White House backs healthcare deal, sees victory

The White House on Sunday sought to preserve the fragile alliance of Democratic liberals and moderates backing broad healthcare reform legislation, with tough decisions looming on abortion and a new government-run insurance program.

Republicans vowed to continue to fight the measure, but admitted they probably were helpless to stop it in the Senate.

Senate Democrats planned a series of crucial procedural votes scheduled to begin at 1 a.m. on Monday, with debate possibly concluding with final Senate passage on Christmas Eve on Thursday.

Asked if Republican senators could do anything to stop the Senate from passing it by Christmas Eve, Republican Senator John McCain told “Fox News Sunday,” “Probably not. But what we can do is continue winning the battle of American public opinion.”

The White House predicted that the bill, President Barack Obama’s top legislative priority, will win final congressional passage, and called it a major achievement even if it does not give Obama and his fellow Democrats everything they want.

“While it is not perfect, the bill pending in the Senate today is not just good enough — it is very good,” Vice President Joe Biden wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.

Democratic holdout Ben Nelson announced his support for the Senate legislation on Saturday after securing language aimed at ensuring federal funds are not used to pay for abortions and winning extra healthcare funds for his home state of Nebraska.

Nelson’s support gave Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the 60 votes he needs in the 100-seat Senate to pass Obama’s top domestic priority by Christmas.

But Democrats still have a lot of hard work ahead as they look toward ironing out differences between the healthcare bill already passed by the House of Representatives last month and the version Senate Democrats hope to pass this week.

The Senate bill would extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans, expand the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor, provide subsidies to help some people pay for coverage and halt industry practices like refusing insurance to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

House and Senate negotiators will have to work out abortion language that satisfies abortion opponents like Nelson and Representative Bart Stupak without chasing off liberal abortion rights supporters. Stupak, who pushed more restrictive language on abortion in the House bill, said the compromise Senate language crafted by Nelson was “not acceptable.”

PUBLIC OPTION

Democrats must decide on including a government insurance program to compete with private insurers. Liberals want the “public option,” which is in the House bill, but not the Senate one. And they will have agree on how to fund the reform, with the House and Senate versions taking two different approaches.

Nelson told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday that if the final bill that emerges from the House-Senate negotiations includes a public option, he could not vote for it. He also indicated that if the legislation is paid for the way the House measure proposes, “That would break it.”

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, a fiscal hawk and chairman of the Budget Committee, said the final bill will have to hew closely to the Senate’s version in order win final passage.

“Anybody who’s watched this process can see how challenging it has been to get 60 votes,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Congress has been tied up for months in acrimonious debate over healthcare reform legislation, with Republicans saying the Democratic measure is too costly and too intrusive into the healthcare sector.

Healthcare costs devour 16 percent of the U.S. economy — burdening states and the federal government while also hurting the competitiveness of U.S. businesses — even as tens of millions remain with no public or private health insurance.

White House senior advisor David Axelrod predicted congressional passage but declined to say when he thought the two chambers would iron out their significant differences, or which version he preferred.

“I think it will pass the Congress,” Axelrod said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think we’re going to get it done.”

Republicans said they would continue to erect procedural roadblocks even with Senate passage likely.

More improvements are possible after the bill becomes law, Axelrod said. The Obama administration will seek to allow Americans to buy prescription drugs that have been imported from other countries such as Canada, where medicines often cost less, he said. The Senate turned back efforts to include drug re-importation in the healthcare bill.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, editing by Vicki Allen and Will Dunham)

REUTERS

Spending Bill Moving Forward

The Senate voted Saturday to limit debate on a $446.8 billion spending measure that finances much of the federal government, clearing the way for final approval Sunday as Congress struggles to wrap up its year-end business while contending with a health care overhaul.

With the Senate meeting for the second weekend in a row, Democrats assembled the minimum 60 votes needed to force a final vote on the omnibus spending bill, which pays for transportation, justice, foreign, labor, health, education and veterans programs.

The roll-call vote extended for more than an hour as supporters of the measure were rounded up and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, an observant Jew, walked more than three miles from his synagogue to the Capitol. “Shabbat shalom,” Mr. Lieberman said in the traditional Sabbath greeting as he entered the Senate chamber still wearing his jacket and scarf.

