Obama Tactic Shields Health Care Bill From a Filibuster

Obama Tactic Shields Health Care Bill From a Filibuster
By CARL HULSE
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/us/politics/25budget.html?th&emc=th


WASHINGTON — At the prodding of the White House, Democratic Congressional leaders have agreed to pursue a plan that would protect major health care legislation from Republican opposition by shielding it from last-minute Senate filibusters.

The aggressive approach reflects the big political claim that President Obama is staking on health care, and with it his willingness to face Republican wrath in order to guarantee that the Democrats, with their substantial majority in the Senate, could not be thwarted by minority tactics.

While some Democratic senators were reluctant to embrace the arrangement, Mr. Obama made clear at a White House session on Thursday afternoon that he favored it, people with knowledge of the session said.

Mr. Obama has given way in some battles with Congress, but the new stance suggests he may be much less willing to compromise when it comes to health care, his top legislative priority, even if it means a bitter partisan fight.

The no-filibuster arrangement is fiercely opposed by Republican leaders, who say health care is too important to be exempted from the Senate rules that usually mean major bills must win support from 60 senators.

At the White House meeting this week, Mr. Obama told senators from both parties that he did not want a health care overhaul to fail if it came up a vote shy of the 60 needed to break filibusters, the people with knowledge of the session said. Republicans have used the procedure themselves in the past, but Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, told Mr. Obama in the meeting that that approach was likely to heighten partisan tensions in Congress.

The arrangement is spelled out in a tentative budget agreement reached Thursday night between Congressional leaders and the White House, allowing health legislation that meets budget targets to be approved by a simple Senate majority, under a process known as reconciliation.

Democrats say they intend to use the process as a last resort, and will include a provision in the budget that would not trigger the Senate shortcut until Oct. 15. That would leave the door open for months of negotiations over health care legislation, which the Democrats hope to deliver by the end of the year.

“Virtually everyone who has been part of these discussions recognizes that reconciliation is not the preferred way to write this legislation,” said Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “But the administration wants to have a reconciliation instruction as an insurance policy.”

Mr. Conrad said the decision not to invoke the no-filibuster rule until mid-October was intended “as a signal that people are very serious and want this to work through the normal give-and-take.”

But that might not mollify Republicans, who say that once Democrats have the ability to fast-track the measure they will have no incentive to negotiate seriously with Republicans.

Republicans have threatened to use their own procedural weapons to bog down the Senate if Democrats adopt a budget that restricts filibusters on an issue as important as health care.

“The floor of the Senate will become a very untidy place if they start using reconciliation for major policy,” warned Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, senior Republican on the budget panel.

Mr. Conrad and Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, the House Budget Committee chairman, were hammering out final details of the $3.5 trillion budget in talks with the administration that were expected to head into the weekend.

“Most issues have been resolved,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said Friday, “but there are some that have not.”

The Democrats can rely on 58 votes in the Senate, and expected to add a 59th once the courts finish their review of the disputed election in Minnesota. But Mr. McConnell said that using the no-filibuster approach on health care “without the benefit of a full and transparent debate, does a disservice to the American people.”

“It would make it absolutely clear they intend to carry out their plans on a purely partisan basis,” he said.

Mr. Conrad had advised against using reconciliation, saying it did not lend itself to such a complex issue as health care.

But Mr. Conrad came under intense pressure from the White House, his own Senate leadership and the House to include it, to guard against Republicans’ using the filibuster to kill a health care bill. Proponents of reconciliation note that House and Senate Republicans have so far stood almost united against the new administration’s major initiatives.

Besides the agreement to use reconciliation, negotiators were coming to terms on lingering tax issues and the overall level of domestic spending, with the amount originally requested by Mr. Obama expected to be reduced by about $10 billion for 2010. The White House was pushing for final approval of a budget by Wednesday to put a successful coda on the Obama administration’s first 100 days.

The tentative agreement would also apply reconciliation rules to a less-partisan fight over student lending, but does not include filibuster protection for energy or climate-change legislation.

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, said Friday that he would prefer not to pursue health legislation through the reconciliation process.

“I think it gets in the way,” Mr. Baucus said, explaining that his goal was to produce a health care bill that could “get significantly more than 60 votes.”

“If we jam something down somebody’s throat, it’s not sustainable,” he said.

But other leading Democrats say they need the ability to circumvent filibusters if Republicans refuse to negotiate. They noted that Republicans often relied on reconciliation when they held power, notably using it to enact President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

Senate rules give the minority party, in this case the Republicans, ample ability to snarl the legislative process in a chamber where much activity is conducted under agreements between majority and minority leadership.

Republicans could force multiple votes on mundane matters, slow walk administration nominations, force Democrats to spend days teeing up bills for debate and require lengthy bills to be read in full. In 2005, Democrats threatened to bring the Senate to a halt using similar tactics when Republicans said they would strip them of the ability to filibuster judicial nominations. That showdown was averted.

Now, Republicans would run some political risk of being portrayed as obstructing health care and other initiatives sought by a popular new president if they were seen as shutting down the Senate out of pique.

Robert Pear contributed reporting.