A bit of luck for conservatives

Last week the word was that the Democrats were going to cram through a health care plan through the Senate under budget reconciliation rules that allow them to pass a budget with only 50 votes instead of the 60 that are needed when the opposition filibusters a bill. If they had done this, the Republicans opposed to the health care proposal would have had to hope that enough Democrats would vote against the bill to sink it. Fat chance. So all the Republicans could do is complain and threaten noncompliance in other areas.

But now the Senate Democrats have blinked and decided not to use the reconciliation maneuver to ram through such an important policy change. The House Democrats were ready to use the tactic, but then they don't have to worry about those pesky Senate rules. Senator Kent Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee Chairman, however, has put the kabosh on using reconciliation to get around the filibuster rules in the Senate.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat, said his panel will take up a plan tomorrow to use “reconciliation” to pass health care legislation. That procedure, if adopted by both chambers of Congress, would allow Democrats to approve the legislation without any Republican votes.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said he opposes using the tactic to approve Obama’s agenda. Lawmakers probably won’t work out their differences on the issue until next month when they finalize their budget plans for the year.

Other moderate Democrats like Blanche Lincoln and Max Baucus had also apposed the tactic and so it seems that the Senate will have a chance to debate the health care policy in the open and fully consider all its ramifications rather than rushing the thing through as part of the budget plan this summer.

And even the House Democrats have blinked on using reconciliation to rush through the cap and trade proposals to address global warming.

"I'll put it this way: It is not included in the budget that I will present to my colleagues," Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said yesterday on ABC's "This Week." "I have said for weeks, I don't think it is the right way to write substantive legislation, because if you get into the details -- and we won't do that here -- it just doesn't work very well."

Conrad added, "But what they're -- what they're talking about ... is negotiating leverage, sending a signal that it still remains open."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also is not focused on reconciliation, according to House Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.). Rahall met last week with Pelosi, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), about 10 coal-state Democrats and United Mine Workers Association President Cecil Roberts to discuss coal, climate change and the budget.

Reconciliation came up in the meeting. "But that didn't take more than 10 seconds," Rahall said. "The speaker is not worried about that at this point."

The Democrats are very eager to pass such legislation, but perhaps now that it could become a reality, they're pausing to think how imposing something that would raise the price of everything in our economy that uses energy would affect any hopes of an economic recovery. And all those representatives from states that depend on coal and oil might be having second and third thoughts.

So for now, conservatives who oppose both Obama's health care and his cap and trade proposal have an opportunity to fight the policy out in debate and through regular procedure. They'll need to marshal their best arguments if they're going to win these policy arguments. They had no chance when the Democrats, flushed with their exhilaration over their 2008 victory, were poised to cram them through. Now there is a chance that they can modify such proposals for the better. It will be up to them to build on that opportunity, slight though it is.

Add in Arlen Specter's announcement that he will vote against cloture on labor's major priority - card check legislation that would do away with secret ballots in union elections and force mediation for employer-employee disputes - and we have another blow to the Obama agenda.