No Vote Without Brown

For everyone wondering if the Senate will vote on health reform before Scott Brown gets there: they won't. Both President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made that clear Wednesday afternoon--Obama in an interview with ABC News, and Reid in a press conference.

Democrats will have some time before Brown is seated, and, theoretically, House and Senate negotiators could wrap up a compromise bill and Senate Democrats could pass a bill before Brown got there, with stand-in Senator Paul Kirk as the 60th vote. That option was bandied by observers last night as votes were tallied in Massachusetts.


But fears arose that proceeding with health care reform in the Senate, before Brown is seated as the Bay State's newest senator, would be disastrous. Moderate Democrats like Sens. Jim Webb (VA) and Even Bayh (IN) came out against the idea.

Voters had voiced their qualms with the health reforms that were on the table, they said, and it was time for Democrats to pause, look at what they were doing, and not press ahead before Brown got there. It may have looked bad, one can assume, for 2010.

Those voices have prevailed.

"Here's one thing I know, and I just want to make sure that this is off the table," Obama told George Stephanopoulos. "The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated. the people in Massachusetts spoke--he's gotta be part of that process."

Similarly, Reid declared that, "First of all, we're not going to rush into anything."

This is a move that will likely disappoint health care reforms most avid supporters. If a robust bill, something along the lines of what came out of the Senate Finance Committee, is to pass, the only way now is for the House to pass what the Senate already has approved; liberals in the caucus stand opposed to that bill because it's not ambitious enough to their liking, and the Senate bill has taken criticism from progressives outside of Congress as well.

Just Tuesday night, Howard Dean reiterated the claim that it was basically written by the insurance industry.

Now, it seems, one of three things can happen: House liberals can swallow the pill and pass the Senate bill, the Senate can use budget reconciliation rules to pass what will probably be a limited version of reform through that procedure, or the Senate can start looking for a Republican vote--that of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME)?--and scale down their reform plans to the point where at least one Republican would get on board, likely meaning drastic changes in the scope of the bill, perhaps tailoring their plans to the tastes of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), the Republican who demonstrated most willingness to consider Democratic reforms during this process, though whose own visions of reform were repeatedly denounced by House progressives.