Pelosi says she has the votes
On Bloomberg, Laura Litvan and Kristin Jensen write....
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, still shoring up support for legislation to overhaul the U.S. health- care system, vowed that Democrats will be ready to pass the bill when the time comes.
“When we bring the bill to the floor, we will have the votes,” Pelosi told reporters yesterday. Leaders plan for the House to vote later this week, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters today.
Representative John Larson of Connecticut, chairman of the House Democratic caucus, agreed that the leadership will get enough votes, although he said, there’s “tremendous anticipation and certainly anxiety” among lawmakers.
Read the rest of Bloomberg.
House Majority leader Steny Hoyer says not so fast on vote count or timeline
On The Hill, Jared Allen writes...
After shooting down GOP arguments against a rule to “deem” the Senate healthcare bill passed without a roll-call vote, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) took a moment to shoot down the optimism of one of his fellow leaders about the Democrats' whip count.
Toward the end of his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Hoyer was asked about competing whip counts from James Clyburn (S.C.), the Democratic whip, and Caucus Chairman John Larson (Conn.).
On Monday night, Larson emerged from a caucus meeting to declare that he believed “the votes are there” for healthcare.
Read the rest on The Hill website.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn says vote may not happen until Easter.
On The Hill, Michael O'Brien writes...
The House's healthcare vote could be delayed until as late as Easter, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Tuesday.
Clyburn, in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers, said it is possible that the House vote on healthcare reform could take place long past the vote Democratic leaders had hoped for this week.
"The chances are good, but I wouldn't bet on it," the third-ranking House Democrat said of whether a healthcare vote could be held by the April 4th holiday.
Read the rest on The Hill website.
Public still split on Health Care
Report: Obama won't campaign for anyone who votes no on health care
On The Daily Telegraph, Alex Spillius writes...
The president will refuse to make fund-raising visits during November elections to any district whose representative has not backed the bill. A one-night presidential appearance can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds which would otherwise take months to accumulate through cold-calling by campaign volunteers. Mr Obama's threat came as the year-long debate over his signature domestic policy entered its final week. Mr Obama is personally telephoning congressmen who are still on the fence this week, in between several personal appearances devoted toward swinging public opinion.
Read the rest on The Daily Telegraph
Phone lines jammed as people call Congress in protest
On Hum Events, Elisabeth Meinecke writes...
As Congress prepares to vote on (or pass without a vote) health care legislation, congressional phone lines and fax lines are paying the cost.
The below email is circulating around the Hill:
Due to the high volume of external calls, House telephone circuits are near capacity resulting in outside callers occasionally getting busy signals.A HUMAN EVENTS reporter trying since 1 p.m. today to reach the office of Rep. John Boccieri, a potential swing vote on health care, has been unable to get through.
Other news organizations are also reporting on the volume of calls being received.
"I've never seen the phone lines this jammed on Capitol Hill," Fox News’ Chad Pergram said on the Neil Cavuto show.
Read the rest on Human Events.
Obama looking long-term for Health Care reform?
Afraid to vote Nancy? House may try to pass Senate health care bill without voting on it
On The Washington Post, Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane write...
After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.
Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.
The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.
"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."
Republicans quickly condemned the strategy, framing it as an effort to avoid responsibility for passing the legislation, and some suggested that Pelosi's plan would be unconstitutional.
"It's very painful and troubling to see the gymnastics through which they are going to avoid accountability," Rep. David Dreier (Calif.), the senior Republican on the House Rules Committee, told reporters. "And I hope very much that, at the end of the day, that if we are going to have a vote, we will have a clean up-or-down vote that will allow the American people to see who is supporting this Senate bill and who is not supporting this Senate bill."
Read the rest on The Washington Post.