Memorandum To The Grass Roots
*Third Update* October 15, 2009
(Original Post)
(First Update)
(Second Update)
(View As PDF)
I was going to update the Strategy Memo but saw that Gerald Merits already had done a better job at it than I could so I am posting his email to the Grass Roots in lieu of my own update.
Memorandum To The Grass Roots
From Gerald Merits (webmaster@lumponablog.com)
Date Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 10:19 AM
Subject Tea Party Patriots - Relevant, Then Irrelevant And How To Stay Relevant
When is comes to a winning strategy to pressure Senators to act a certain way it helps to think of it like pain. If you have pain for only 1/2 an hour you won't be thinking about six hours later. If the pain is unrelenting, you are going to pay it a great deal of attention and possibly make an appointment with your doctor. In short, you will probably do something about it instead of ignore it.
The news from Senate insiders (Senators and their staff) concerning the 9/12 movement is now one of disappointment and a feeling of helplessness about three weeks after 9/12. I am not talking about the effect of 9/12, but rather the lack of effect just a few short weeks after 9/12.
The general feeling in the Senate was dismissive of the movement. This is real intelligence and very solid. I am afraid the October surprise will have the same effect as the 9/12 march and that without sustained and merciless pressure the Tea Party will be relevant for a couple of weeks again and then disappear off the radar. Recall this link in my previous email to all of you (http://bit.ly/oHMZa) concerning a real strategy we can all march to to defeat ObamaCare. This is referred to as the strategy memo and I urge you to check it out.
Also check out this link about the real habits of Senators and how often they are actually in Washington and how often they are in their states (http://tinyurl.com/yjjyts7) and follow the link to the Politico report for additional details.
What this translates to is that we can demand a townhall of our Senators every single weekend, hunt them down and find out where they will be during their often repeated self-imposed recesses, and barring that protest in front of their offices and across the state every single weekend until the recess. This is for those states with Senators listed in the strategy memo as "gettable" Dems and squishy RINOs. And send hand-written faxes to keep the fax machines running day in and day out for the previous listed Senators and for every Senator not listed in the memo, those Tea Party leaders and their workers can concentrate on the reconciliation killing strategy that references the Jim DeMint amendments.
Lastly, I am concerned that protesting local television stations is counter productive. I am referring to the "can you hear us now" campaign. In my home town of Austin, a gathering of 14 of us in front of Whole Foods made the evening news. Street theater, especially large street theater, makes the evening news, and all local stations are hungry for anything interesting. This helps our cause and gets us much needed attention and keeps on everyone's radar. If anybody should be protested it is the national offices of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC news. Folks in those towns can take care of that, but local news stations are our friends and should be courted. Let them know when an event is to be held and work with them, not against them. Should the coverage be unflattering, then take the gloves off and give them hell.
With targeted and unrelenting pressure with boots on the grounds every weekend and constantly running fax machines around the clock the Tea Party will be relevant ALL the time and not just for a few weeks surrounding an event. This is how you kill healthcare. It is a strategy, much like a battle plan. I have yet to see its equal or anything equivalent, and given the information coming from inside the Senate, we need to stop thinking that a single nationwide event will translate to long-term results in our favor. This is not going to be easy, but then anything worth it is never easy, is it?
The pressure must be sustained.
--
GJMerits
*Second Update* October 10, 2009
As the Original Strategy Memo of September 26 and its September 29 Update made clear, the end game on ObamaCare involves targeting approximately 20 Senators—a dozen Democrats and eight Republicans. Because the Tea Party Movement is so decentralized, it is also possible to bring commensurate, simultaneous pressure to bear on many of the other 80 Senators as well since the grass-roots forces in the states without a targeted Senator can be mobilized and deployed without diminishing forces being brought to bear on the targeted Senators.
The lobbying pressure on the other 80 non-targeted Senators, however, should be applied in a different manner, with different objectives and through different techniques. I discuss a refinement of the Targeted-Senators Strategy and the Non-Targeted Senators Strategy in this Strategy Memo Update.
