Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) became the 41st senator to say that he would back the public insurance option as part of a health care bill moved through reconciliation.
Nelson, asked by HuffPost if he would vote for a public option on the Senate floor, was unequivocal. "Yes," he said firmly. "I've already voted for it in the committee, in the Finance Committee."
Only Blanche Lincoln is opposed. Kay Hagan, Mark Warner and Jim Webb have not taken a stance.
2. On the public option That makes 41 Senators in favor of passing a public option through reconciliation. Additionally, Tom Harkin, Claire McCaskill and Herb Kohl all support the public option, and support reconciliation, but just haven't stated they would support a public option in reconciliation. So really, the number of public option supporters is 44.
Back in 2009, the other supporters of some sort of non-trigger public option were Robert Byrd, Tom Carper, Kay Hagan, Paul Kirk, Jay Rockefeller, Mark Warner, and Jim Webb. Additionally, there were three other possibilities who we never nailed down one way or the other: Max Baucus, Mark Begich, and Mark Pryor.
We would need six of those ten to pull it off. Kirk is no longer in the Senate, and Rockefeller now claims to be opposed. However, I still think we can get Rockefeller to vote in favor if it comes up for a vote. Would such a strong support kill the public option if the House sent the Senate a reconciliation bill with one?
Representative Alan Grayson has introduced a four-page bill that would allow all Americans under the age of 65 purchase Medicare for a fee. It is a great solution for health insurance in this country that would give everyone a choice of a robust public option.
The bill currently has ten co-sponsors. Notably, I have learned that these co-sponsors were gathered in only 15 minutes, making one co-sponsor for every 90 seconds of effort. That is a pretty good pace.
Grayson is resuming his efforts, so expect quite a few more members of Congress to sign on today.
In a truly surprising comeback, since the Massachusetts special election seven weeks ago, health reform has gained a net 7% in national popularity, and a majority no longer opposes it. Pollster.com:
Health reform popularity trendline, January 21-March 10
The Democratic health reform bill is actually 2% more popular on net now than it was back in early November, when the House first passed a bill.
With all that said, the bill is still not very popular, especially in relative historical terms. Congress rarely passes unpopular laws, and that has always been at the heart of the difficulty in passing this bill.
Still, at this rate of growth, it is possible that a plurality will favor reform by Latin Easter (April 4th), the current goal for President Obama to sign the bill into law.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pledged on Wednesday to take a serious look at revising the filibuster rules at the beginning of the next Congress, calling the current level of obstruction in the Senate unacceptable.
And in a reflection of the party's commitment to changing the parliamentary rules, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) followed the majority leader by saying that his committee would address the topic soon.
"The rules committee is going to start holding hearings on how to undo the filibuster rule," said Schumer, who chairs the Senate Rules Committee. The New York Democrat told the Huffington Post after the speech that the hearings would take place two or three weeks from now.
I was invited to this summit, but I didn't go because I had too much work and was out of energy. I wanted to talk filibuster reform with Senators, and get an idea of who was on board, but it looks like I wasn't needed for that.
Expect more Senators to start going on record for filibuster reform, both today and in two or three weeks when the hearings start. The dam is breaking wide open. This is no longer a quixotic campaign--it is very winnable.
Here is the current filibuster reform whip count:
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Filibuster Reform Whip Count Among relevant current and potential Senators, there are at least 21, and as many as 26, supporters of reform
50 Senators who are currently safe bets for being in Senate in 2011
President Barack Obama wants Congress to vote yes or no on a comprehensive reform measure from the Senate. Donnelly likes a lot about the bill, but its language on abortion is a "fatal flaw." For him, it is a deal breaker. "I would not vote for it," he said. He figures there will be a vote within a month or so. The abortion language is unpopular with "a significant" number of congressmen. It has the potential to kill the bill, he said.
We jumped the gun on a couple of stories yesterday, but this is different. This is a direct quote from Donnelly, and it came only yesterday.
That makes seven confirmed, and eleven potential, members of the Stupak bloc:
Rumored, but unconfirmed, Stupak bloc (11) Chris Carney (PA-10)
Jerry Costello (IL-12)
Mike Doyle (PA-14)
Brad Ellsworth (IN-08)
Baron Hill (IN-09)
Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
Paul Kanjorski (PA-12)
Alan Mollohan (WV-01)
Solomon Ortiz (TX-27)
Nick Rahall (WV-03)
Charlie Wilson (OH-06)
Additionally, via Greg Sargent, via Greg Sargent, Representative Jim Marshall confirms he is a "no" (he was a "no" in November), while Jim Matheson says he is undecided (he was a "no" last time). All together, I believe this makes the current vote count 195 in favor, 195 opposed, according to David Dayen. I am counting Altmire, Baird and Gordon as "yes" votes, at least for the time being.
