Dispatches From The Hill: Don't Forget The Senate
Senate GOPers and Dems are sparing over a canceled meeting with the Senate Parliamentarian as the GOP tries to make hay of what they call Dems' refusal to meet before the House vote.
The move looks like a last heave in Senate GOPers' weeks-long attempt to convince House Dems a package of changes to the Senate's healthcare bill cannot clear the Senate intact.
Dems say it is GOPers who have put off the meeting. They accuse GOPers of a cynical last ditch ploy to try to impact House Dems worried their Senate counterparts cannot deliver on a promise to push through House-favored fixes under reconciliation.
Senate GOPers, for much of this week, have said that because the package of changes to the Senate bill would affect Social Security tax revenue, the reconciliation package violates language in the Congressional Budget Act baring use of budget reconciliation to alter Social Security law.
According to GOPers, that means Parliamentarian Alan Frumin should allow a point of order vote against the language that would require 60 votes to overcome. With all 41 Republicans pledged to vote together in reconciliation, and any change to the package in the Senate forcing another House vote, that would mean GOPers could derail quick passage next week.
In a statement, Don Stewart a spokesman for Senate Min. Leader Mitch McConnell, accused Dems of refusing since yesterday to meet with Frumin to discuss the issue.
"We suspect Democrats are slow walking us ... to have the House vote first. Since Senate Democrats refuse to meet with us and the Parliamentarian, we've informed our colleagues in the House that we believe the bill they're now considering violates the clear language of Section 310g of the Congressional Budget Act, and the entire reconciliation bill is subject to a point of order and rejection in the Senate should it pass the House," Stewart said.
Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid, called that claim "the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard."
Manley said GOPers had boycotted a scheduled meeting Friday with the parliamentarian, "I believe because we did not have a final language."
"Republicans then suggested late last night that we meet first thing this morning," Manley said. "Why? Because as they have done repeatedly in the past, they wanted to try to spook the House before the final vote. And like before, they have nothing from the parliamentarian to support their claims. Whether we met or not they were going to say the same thing. It is a cynical strategy, albeit a highly misleading one."