As he seeks 60 votes to reform the nation's health care system amid a growing fight over abortion, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., can take one lesson from the House vote: Despite heated threats, liberals stuck with their leader.
Of the 39 Democrats who defied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., only one did so from the left: the unpredictable Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, whose complaints focused on the absence of a single-payer plan, not its anti-abortion language. Only eight dissenting Democrats hail from districts President Obama carried, and most of those margins were slim. More than half (24) were Blue Dogs, many of whom were still smarting from a painful vote on cap-and-trade in June.
Liberals fell in line despite the inclusion of an amendment from Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., restricting the use of federal funds for abortion services. Outmaneuvered by Stupak and other anti-abortion Democrats before the vote, pro-choice Democrats now face a backlash from abortion-rights groups who insist the language be stripped from the final bill. More than 40 Democrats who voted "yes" on Saturday now say they'll oppose the final bill if it contains the anti-abortion language. But following their near-unanimous willingness Saturday to swallow the poison pill, will their threat carry much weight in the Senate?
Obama and congressional Democratic leaders are smartly urging Democrats to keep their eye on the larger goal of delivering a bill.
The upper chamber is, of course, a different world, where even one dissenter could kill the bill unless Democrats can draw Republican votes. But while Reid is now grappling with potential defections from the likes of Sens. Roland Burris, D-Ill., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the leverage of those liberals was likely diluted by their counterparts in the House, who ultimately held their noses and voted "yes."
Abortion rights supporters expressed relief Tuesday when Obama suggested in an ABC News interview that he wasn't fond of the Stupak amendment. "This is a health care bill," he said, "not an abortion bill." But if you read his comments closely, you can see that Obama is, once again, leaving plenty of room for negotiation.
On the one hand, he said, "we're not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions. I want to make sure that... we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we're not restricting women's insurance choices." In other words, he said, "this is going to be a complex set of negotiations."
One Senate Democrat who seems to recognize the terms of the debate is Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. While she opposes the Stupak amendment, McCaskill said Monday that Democrats need to accept the political reality that liberals don't control their caucus. "We can't just turn our back on the fact that the reason we're in the majority is because states like Indiana, Arkansas and Louisiana, and Missouri and North Carolina and Virginia sent Democrats to the Senate," she said on MSNBC.
The Senate vote is, of course, weeks away. And as we saw in the House -- where abortion rights, not the public option, became the bill's last-minute snag -- the debate may look very different by the time roll is called.
In the meantime, Obama and congressional Democratic leaders are smartly urging Democrats to keep their eye on the larger goal of delivering a comprehensive health care bill. With that in mind, they dispatched former President Bill Clinton to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to address the party's closed-door caucus luncheon. Clinton has close friendships with almost all of the undecided Senate Democrats, including Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., whom he knew when both men were governors in the early 1990s; Sen. Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn.; and his home state's two senators, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. Even more importantly, Clinton serves as a stark reminder of the political repercussions the party could face next fall if Congress fails to act.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told the New York Daily News this week that every Democrat, "from the most conservative to the most liberal," understands that failing to pass a bill "is worse for the country -- and worse for us." In the end, Reid's success will depend on whether Schumer is right.
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