mr. Baker’s candidacy the Lincoln campaign could note that a vote for him amounts to nothing more than a “No” vote . . . on everything: financial reform, deficit reduction, jobs, etc. Put another way, he’d be an elected puppet with no real ability or opportunity to do anything to help Arkansans.
With national unemployment greater than ten percent and a budget deficit that exploded on President George W. Bush’s watch, Congress is going to have to address this issues head-on. They have real consequences on the lives of everyday Arkansans. Why, now more than ever, is taking a Just Say No approach to governing the reasonable or sensible thing to do?
The facts don’t lie: obstructionism is what the GOP is all about these days.