In the past I have argued that Democratic losses in 2010 will move the Congressional Democratic caucuses to the left. This is because, according to my argument, most of the Democrats who will lose in 2010 will be in the right-wing of the party. Thus, the remaining group of Democrats will be, on average, more left-wing than the current group of Democrats.
However, at least as far as the Senate is concerned, it turns out that isn't the case. Despite prominent center-right Senators such as Blanche Lincoln, Arlen Specter, and Evan Bayh set to leave the Senate by either retirement or the ballot, the Democratic Senate caucus will not see any significant ideological shift in 2011.
For this analysis, I measured the current 59 members of the Senate Democratic caucus according to three oft-cited ideological voting scorecards: Progressive Punch (crucial votes), and DW-Nominate and National Journal. I recalibrated all of those scored along a 0.0 to 100.0 scale, with 0.0 being the most conservative and 100.0 being voting the most progressive. Only scores for 2009-2010 were used.
According to this analysis, the current 59 members of the Senate Democratic caucus have a mean progressive score of 74.7. Debbie Stabenow stands at the median of the caucus, with a score of 78.1.
Removing the Senators who are retiring (Bayh, Burris, Dodd, Dorgan, Kaufman) and the Senators who are currently trailing in their bid for re-election (Bennet, Lincoln, Reid, Specter), the caucus mean would become 75.5. Patty Murray would become the median, at 78.3.
Here is the chart I used, with departing members in red:
The slaughter of the moderates would thus move the Democratic Senate caucus less than 1% to the left. The size of the shift would be the equivalent of the difference between Debbie Stabenow and Patty Murray, whatever that is.
Further, if Barbara Boxer were to lose re-election, which is entirely possible, the Democratic Senate caucus would actually shift slightly to the right on the mean, and remain with Debbie Stabenow on the median.
So, if you are hoping that a Democratic wipeout in 2010 will move the party to the left, think again, at least when it comes to the Senate. Setting fire to the forest will just result in having the exact same forest, only with fewer trees. The Democrats who remain in the Senate will be, on average, virtual ideological twins to the ones who left.
I will try to whip up an equivalent analysis of the Democratic House caucus, post-2010, tomorrow.
Public expenditures on social programs--health care, pensions, transportation, housing, education, unemployment assistance--have risen sharply as a percentage of GDP over the past two years. In fact, for the first time in history, public social spending in the United States has surpassed 30% of GDP.
Here is a chart with the details on the spending. The figures taken from usgovernmentspending.com (which is unfortunately a teabagger site, but still has good data). The chart includes figures for all levels of government--federal, state and local. It only looks at social investment programs, rather than things like defense and interest on the debt:
Social safety net spending as a percentage of GDP, by category, 1970-2010
About 30% of the increase over the last two years comes entirely from increased public expenditures on unemployment. Another 15% comes from an increase in public spending on pensions. A bit more comes from the recession itself, as GDP has not increased much even in absolute terms over the past few years.
Still, the chart suggests that progressives are making real advancements in expanding the social safety net in America. About half of the increases come from non-recession, non-demographic related areas like health care, education, and the "other spending" category that focuses on a wide variety of public services (environmental protection, scientific research, housing, water, communications, waste management, etc) Further, even with the projected end of the stimulus, the end of the recession (at least in GDP terms), and increase in employment, the long-term forecast is for social investment spending to stay above 30% indefinitely.
The New Deal regulatory structure has indeed been gutted, and union density has declined markedly since the mid-20th century. These twin developments have played major roles in the rise of wealth inequality in the U.S.. However, conservatives not only failed to gut Great Society and New Deal social safety net programs, but those programs continue to expand.
In 1940, under FDR, public social investment spending was less than 14% of GDP, far less than it is today. No matter how frustrating the fights may be, we are indeed making progress.
According to Whipcongress.com, Senators Daniel Akaka, Byron Dorgan, and Jon Tester, have stated their support for a public option through reconciliation.
This brings the number of signatories up to 40. With Tom Harkin, Herb Kohl, and Claire McCaskill as definite "maybes," 50 votes in the Senate is starting to seem plausible. Of course, given ongoing vote troubles for Democrats in the House, that chamber needs to be monitored and whipped at least as closely in any public option campaign.
