red states rule
03-10-2010, 08:31 AM
Now that they are in power, Dems have no desire to work with the minority - unless they roll over and agree with everything they say
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wants to revive the bipartisan Gang of 14 — this time for health care reform, not judicial nominees.
But most of his moderate Democratic colleagues aren’t rushing to R.S.V.P.
Graham said Tuesday that a coalition of Republican and Democratic senators could rescue the Senate from an institutional disaster brought on by the use of the parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation to finish the health care bill.
“Many Republicans who were ready to pull the trigger on the nuclear option on judges are now glad they didn’t,” Graham said. “This place would have ceased to function as we know it. If they do health care through reconciliation, it will be the same consequence. So if you are a moderate Democrat out there looking for a way to deliver health care reforms and not pull the nuclear trigger, there is a model to look at.”
But some of the moderates who would usually be the first to join such a push scoffed at the idea.
“Who are they going to get?” asked Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a member of the original Gang of 14. “It is not the same as it was before.”
The resistance to Graham’s proposal is a sign of how centrist Democrats, who were among the most skeptical of reconciliation after their party’s Massachusetts Senate defeat, have come largely to accept that the use of the fast-track rules is a legitimate tool to enact fixes to the Senate health care bill.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34165.html#ixzz0hmRBP7kd
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wants to revive the bipartisan Gang of 14 — this time for health care reform, not judicial nominees.
But most of his moderate Democratic colleagues aren’t rushing to R.S.V.P.
Graham said Tuesday that a coalition of Republican and Democratic senators could rescue the Senate from an institutional disaster brought on by the use of the parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation to finish the health care bill.
“Many Republicans who were ready to pull the trigger on the nuclear option on judges are now glad they didn’t,” Graham said. “This place would have ceased to function as we know it. If they do health care through reconciliation, it will be the same consequence. So if you are a moderate Democrat out there looking for a way to deliver health care reforms and not pull the nuclear trigger, there is a model to look at.”
But some of the moderates who would usually be the first to join such a push scoffed at the idea.
“Who are they going to get?” asked Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a member of the original Gang of 14. “It is not the same as it was before.”
The resistance to Graham’s proposal is a sign of how centrist Democrats, who were among the most skeptical of reconciliation after their party’s Massachusetts Senate defeat, have come largely to accept that the use of the fast-track rules is a legitimate tool to enact fixes to the Senate health care bill.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34165.html#ixzz0hmRBP7kd