Let’s have a showdown on health reform

It’s time to finally make Republicans in the Senate put up or shut up and force them into what would essentially be a filibuster.

First, a little bit of background. The leading plan for health reform since the Democrats lost their Senate seat in Massachusetts has been to have the House simply pass the Senate bill exactly, so another vote wouldn’t be required in the Senate. Then, certain changes could be made through the budget reconciliation process, which requires only 50 votes. Now, however, The Hill reports that Senate Republicans have figured out a procedure for stalling even the reconciliation process:

Though it has never been done, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says he’s prepared to test the Senate’s stamina to block the Democrats from using the process to expedite changes to the healthcare bill.

Experts on Senate procedural rules, from both parties, note that such a filibuster is possible. While reconciliation rules limit debate to 20 hours, senators lack similiarconstraints on amendments and could conceivably continue offering them until 60 members agree to cut the process off.

The article concludes that without 60 votes to cut off debate, the Democrats would be unable to pass the bill. However, I disagree. As David Waldman points out, Republicans would be required to stay on the Senate floor, continually proposing amendment after amendment. If they stopped at any point, debate on the bill would expire. In other words, this would be a good old-fashioned filibuster — except tougher, because the Republicans wouldn’t even really be able to make speeches, they’d just need to keep proposing amendment after amendment. So I say let’s do it. Let’s force them to stand in front of the American people and offer hundreds of useless amendments. It’s time we had our showdown.

This isn’t a liability — it’s an extraordinary opportunity! Democrats finally have the change to force desperate Republicans to make a show out of their obstruction, and they should take advantage of it immediately. Because of the severe restrictions on this process, I don’t see a way Republicans can do this without looking completely ridiculous. The Democrats have absolutely nothing to lose.

In fact, they have everything to gain by finally getting health reform passed. As Ezra Klein and Greg Sargent point out, polls show that the Democrats will have higher poll numbers if they pass the bill than they would if they let it die. There are no good reasons whatsoever for letting Republicans kill the bill when it’s in the Democrats’ power to stop them.

And I think calling the Republicans’ bluff on reconciliation will stop them from obstructing the bill. The sheer mathematics look impossible for the GOP: If each amendment takes up about 5 minutes, they’ll need to offer 2000 amendments to delay Senate business for a week. And they’ll be in front of C-SPAN’s cameras the whole time.