Three Democrats and 31 Republicans sought to block the final vote, pointing to increases in many agency budgets and the 5,000 home-state projects, typically called earmarks, included in the bill by lawmakers of both parties. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a critic of earmarks, took the floor to list many of the projects, which he said totaled nearly $4 billion.

“You are spending money like a drunken sailor, and the bar is still open,” Mr. McCain told his colleagues.

Republicans also criticized the fact that six different measures were rolled into one.

“We don’t have this money,” said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. “We are borrowing it.”

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat and a member of the Appropriations Committee, pointed out that the individual measures had all been approved by the committee with bipartisan support.

“To come before us today and argue that the majority is cramming these votes and bills down the throats of members without giving them opportunity is to ignore what came before,” he said.

The six bills represent a spending increase of about 10 percent over last year and include a 2 percent pay raise for federal workers. When required spending for Social Security, Medicare and other programs is added in, the measure tops $1 trillion.

The bills were due Oct. 1, but, as has been the pattern in recent years, Congress failed to complete them on time. The government is currently operating under a stop-gap spending law that expires on Friday.

With the omnibus measure headed for passage, the lone spending bill still to be approved is a $600 billion measure that pays for Pentagon operations. Since that is always a must-pass measure, Congressional Democrats are planning to use it to carry along a hodgepodge of final bills for the year.

In addition, Democrats plan to attach a provision that would raise the federal debt limit by $1.8 trillion — a move that has taken on new political significance given the increasing political fight over federal spending.

NY TIMES

John McCain Gets Mad On Senate Floor

John McCain Is mad. During Senate debate Saturday over cuts to Medicare home health care spending, Sen. McCain got very worked up. On at least two separate occasions, Sen. Max Baucus objected to McCain. The Senator from Arizona did not take it too well and was visibly upset. For his part, Baucus seemed to be smirking at McCain’s reactions.

When isn’t John McCain pissed about something nowadays?

Huffington Post

Baucus Nominated Girlfriend for U.S. Attorney

Sen. Max Baucus, one of the most powerful members of Congress and a key figure in the health overhaul debate, recommended his girlfriend to serve as the U.S. attorney for his home state of Montana, a Baucus spokesman said Saturday.

The disclosure was first made late Friday by Sen. Baucus’s office and came as other media outlets prepared to publish stories on the issue.

Baucus spokesman Tyler Matsdorf said the senator and his girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, began their relationship in mid-2008 after the senator separated from his wife. At the time, Ms. Hanes was serving as the senator’s state office director.

Mr. Matsdorf said the relationship was “in no way” the cause of Sen. Baucus’s recent divorce.

Mr. Matsdorf said Ms. Hanes “began the process of resigning her Senate employment” after she and the senator “realized that their relationship was developing beyond a purely professional nature.” She left the Senate payroll early this year.

As part of the transition, Ms. Hanes, who has extensive experience as a prosecutor, applied for the U.S. attorney post. Ultimately, she was one of three finalists recommended for the job by a third party attorney who was given the job of reviewing candidates for the job. Sen. Baucus recommended her to the Obama administration, “with no ranking or preference,” for the post, along with two other individuals, the spokesman said.

She later withdrew, however. “While her personal relationship with Senator Baucus should in no way be either a qualifier or a disqualifier for the position, during the nomination process and after much reflection, both Senator Baucus and Ms. Hanes agreed that she should withdraw her name from consideration because they wanted to live together in Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Matsdorf said.

Ms. Hanes now works at the Justice Department, and “was awarded the position based solely on her merit,” the spokesman said.

The episode is sure to be an embarrassment for Democrats and will likely prove distracting for Mr. Baucus, as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee tries to navigate the sweeping health bill through the Senate.

The disclosure is the latest example of a scandal in which a lawmaker’s personal life and public obligations have intersected, following on the heels of revelations involving South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Nevada’s Sen. John Ensign.

Wall Street Journal

Obama Says He Concentrating on Jobs

President Barack Obama says he’s concentrating on jobs even as he works on plans to strengthen the whole economy. In his weekly radio and Internet address.

Senator Speaks on Gays

Sen. Chris Buttars is tired of gays stuffing it down his throat all the time and putting it in his kids face.

