He is the Senate parliamentarian. Martha Coakley lost Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts, so his role in the Senate may become critically important to passing a health care bill. The unsurprising* loss in Massachusetts ends the Democrats' feeble sixty Senate seat majority, but it also makes Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman's votes thankfully irrelevant. Democrats will now be forced to either try to pass a bill over a filibuster before the Republican is seated or use the reconciliation process to pass the House bill which would only require 51 votes. The House is rightfully objecting to passing the Senate's bill because frankly its plan is better. President Clinton wanted to use reconciliation to pass his 1993 health care plan, but Senator Byrd objected. In 1996 Republicans created a precedent to apply reconciliation to any legislation affecting the budget, even if it would increase the deficit. They used reconciliation to pass tax cuts, oil drilling, and trade authority among other things. This route is less fraught with failure, and would give progressives a chance to resurrect the public option contained in the House bill. Washington wonks say reconciliation is not appropriate because important provisions like the national insurance exchange could be declared out of order since, in their narrow rule interpretation, the exchange is not budget related. But the key to this impasse is that parliamentary order is maintained by the presiding chair. Whoever is in the chair at the critical moment, and I have to assume it would either be the Vice-President or the Majority Leader, would rule on the issue, advised by Mr. Frumin and his staff sitting on the dais. Sixty votes are then required to overturn the presiding officer's ruling. Saving lives is worth some liberal rule interpretation, ancient Byrd's insistence on procedural purity notwithstanding.
*Coakley ran a pitiful campaign. She was willing to rest on the laurels of Ted Kennedy's forty-seven years in office. The defeat can be seen as a rebuke of Obama caused by his repeated disappointment of the party's progressive base, or alienation of the state's largest voting block: independents. Whether her defeat is a referendum on health care legislation is not so clear, since Massachusetts essentially has the scheme being proposed for the nation. But it may be indicative of dissatisfaction with the pending proposal. Massachusetts' plan requires residents to buy coverage and the plan does not have a public option. Health care costs have escalated in the state despite the 'reformed' system. Given the new state of play, it may be easier simply to extend Medicare coverage through the reconciliation process, and make critical changes in the regulation of private health insurance. Near universal coverage will have to wait yet another Democratic administration. Giving up is not a solution as Ted Kennedy said, "Hope still lives..."