Targeted Senators: The objective should be to convince each targeted Senator to vote “no” on ObamaCare to prevent all versions from getting 60 votes. It may be possible to get some targeted Senators to vote against one version of ObamaCare (say the public option) while it is necessary to find another subset of the targeted Senators to vote against another version (say health insurance cooperatives) and yet another subset against another version (say a deficit buster). Always be on the lookout to work one of the non-targeted Senators on one very special version of ObamaCare that they might be persuaded to vote against (say Kent Conrad (ND) on a deficit buster). With all targeted Senators whom we are trying to convince to vote against some version of ObamaCare the guiding principle should be Tip O’Neil’s dictum: “All politics is local.”
(i.) Direct Public Human Action
Each targeted Senator must be confronted face-to-face with as many live bodies in the state as possible. Those people not able to confront the Senator face-to-face should be assembled in organized “demonstrations,” “meetings,” “office visits” across the state in which the message is articulated clearly with a constant sub-theme demanding to meet with the Senator to express their views. Human action in the Senate Offices in Washington, DC also is important. Keep a constant stream of visitors circulating through Capitol Hill offices.
Make sure all human action is videoed, even if only on cell phones, and placed on Youtube as soon as possible. The blogosphere and letter/op-ed writers along with mass email pushes should transmit the message and the links to Youtube continuously. Direct mail targeted to older people also should be undertaken to generate petitions, telephone calls and faxes into Senate offices.
Learn Senators’ schedules, track them down, shadow them, stay on them like white-on-rice and force them to meet with the people, not just once but continuously at points all over the state until the final vote is taken. Make sure every face-to-face confrontation occurs in front of the press. Make it impossible for the local press to ignore what is going on. Make sure all meetings are polite, respectful, substantive, orderly, well articulated, designed for ease of media reporting and, above all, non-violent in every respect. Police yourselves and keep the rowdies out. That doesn’t mean the events should not be boisterous; they should be. That doesn’t mean the events should not be confrontational; they should be. However, they must remain under control at all times.
The second guiding principle in developing the message is KISS (keep it simple stupid) and DO NOT TURN THIS CAMPAIGN INTO A PERSONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRESIDENT OBAMA. This campaign must be kept on message against ObamaCare and tailored precisely at the issues most likely to sway each Senator in question.
(ii.) Indirect Private Human Action with Kitchen Cabinets
In addition to mobilizing localized, mass, face-to-face grass-roots pressure on targeted Senators, there is another more personalized technique that should be applied hand-in-glove with mass action. Each elected official has a “kitchen cabinet” of usually somewhere between 3 to 10 close confidents whom he trusts and from whom he will tolerate bad news and criticism without closing his ears and avoiding them. Usually these are former campaign people (especially former campaign finance chairmen), old school buddies, close personal friends, business colleagues from an earlier career, family or clergy. Only people with deep roots in the community will know who these people are. THEY ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE STATE other than the Senator himself.
Frequently these people are apolitical or may even share different political views on some important issues than the Senator in question. They also tend to have not only the Senator’s political interests in mind but also his personal interests. They will be able to tell him, and he will listen, that he needs do something he might otherwise be indisposed to do. They also provide him sets of objective eyes and ears outside the political bubble in which he resides. Every targeted Senator’s kitchen cabinet also should be targets, not for public pressure but for subtle and sometimes not so subtle, but always quiet out-of-public-sight pressure and persuasion. Each member of the kitchen cabinet themselves have concentric circles of friends, associates, colleagues and family members who very quickly will intersect with our people. FIND THE INTERSECTIONS AND PRESS THOSE TROOPS INTO ACTION.
Mass face-to-face political pressure establishes the background atmospherics—the street theatre that conveys the message publically—while the kitchen cabinet acts as the transmission belt of valued and trusted advice and counsel to the Senator that is consistent with and reinforcing of the building public pressure.
For each targeted Senator, assemble a diagram of his kitchen cabinet and find local people among our troops who can influence every member of that kitchen cabinet in some fashion.
