GOP Obstruction: Too Little Too Late
Harry Reid Hornswoggles Ben Nelson On Abortion
Originally Posted At Politico
By Lawrence A. Hunter & Lewis K. Uhler
December 22, 2009
After weeks of refusing to embrace the “obstructionist” label as a virtue, Senate Republicans finally saw the light and late last week began to use the parliamentary tools at their disposal to delay a final vote on health care.
Until then, with the exception of South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, Republican lawmakers had refused to use Senate rules and procedures to obstruct the passage of the health care bill being pushed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and run out the clock on Obamacare. Some prominent Republican senators and members of their staffs had even let it be known they actually believed passage of the Reid health care bill and enactment of Obamacare would benefit GOP candidates in the November midterm elections.
This GOP strategy of expedient complicity enraged the conservative base, roused talk radio show hosts and bloggers and even provoked a backlash from the chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Social Security Institute and the National Tax Limitation Committee joined with Tea Party Support and Gun Owners of America to convey this outrage to the Senate Republican leadership through letters, e-mails and telephone calls from the grass roots to GOP senators’ offices.
Paraphrasing Barry Goldwater, we argued, “Obstructionism in defense of liberty is no vice; cooperation in pursuit of tyranny is no virtue.”
Rush Limbaugh waded in to the fray: “I’m not a parliamentary expert. But I know a disaster when I see it. And I know that [Obamacare has to] be stopped, and whatever parliamentary steps are available to people who do know ... should be taken — every blocking tactic.”
Even RNC Chairman Michael Steele opposed Senate Republicans’ “messaging strategy,” which was designed not to kill the bill but simply to use message amendments to put senators on record in a manner that could be used to good political effect in campaigns next November. Steele urged Republican senators to rise above politics and do whatever is necessary to “delay, stall, slow down and stop the Reid bill.”
At last, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) broke with his leadership’s messaging strategy and launched a delaying campaign by insisting that a 700-plus-page amendment be read in its entirety. But by then, it was too little, too late. Senate Democrats persuaded the parliamentarian to ignore the rules and allow the amendment to be withdrawn after its reading had begun, signaling they were willing to break the rules if Republicans insisted on using them. Then Reid accelerated his shameful campaign to buy 60 votes by Christmas before Republicans could regain their footing and bring the Senate to a standstill.
By Saturday, profligate vote buying was completely out of hand. The amount of federal lucre handed out to the states of a few balking senators was disgraceful — the most egregious instance being the perpetual Medicaid bailout of Nebraska for Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson. This was not compromise, as Reid spun it, but bribery pure and simple.
But more than simple bribery was required to obtain Nelson’s vote to reach 60. Reid had to resort to fraud and deception about the abortion language placed into the manager’s amendment to deceive Nelson into believing he had eliminated federal subsidies of abortion.
Reid played Nelson for a chump. Contrary to Reid’s assurances to Nelson, the language will lead to federally subsidized abortion. The entire anti-abortion community has blown the whistle on Reid’s misrepresentation. Every major anti-abortion group has stated on the record that the manager’s amendment language on abortion will be ineffectual and is unacceptable. The world looks on as Nelson is played for a fool by his own leadership.
The nation awaits Nelson’s reaction to the shameful treatment he has received at the hands of his Democratic colleagues. Will the fierce opposition by anti-abortion groups to the abortion deception provide Sen. Nelson an “OMG moment,” leading him to understand that his fellow Democrats hornswoggled him on the abortion language?
If so, Republican “obstructionism” will prove the least of the majority leader’s problems. Nelson’s commitment to vote for the bill was predicated on a gross misrepresentation, and if the anti-abortion rallies in Omaha during the weekend are any indication, the citizens of Nebraska are demanding that Nelson avail himself of his right to nullify a commitment extracted from him under duress by deceit and misrepresentation.
While Republicans’ obstructionism was too little, too late, Reid’s obdurate obscurations on abortion may finally prove too much, too often for Nelson and the people of Nebraska to stomach.
Lawrence A. Hunter is president of the Social Security Institute, and Lewis K. Uhler is president of the National Tax Limitation Committee.
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