The House Committee on Rules has set the mark-up of the House health care reform bill for 2 p.m., this Friday. Having posted the manager's amendment (aka, final changes to the bill) last night, this means that a vote is likely to take place on Saturday evening. This is because the Committee on Rules must pass the bill before it goes to the floor, and also because the Speaker had promised 72 hours between posting the final version of the bill and the vote on the bill.
A spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi confirms this likely timeline:
An aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that a vote could happen at 6 p.m. on Saturday, a schedule House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) suggested in reports Wednesday afternoon.
"It could happen at 6 p.m. on Saturday, but no final decisions have been made," said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for Pelosi.
The only possible way that a vote won't go forward this weekend is if Representative Bart Stupak is able to round-up enough votes to block the bill from going to the floor on the "motion to recommit" vote. Given that virtually no Republicans will oppose the bill, that Stupak has as many as 30 Democrats backing him, and that a few other Democratic members might oppose the bill for other reasons, it is possible that Stupak could still prevent the vote from taking place this weekend.
However, it is telling that the manager's amendment was posted online only a few hours after the leadership completed a whip question (aka, whip count), on a compromise version of the bill to alleviate the misogynist, mendacious concerns of Stupak's group. This indicates it is likely the leadership believes it has the votes, and it ready to pass health care reform this weekend.
The Congressional Quad-Caucus (Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, Asian Pacific-American Caucus, and Progressive Caucus) sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi asking for improvement to the bill before it is passed by the House. However, it is unlikely there will be a chance for them to address their concerns via floor amendments, given that the Committee on Rules has not given a deadline for members to submit amendments. This means there will not be any amendments offered to the bill on the floor--no single-payer, no strengthening amendments of any kind--expect a single, Republican substitute amendment for the entire bill. That substitute amendment will be handily defeated.
This is a broken promise from the leadership, which had originally agreed to allow a single-payer substitute amendment. However, Stupak unfortunately left them with no choice. If members had been allowed to submit amendments, then Stupak's amendment would probably have passed through the Rule Committee, probably passed on the floor, and then probably have defeated the entire bill because it would have caused dozens of pro-choice votes to defect. So, in the end, the floor vote on single-payer was another casualty in Bart Stupak's war on reproductive rights. |