Non-Targeted Senators: With respect to non-targeted Senators, the objective should be to convince them to vote against any version of Reconciliation that tries to jam parts of ObamaCare through with less than 60 votes. The principle here is the opposite of Tip O’Neil’s dictum. In this case, the objective must be to nationalize the campaign. The message still should be delivered by a Senator’s constituents but the message is less about the substance of the bill itself and more to the issue of fairness and the prudence and wisdom of jamming anything this controversial and far reaching down the American public’s throat by a slim majority.
If some version of health reform cannot garner 60 votes, the entire exercise should be discontinued and put on the shelf until after the mid-term elections. If health reform cannot get 60 votes, it is too contentious to even consider enacting into law. Such legislation, far from fixing our healthcare problems would divide America into dangerous factions that could tear the country apart, leading to further confrontation, mass non-compliance, endless lawsuits, political rebelliousness by governors and state legislatures and general political upheaval.
The target here will be a different group of Senators (i.e., those like Robert Byrd –WV) but the campaign should be waged, beginning right now, in every state, aimed at every Senator because part of the point is to demonstrate NATIONAL UPHEAVAL as a reason for each Senator to resist the temptation to jam any bill through under the extraordinary Reconciliation procedure.
The original DeMint Amendment does not have legal bearing on this question since it was stripped out of the Budget Resolution, which will be the vehicle for Reconciliation. However, the DeMint Amendment and the subsequent DeMint Motion to Instruct Conferees are of enormous importance in making the fairness point and illustrating the Senate itself understood this issue prior to the President turning it into a scorched-earth, win-at-any-cost political fight.
The DeMint Amendment and Motion to Instruct also provides us tangible evidence of how each and every Senator came down on this issue twice before. There is nothing a Member of Congress hates more than to be confronted with the prospect of reversing himself on a former, in this case TWO former votes. This isn’t a legal matter; it is political and political in the toughest sense for Senators to deal with—the prospect of explaining WHY THEY FLIP FLOPPED AND REVERSED THEMSELVES.
* UPDATE * September 29, 2009
As this blog indicates, “strategizing” has become the latest inside-the-Beltway pastime, especially since there isn’t much else for talking heads to do right now with the healthcare game deep inside the bowels of the U.S. Senate. Former Senate insiders suddenly become in great demand to offer their strategic insights.
There is also a danger that grass roots activists themselves get too caught up in the strategizing game. First, most of what passes for “strategizing” is really mostly about tactics. Grass roots really does need to focus on the Democrats main strategy and organize to combat it.
Moreover, getting caught up in the Capitol Hill action is a special danger for grass roots activists, in my opinion, in the aftermath of 9/12. The march on Washington was a HUGE success. But its very success has led to a substantial post-march let down, and in fact one of the grass roots, Tea Party organizations is in the midst of a public nervous breakdown. There is talk of more mass rallies in DC. Some groups are arguing whether or not to walk out of the Finance Committee proceedings. In short, there seems to be little talk about lighting up certain Senators with a political laser beam.
I believe firmly that grass roots activists cannot and should not even try to “play on the inside.” Grass roots by its very nature is ill equipped to maneuver in the back rooms. Moreover, trying to do so only diverts attention from what grass roots do well—mass political pressure—and leads to the kinds of turf warfare we are seeing play out within the one Tea Party organization.
Therefore, I urge everyone to focus on combating the three generic strategies the Democrats are pursuing—see “Strategy” (ugh) Memo below—and put in place campaigns to defend against each of them—ON THE GROUND, IN THE STATES. The job of the grass roots is to activate and mobilize their people in the exact locations where pressure is required and can be effective.
I have suggested a dozen Democrats and eight or so Republicans. Others may disagree on my precise picks. Great, go after any others that you are persuaded are “on the margin” and leave alone any among my list you think have moved off the margin. Only by swinging into action can we know for sure who can be had.
Keep an eye on the Senate but keep your feet on the ground in the states whose Senators we need to get. And -- Go Get ‘Em.
