'Dealmaker' Role Suits Reid

(NEWSER) - Here's the latest health care strategy gaining traction among Democrats: Pass two bills instead of one. The idea, as laid out by the Wall Street Journal, goes like this: Democrats would tuck most of the legislation's more controversial spending measures—maybe even a public insurance option—into a first bill they can jam through the Senate in a filibuster-proof tactic known as a budget reconciliation measure. More»

(NEWSER) - Harry Reid yesterday pulled the plug on painstaking efforts to win bipartisan support for health care reform, telling Max Baucus to drop a proposal, aimed at wooing Republicans, that would tax health benefits and leave out a public insurance option. The Senate majority leader told Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman who's been pushing negotiations, that the effort wasn't worth the few votes it might win, as it would cost the bill 10 to 15 Democratic votes. More»

Kennedy, Collins named most bipartisan

(NEWSER) - If you want to reach across the aisle in the Senate, chances are you're stretching toward Ted Kennedy or Susan Collins, according to a Hill survey of the upper chamber. “I’d love to co-sponsor every piece of legislation with Ted Kennedy,” says Sen. Richard Burr. The most partisan least faves? Democrat Patrick Leahy, for whom Dick Cheney had some explicit advice in 2004, and Republican Jim Bunning is so partisan that many Dems won’t talk to him except about baseball. More»

(NEWSER) - Frustrated Senate Democrats today urged their GOP counterparts to stop criticizing President Obama’s proposed budget and provide an alternative, the Hill reports. “If it were easy to write a budget, then the Republicans would be writing one,” Dick Durbin said. Republicans responded that as the minority, that wasn’t their responsibility. “We will offer a series of alternatives by amendment,” a spokesman said. More»

Procedure would allow Democrats to pass agenda with 51 votes

(NEWSER) - To circumvent a likely 60-vote minimum in the Senate for big-ticket bills like health reform, President Obama is considering pursuing proposals through a budgetary tactic known as reconciliation, where just 51 votes are needed and no filibustering is allowed. But Republicans are having none of it, Politico reports. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl warns that using the process would turn Obama’s agenda into a “purely partisan exercise.” More»