Hehe.

I don't understand how the health care bill would fail if a Republican won the seat though...

Something about a supermajority being needed to block certain procedural tricks the minority can use to kill a bill? I dunno. Don't really care much lol. My democrat facebook friends are sick with grief. I tell them the same thing I do about Jay Leno -- the people who liked Coakley so much should have shown up at the polls. If not, all I can do is accept the change.

"God is change." -- Octavia Butler

Essentially a bill can be fillibustered unless 3/5ths of the Senate votes against it.

Basically -- if they follow "normal" procedure on the health care bill, members of both the House and Senate will get together in conference committee to hash out the differences between the chambers and come up with a single conference report. The conference report would then need to be adopted in both chambers to send the bill to the president.

The problem with this is that the Senate needs a 3/5 vote (60 votes) to move forward on anything. A single senator can put a hold on anything they want, and the chamber can't move forward on it until a motion to close debate (cloture) is adopted, which requires 60 votes. The Senate Dems now only have 59 seats due to Brown, so they would have to flip a Republican (not happening), or rush through a conference report and vote on it before Brown is seated (also unlikely).

I would be extremely surprised if the health care bill went down, though. I've suspected all along that the House will simply concur in the Senate version of the bill and send that version to Obama to sign -- it's a relatively simple motion and House leadership should be able to rustle up enough votes for it. House members won't like doing it, but it's my best guess for how it will go down. There's also the possibility of reconciliation, but Reid has already said he wouldn't use it on health care, so I don't think he'll go there unless he has to.

I think there are a couple of other things at play: first, that Coakley really let down her supporters with the way she ran her campaign. Second, MA Democrats are probably realizing that the only Democrat Senator now is Sen. Kerry, who doesn't care AT ALL about Massachusetts. So MA Democrats don't think they have anyone truly representing their interests.

That said I think Brown will do a great job, and I'm glad he won.

Since you're probably the most knowledgeable person on the board about Washington politics: What do you think are the chances that they try to push it through before Brown is seated? Do you think that would only occur with some sort of reconciliation measure?

Yes I realized last night that I forgot about that rascally Fillibuster.

I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility that the conference committee will at least try to come up with something that Olympia Snowe would support. But I agree that the most likely scenario is that the House concurs in the Senate version.

It is my understanding that Sen. Reid blew off Sen. Snowe and this really ticked her off. She has stated that she will not agree to the bill in any of its forms but her past indicates that she will turn on a dime.

The House may well agree to the Senate version but it faces a huge uphill battle. The two bills are different in many aspects and holding the votes might be a problem for Congresswoman Pelosi.

I believe they will start over and break the bill apart and vote on individual parts. This is probably what they should have done anyway.

Somehow I missed that. But you're right -- amazing how quickly things can change up there.

I believe this is the least likely outcome, but I could of course be wrong.

KSigKid -- I think it's unlikely that they'll attempt to push anything through before Brown is seated. A few Dems have already sent out press releases asking for all votes on health care to be held until after he is seated, and it really goes against the nature of the Senate as a collegial body.

My sense is that the House will pass the Senate bill as it is, then simultaneously bring up a corrections bill that would incorporate deals made in negotiations over the last week. The corrections bill could be passed through reconciliation, which requires only 51 votes in the Senate, or even under regular order, assuming Dem leaders find the votes.

And since GC won't let me edit my post, I double post to say that in the interest of full disclosure, I work as an editor for a major DC publication that covers Congress. My expertise is Congressional procedure, not policy, and I have not read the bill in full.

has anyone read the bill in full?

I know one person who has for sure. Ha! Other than that, probably not.

I don't believe they can muster the number of votes in the house for this. There is just too much in the Senate bill that is a problem for some of the House Dems. For example, the "blue dogs" will not abide without the Stupak amendment and the Dems who are beholding to labor will be in a very tight box with the tax on "cadillac plans". Beside all this, I also think it would be political suicide for the Dems. They probably know this as well. Maybe they will decide to go out with a blaze of glory though. Stranger things have happened. Witness the election last night.

I disagree. Democrats are already saddled with the political fallout, whether the bill passes or not, and it’s better for them to have a bill to defend that has tangible benefits than try to explain why they voted for something and then walked away. There's no incentive whatsoever for any Republican to vote for the bill, so they certainly won't start over unless there's absolutely no other way.

Dems have a large enough margin in the House to get a simple majority on the Senate bill. The party leaders will be sure to make the caucus members aware of the consequences of letting the main aspect of Obama's platform fail. I've seen this happen over and over in the House, and the rank and file always end up falling in line. I could be wrong, but my experience says they can do it.