Memorandum To The Grass Roots
September 26, 2009
From: Lawrence A. Hunter
President, Social Security Institute
Subject: Preventing A Government Takeover of Healthcare: Defeating Democrats’ 3Rs Strategy—Rolling Republicans w. 60 Votes, RHINOCare and Reconciliation.
We don’t yet know the Senate Democrats’ precise strategy to pass a bill through the Senate. Therefore, we must anticipate their most likely strategies and prepare to defeat them all.
First, a word about scheduling: The next real deadline for passing healthcare legislation in the Senate is Oct. 12 when the Senate is scheduled to go into a one-week recess for Columbus Day. Democrats do not want to go home again and face their constituents before they act on healthcare. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) may be laying the predicate for canceling the recess by accusing Republicans of stalling major legislation. He has warned them that if they don’t pick up the legislative pace he will cancel the weeklong Columbus Day recess. It would be highly unusual and highly controversial to do so. In my opinion, opponents of ObamaCare should pull out the stops to ensure that Members of Congress must go home for a week one more time before a vote is held in the Senate. After Oct. 12, the next legislative marker is Oct. 30 when the Congress is scheduled to adjourn the first session sine die.
Based upon extensive discussions on Capitol Hill, I see three likely strategies, the 3Rs—Rolling Republicans with 60 votes, RHINOCare and Reconciliation. Rather than pursuing these strategies sequentially, they will advance two simultaneous flanking movements trying to go it alone with 60 Democrat/Independent votes on the left and attacking on the right by attempting to build a 60+ “bipartisan” coalition around a RHINOCare plan. Whichever side first turns the Republican flank will determine the outcome. If both flanking efforts stall out, they will resort to a last-ditch attack on the middle where only 50 votes are required (plus a tie-breaking vote by the vice president) to pass a bill under Reconciliation.
Democrats’ Go-It-Along Left-Flanking Strategy:
Roll the Republican Rear with 60 Democrat/Independent Votes
Whether it is a head fake to party unity or whether they really mean it, Senate Democrats have now decided to at least attempt to pass healthcare by themselves, without a single Republican vote. In other words, they will at least try to secure 60 votes to invoke cloture, cut off debate and pass some form of undiluted ObamaCare.
The Baucus Finance Committee effort has failed, and although the Finance Committee’s Chairman’s Mark (Senator Baucus’ rough-draft, vapor bill) may end up as the floor vehicle, it almost certainly will be amended beyond recognition or struck in its entirety and replaced by a Leader substitute on the floor. There is a high probability that a Leader amendment in the nature of a substitute will contain some kind of public option.
Strategically, that means the first line of defense against undiluted ObamaCare must proceed from Tip O’Neill’s premise that “all politics is local.” In other words, it will require a state-by-state, bare knuckles campaign to convince at least two—preferably three, ideally five—Democrats that it would be political suicide for them to vote in favor of whatever ObamaCare bill is presented. (There is wide consensus among Senate insiders that there is no one single Democrat/Independent who will have the courage and strength to be the single vote that defeats the president’s healthcare ambitions therefore at least two must be willing to join hands and vote “no.”)
This kind of political-foot-soldier warfare is exactly the kind of hand-to-hand combat at which grass-roots Tea-Party groups excel—mass political pressure—which can be complimented by a precision media aerial assault brought in by national groups. The main obstacle grass-roots groups confront in a localized campaign aimed at targeted Senators is in those states where they simply do not have adequate troops on the ground to generate enough political pressure to intimidate the Democratic Senator in question. Outside groups can assist in these situations but it must be done very carefully so outside pressure does not blow back on ObamaCare opponents by giving the targeted Democrat the opportunity to raise the “Carpet-Bagger”/“Astro-Turf” issue around which to rally local support against “outside meddling.”
Here is a list I have compiled of Democrats who may be susceptible to persuasion to vote against the kind of bill most likely to emerge from a Democrat effort to roll Republicans with a go-it-alone, 60-vote strategy. They are listed in order of “getability.” (This should not preclude bringing as much pressure to bear on Democrats in all states as grass-roots resources allow without detracting from the vital effort to peel off at least two, preferably three and ideally five Democrats from ObamaCare.