Sen. Kerry’s Daughter Won’t Face DUI Charges

Prosecutors say John Kerry’s eldest daughter won’t be charged with drunken driving in Los Angeles. Alexandra Kerry will not be charged because of a lack of evidence.

Senator John Kerry’s Daughter Charged with DUI

The daughter of Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts, was arrested in Hollywood on Thursday and charged with DUI.

Alexandra Kerry was allegedly stopped by Hollywood police officers at about 12:40 a.m. and brought to the police station for an investigation, the Huffington Post reports.

Officer April Harding told the new source the 36-year-old woman was held for about five hours and released at about 5:30 a.m. after posting $5,000 bail.

“Senator Kerry supports his daughter and will have no further comment on a private matter,” said John Kerry’s spokeswoman Jodi Seth.

Seth also claimed that the senator’s daughter was pulled over for an expired registration, but was released after a breathalyzer test confirmed her blood-alcohol content was under California’s legal limit for driving of 0.08 percent.

Harding stated that she had no knowledge of Alexandra Kerry’s breathalyzer test results, but indicated that drivers with blood-alcohol levels below the legal limit may still be arrested for DUI of officers determine that they were driving recklessly.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving estimates that one arrest for DUI is made for every 772 episodes of driving within two hours of drinking.

AVVO

Senate panel reprimands Burris

NO PUNISHMENT | Says testimony was ‘misleading’

Sen. Roland Burris was reprimanded Friday by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics for his “inconsistent, incomplete and misleading” testimony before Springfield lawmakers about his appointment by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich to the seat once held by President Obama.

The Senate panel issued a “public letter of qualified admonition,” a stinging rebuke of Burris’ shifting explanations about his appointment.

The panel concluded that Burris’ actions “reflected unfavorably on the Senate” but did not rise to the level of necessitating hearings that could have resulted in censure or expulsion.

Burris said he was “pleased that after numerous investigations, this matter has finally come to a close” in a statement that focused on the panel’s finding that there was no evidence to support allegations of “actionable violations of the law.”

Burris ignored the harsh language aimed at how he conducted himself before and after he was appointed to the Senate by Blagojevich.

After Blagojevich was arrested on Dec. 9 and charged with public corruption, including trying to trade the Senate appointment for jobs or campaign cash, Democratic leaders in Illinois and Washington — including Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate leader — urged the governor not to make an appointment.

Burris, a former Illinois attorney general and comptroller — but by then a political has-been — accepted the appointment from the tainted governor, but the U.S. Senate was reluctant to seat him under the circumstances.

Under a deal struck with Senate leaders, Burris agreed to appear before the Blagojevich impeachment panel, the Illinois House Special Investigative Committee, to testify about the circumstances surrounding his appointment.

After he testified, the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that Burris had failed to initially disclose under oath to the House panel that he was hit up for up to $10,000 in campaign cash in three conversations with Robert Blagojevich, the governor’s brother and fund-raiser who also now faces federal charges.

Burris released changes to his testimony after the Sun-Times raised questions about his contacts with Blagojevich’s camp.

Those revelations triggered an investigation by the Sangamon County state’s attorney and the six-member U.S. Senate ethics panel, chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer of California.

On June 19, the Sangamon prosecutor determined that Burris’ testimony before the impeachment panel was “incomplete” but the omissions did not fit the legal definition of perjury under Illinois law.

The U.S. Senate panel also wrestled with whether Burris crossed a line and noted in the letter of admonition that Burris’ omissions were notable in the context of Blagojevich’s arrest on corruption charges. The panel said he “should have known” that any questions about conversations he had about fund-raising should have been fully answered. “Your shifting explanations about your sworn statements appear less than candid,” the letter said.

Earlier this year, because of the controversy, Burris decided not to seek election to the seat in 2010.

Durbin has kept his distance from Burris, and at one point, he suggested Burris should step down. In a statement released Friday, Durbin said: “The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee has completed its review into this matter and found that Sen. Burris’ actions have brought discredit on him and the Senate. The letter of qualified admonition from the Ethics Committee speaks for itself.”

Senator Daniel Inouye loves those Earmarks

Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Defense Subcommittee, teamed up with ranking Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and other lawmakers to cut more than $3 billion from the bill to make room for the earmarks.

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