Does Stupak Have The Votes?

The first step in getting the health care bill reconciled is to pass it in the House. The main threat to that happening is Rep. Bart Stupak, who doesn't like the pro-abortion language in the bill.

Pro-choice advocates are saying Stupak doesn't have enough Members on board with him to stall the vote. That means it would go through, and that reconciliation will go forward. Others say he has the votes, which could potentially kill the bill. It's anything but settled.

I talk about this long and complicated process in my piece today, but it's also worth noting that reconciliation is much more than simply "jamming a bill down our throats." There's the unprecedented maneuver of reconciling only parts of a really massive and unwieldy bill, the possibility for Joe Biden stepping in and overruling the Senate parliamentarian, and the possibility that Republicans can seriously mess things up. All of that might amount to a strong push, but the fact is that altering legislative procedure is precedented