1. Ben Nelson (NE)
2. Joe Lieberman (CT)
3. Blanche Lincoln (AR)
4. Mark Pryor (AR)
5. Mary Landrieu (LA)
6. Evan Bayh (IN)
7. Mark Warner (VA)
8. Mark Begich (AK)
9. Mike Bennett (CO)
10. Jon Tester (MT)
11. Jim Webb (VA)
12. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)
Democrats’ Right-Flanking RHINOCare Strategy:
Smuggle ObamaCare into Law Disguised as RHINOCare
Opinion among Senate insiders is split on the greater threat; a significant number of people believe the biggest threat of a government takeover of healthcare succeeding continues to be RHINOCare, a so-called “bipartisan compromise” that could allow Democrats to blow right past the 60-vote threshold and pass a bill by 63 to 65 votes under regular order in the Senate.
The Liberty Movement grass-roots brigades won a huge tactical victory in preventing a single Republican from defecting and supporting the Senate Finance Committee Chairman’s Mark, the Baucus Bill. However, as I wrote at the time:
“This [victory] does not mean, however, that opponents of ObamaCare and RHINOCare are yet out of the woods. Indeed, there is a chance that the Obama Administration is so desperate to avoid a political defeat on healthcare that it will offer enough concessions to entice a couple of Senators in the Republican Gang of Six (GOPGOS) to defect in the name of a “bipartisan compromise.” Remember, four of the GOPGOS (Alexander, Bennett, Crapo and Graham) actually support some form of individual mandate as evidenced by their co-sponsorship of the Wyden-Bennett Bill (S. 391). Moreover, both Finance Committee Members Olympia Snowe and Chuck Grassley are on record supporting some version of an individual mandate.”
A week after bipartisan negotiations within the Finance Committee broke down, the quest for a RHINOCare “bipartisan compromise” is underway again with apparently even more steam in the boiler. Now, it appears Susan Collins (R-ME) has become the seventh Republican to join the negotiations, and it is not known what role Senator John McCain may be playing behind the scenes. That means a known seven and perhaps eight Republicans are actively searching for a RHINOCare plan on which they can vote “yea.” We don’t know how many other Republicans are lurking in the weeds prepared to mount up the Trojan RHINO if it gets up a head of steam.
The strategy here must be “constant watching” and “daily banging.” Ideally, a Tiger Team in each state represented by a suspect RINO would constantly monitor and interact with each Senate office and the local media to ensure that each potential RINO Senator understands they are under constant grass-roots surveillance. Proactive efforts should seek daily verbal or written assurances from suspect RINOs that they remain on the reservation. At the slightest hint that the RINO in question might be going wobbly, a prearranged grass-roots sledgehammer should be brought down on them.
Unfortunately, fending off Senate negotiations has not made any easier by the idiotic comments of Republican Congressman Charles Boustany Jr. (R-LA) that Republicans agree on “80 percent of the issues” surrounding healthcare. (Boustany was the representative of the GOP the Republican congressional Leadership anointed to deliver the GOP response to the President’s healthcare address before a Joint Session of Congress on September 9.)
Here was my assessment of the damage Congressman Boustany had done to the cause of defeating ObamaCare the day after he delivered what was spun by the Democrats as a Republican-capitulation speech dressed up in the rhetoric of defiance:
“Instead of calling out the President for the two biggest lies of the season—(i) the healthcare system is in extremis and requires urgent comprehensive overhaul lest the sky fall; and (ii) excessive healthcare cost is the problem to be solved by more government intervention rather than the symptom of existing government intervention that must be eliminated—Mr. Boustany actually conceded the president’s false premises and then tried to convince the American public Republicans knew better what to do to about it.
