The insider DC sheets this morning all have news of a coming deal to reopen the government. The outline of that deal is an agreement to hold a future vote on Obamacare subsidies (a name we should really drop), which there’s no certainty Democrats would win, in exchange for another short or medium term continuing resolution. The catch to these reports is that, if you look closely, they seem to be overwhelmingly sourced to Republicans. That, however, doesn’t mean they’re not accurate — though you wouldn’t go too wrong being suspicious. Another dimension of this story is that the Democrats doing informal negotiations — and the potential crossover votes — are heavily stacked with soon-to-be retirees, Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Gary Peters (D-MI) among others.
That brings us to one more dimension of these negotiations: Republicans need seven votes to overcome a filibuster. They have John Fetterman (D-PA). They may not have Rand Paul (R-KY). For the sake of conversation let’s just use the number seven. From one perspective you need seven Democrats. But it’s not just finding seven Democrats willing to make this vote. Are all seven willing to make that vote if it’s against the wishes of the rest of the caucus? If it breaks with caucus leadership? That’s different.
Remember that back in March only a small number of Democrats voted to break the filibuster and allow Republicans a clean vote on their continuing resolution. But it was a caucus decision to proceed in that way even if only a small number of senators actually made the vote. In other words, it’s not just getting seven Democrats to break ranks. It’s whether the caucus or the caucus leadership tells those seven they have no objection to their crossing over. Put more directly, if seven Democrats agree to a deal like the one above, it’s almost certainly because Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was okay with them doing that. And Schumer wouldn’t say that if he didn’t feel he had had his caucus behind him.
Let’s stay tuned to see if such a deal develops. Providing votes for a clean continuing resolution in exchange for a promised future vote for Obamacare subsidies amounts to agreeing to nothing — holding out for a month and getting nothing for it.
Returning to the merits, as I said, it’s not clear to me what’s happening here. It’s possible, maybe even probable, that you’ve got a small group of “moderate: Democrats who are meeting with their GOP counterparts and hashing out a possible deal like the one above. And maybe they’re excited about it and their GOP counterparts are excited too. But the Democrats haven’t sold it to their caucus yet. Obviously that’s a big box you’ve got to check.
That brings us to one more dimension of these negotiations: Republicans need seven votes to overcome a filibuster. They have John Fetterman (D-PA). They may not have Rand Paul (R-KY). For the sake of conversation let’s just use the number seven. From one perspective you need seven Democrats. But it’s not just finding seven Democrats willing to make this vote. Are all seven willing to make that vote if it’s against the wishes of the rest of the caucus? If it breaks with caucus leadership? That’s different.
Remember that back in March only a small number of Democrats voted to break the filibuster and allow Republicans a clean vote on their continuing resolution. But it was a caucus decision to proceed in that way even if only a small number of senators actually made the vote. In other words, it’s not just getting seven Democrats to break ranks. It’s whether the caucus or the caucus leadership tells those seven they have no objection to their crossing over. Put more directly, if seven Democrats agree to a deal like the one above, it’s almost certainly because Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was okay with them doing that. And Schumer wouldn’t say that if he didn’t feel he had had his caucus behind him.
Let’s stay tuned to see if such a deal develops. Providing votes for a clean continuing resolution in exchange for a promised future vote for Obamacare subsidies amounts to agreeing to nothing — holding out for a month and getting nothing for it.
I’m not sure what’s happening here. I’d like to see some real reporting from better publications. For what they focus on, these insider sheets serve a purpose. And it’s not that they don’t have Democratic sources. They do, of a sort. But the publications are all locked into the Republican playing field, the mindset and set of questions that remain deeply wired for the GOP. In their schema, there are the Democrats who are the crossover moderates and then there are the “progressives”, which is basically all the weirdos who amorphously make trouble for the people doing actual politics, i.e., the first group. And when I say “progressives” here, I assure you doesn’t mean what most people within Democratic Party conversations mean. It basically means everyone to the left of Jeanne Shaheen, Chris Coons (D-DE), etc.
Returning to the merits, as I said, it’s not clear to me what’s happening here. It’s possible, maybe even probable, that you’ve got a small group of “moderate: Democrats who are meeting with their GOP counterparts and hashing out a possible deal like the one above. And maybe they’re excited about it and their GOP counterparts are excited too. But the Democrats haven’t sold it to their caucus yet. Obviously that’s a big box you’ve got to check.
That brings us to one more dimension of these negotiations: Republicans need seven votes to overcome a filibuster. They have John Fetterman (D-PA). They may not have Rand Paul (R-KY). For the sake of conversation let’s just use the number seven. From one perspective you need seven Democrats. But it’s not just finding seven Democrats willing to make this vote. Are all seven willing to make that vote if it’s against the wishes of the rest of the caucus? If it breaks with caucus leadership? That’s different.
Remember that back in March only a small number of Democrats voted to break the filibuster and allow Republicans a clean vote on their continuing resolution. But it was a caucus decision to proceed in that way even if only a small number of senators actually made the vote. In other words, it’s not just getting seven Democrats to break ranks. It’s whether the caucus or the caucus leadership tells those seven they have no objection to their crossing over. Put more directly, if seven Democrats agree to a deal like the one above, it’s almost certainly because Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was okay with them doing that. And Schumer wouldn’t say that if he didn’t feel he had had his caucus behind him.
Let’s stay tuned to see if such a deal develops. Providing votes for a clean continuing resolution in exchange for a promised future vote for Obamacare subsidies amounts to agreeing to nothing — holding out for a month and getting nothing for it.