“Rather than explaining that the American public is too split over what to do about healthcare to enact ANY reform legislation at this time, Mr. Boustany urged the Democrats to negotiate with Republicans. Rather than call upon the Congress to discontinue consideration of healthcare legislation until after the midterm elections when a new Congress could take up the issue, he called on this Congress to redouble its efforts. Rather than putting the White House and Democrats on notice that the Republican Party would stand foursquare with the American public in opposition to the Senate’s using the extraordinary parliamentary procedure called Reconciliation to jam healthcare legislation down the throats of the American People, he ignored the issue altogether.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) was quick to hoist Boustany and the entire GOP on their own petard when he called on the Republican Congressman from Louisiana to negotiate with the Democrats to seek common ground on the 20 percent in disagreement. Rather than disavow his 80-percent agreement gaff and call upon the Democrats to hit the reset button and begin negotiations on a clean slate, Mr. Boustany tried to finesse his way out of the corner into which he had backed himself and his party with rhetorical flourishes:
“I appreciate the majority leader’s desire to talk about the broad solutions I outlined following the president’s remarks to Congress the week before last, and I look forward to meeting with him soon to discuss patient-centered alternatives to [the House bill].”
This is RINO talk. Clearly Mr. Boustany has not been listening to the grass-roots because he got the proportions exactly backwards; 80 to 90 percent of Americans are satisfied with their healthcare. Unless the White House and congressional Democrats are willing to give up their grandiose schemes for a government takeover of healthcare, further negotiations are a waste of time, giving false promise to the American People and opening Republicans up to betrayal by a bunch of RINOs just dying to demonstrate they are not the “Party of No” by concocting another medical-engineering fiasco such as they created with Medicare Part D.
Ordinarily, a single Republican Representative popping off would not do damage to the effort to put a stake through the heart of ObamaCare/RHINOCare. In this instance, however, Boustany was speaking on behalf of Republican Senators as well as Members of the House, and he sent Senate Democrats a very strong signal that it was worthwhile to continue negotiating with Senate RINOs.
Note to Louisiana grass-roots activists: Please let your guy know he is being a useful idiot for the Obama Brigades. Let him know also that if he doesn’t do something to rectify the situation, it will be curtains for him politically if RHINOCare passes.
Democrats’ Last-Ditch Assault on the Middle: Reconciliation
Senator Harry Reid has put the American people on notice that if the Republican Party does not capitulate and acquiesce to some version of ObamaCare, he will act like a thug and jam it down their throats. The only way to defeat Reconciliation is to be prepared at a moment’s notice to pivot from a localized strategy precisely tailored to threaten targeted Democrats’ weak spots to a national campaign aimed not at the substance of ObamaCare so much as the fairness and political prudence of jamming something as enormous and contentious as healthcare reform down the throats of the American people with fewer than a majority of sitting Senators voting in favor of it. The strategy to defeat Reconciliation must be aimed at the Democratic Party as a whole questioning its judgment, prudence, fairness and wisdom. The task at this point will be to characterize Reconciliation as political thuggery, totally unacceptable in the American democratic process; to raise such national outrage at the strong-arm tactics of Reconciliation that Democrats understand the American People will not tolerate it and will throw them out of office at the first opportunity.
Here is a suggested framework on which to build a strategy against Reconciliation:
Senator Reid threatens to tie dissenting Senators’ hands behind their backs with procedural restrictions on amendments, gag them with strict limits on debate and pummel the long tradition of minority rights in the U.S. Senate by ramming ObamaCare through the Senate with a bare majority or even with fewer than a minimum 51 votes of sitting Senators, if necessary, by having Vice President Biden break a 50-50 tie.
The parliamentary maneuver Senator Reid would use to pass ObamaCare by less than a majority vote of sitting Senators is known as “Reconciliation.” Reconciliation is an extraordinary budgetary procedure designed specifically to ensure passage of an annual budget and avoid a stalemate leading to a complete shutdown of the federal government. Reconciliation was not designed and never intended to circumvent regular order in the Senate to ram through controversial and far-reaching legislation such as healthcare “reform.”
Democratic Senator Robert C. Byrd, one of the authors of the Reconciliation procedure and foremost authority on the history of Senate rules and procedure describes what happens under Reconciliation this way: “Under reconciliation’s gag rule there are twenty hours of debate or less if time is yielded back, and little or no opportunity to amend."
This is political thuggery—political assault and battery upon the American People pure and simple. Senator Byrd best expresses why using Reconciliation to jam ObamaCare down America’s throat degrades the U.S. Senate and violates the spirit of our system of checks and balances:
“Using reconciliation to ram through complicated, far-reaching legislation is an abuse of the budget process. . .With critical matters such as a massive revamping of our health care system which will impact the lives of every citizen of our great land, the Senate has a duty to debate and amend and explain in the full light of day, however long that may take, what it is we propose, and why we propose it. . .We must not run roughshod over minority views. A minority can be right. . . Ramrodding and railroading have no place when it comes to such matters as our people’s healthcare.”
That is why Senator Byrd says, “I cannot, and I will not, vote to authorize the use of the reconciliation process to expedite passage of health care reform legislation.”
What Majority Leader Reid is hiding from the American public is the fact that a huge bipartisan majority of Senators agreed with Senator Byrd, when they were writing this year’s budget resolution back in April, that Reconciliation should not be used to railroad ObamaCare through the Senate.
During deliberations on the Senate Budget Resolution earlier this year, Senator Jim DeMint introduced a point-of-order amendment that would require a 60-vote majority to pass “any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report that eliminates the ability of Americans to keep their health plan or their choice of doctor (as determined by the Congressional Budget Office).” The Senate approved the DeMint Amendment unanimously.
Subsequently, before the Senate Budget Resolution went to a Conference Committee where differences with the House Budget Resolution were to be worked out, DeMint offered a motion to instruct the Senate Conferees not only to insist on retaining the 60-vote provision in the final Conference Report but also to widen the scope of the provision to cover any provision and so forth that decreases the number of Americans enrolled in private health insurance while increasing the number enrolled in government-managed, rationed health care. The DeMint motion to instruct conferees to insist on the 60-vote requirement for healthcare passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 79 to 14.
As a matter of congressional comity, the House ordinarily would have been expected to accede to the Senate provision since it affected Senate rules that applied only to the Senate. But mysteriously the 60-vote rule was stripped from the resolution in the dead of night, behind closed doors and out of sight of the rest of the Senate and the American People. Remarkably, Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Kent Conrad, must have fallen asleep during the Conference Committee meeting because he allowed the Demint 60-vote requirement to be removed from the Budget Resolution in Conference.
Now, Senator Reid stands on the flimsy excuse that the DeMint amendments are irrelevant because they were not in the final Budget Resolution Conference Report. But make no mistake, the 60-vote requirement—which was TWICE voted for by huge, bipartisan majorities in the Senate and did not affect the House—wasn’t in the final Budget Resolution Conference Report ONLY because Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad thumbed his nose at three fourths of his colleagues and took it upon himself contrary to the will of the Senate to unceremoniously strip their 60-vote rule out of the Conference Report.
With one-sixth of the U.S. economy at stake, the Senate should insist upon abiding by its own rule, which it TWICE adopted by overwhelming bipartisan votes. Why would Senator Reid insist upon using a provision the Senate TWICE agreed should NOT be used on healthcare because they knew it wouldn’t be right to pass a bill that divides the nation into feuding factions by a slim 50 votes?
Harry Reid’s argument that he is justified in jamming ObamaCare down America’s throat because there is no rule against it—actually because one rogue Senator took it upon himself to reverse the will and judgment of the entire Senate and eliminate a rule Senators thought was right and appropriate—is the pure sophistry of a tyrant.
The question is, what justifies the Senate in violating its own cherished norms and traditions? Why does Senator Reid refuse to abide by the 60-vote rule on healthcare the Senate TWICE voted to impose on itself by huge bipartisan majorities? Why does Senator Reid ignore the authoritative judgment of fellow Democrat Robert Byrd that it would be wrong, wrong, wrong to steamroller ObamaCare through the Senate under Reconciliation?
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