A Stupak Deal? - Democratic Underground

Clio the Leo

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Fri Mar-19-10 10:08 PM
Original message

A Stupak Deal?

Pro-Choice Caucus livid at talk of deal with Stupak on abortion

By Jared Allen, Jeffrey Young and Molly K. Hooper - 03/19/10 08:02 PM ET

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday evening met with a visibly angry Pro-Choice Caucus amid rumors from Democratic aides that the Speaker was working on a last-minute deal with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) to give his abortion language a separate vote.

Leadership aides, including those in the Speaker’s office, would not comment, but a senior Democratic aide directly involved in the abortion debate said Pelosi appeared to have agreed to give Stupak a vote on an “enrollment resolution” offered by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), a key Stupak ally.

Kaptur’s resolution contains the same abortion language that Stupak successfully attached at the 11th hour to the House healthcare bill in November. Were the resolution to pass the House, it would instruct the Senate clerk to change the healthcare bill to reflect Stupak’s more restrictive language to prohibit federal dollars from going toward abortion coverage.
Stupak late Friday said that he was still in talks with the Speaker on the possibility of such an enrollment resolution – which he and others have been floating as a possible solution this week.

<snip>

“This concurrent resolution which Congressman Stupak and several others have filed, from the position of the people who signed my letter back in November, is a non-starter,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), a Pro-Choice Caucus co-chairwoman. “We compromised to the concept 'no federal funding for abortion,' which is current law -- we don't like that. And so if Mr. Stupak and a few members, along with the Republicans, decide to use this to take healthcare down, then that loss on healthcare coverage is going to be on their hands.”

DeGette said a move allowing the enrollment resolution to go forward would put “somewhere between 40 and 55” pro-abortion rights votes at stake.

That math was also leading to counter-rumors, including from aides of anti-abortion rights Democrats, that Pelosi could not realistically be putting even a dozen votes from the left at stake for the sake of Stupak and his allies.

One of those aides also speculated that even if they won a vote on the enrollment resolution, Stupak, Kaptur and the remaining holdouts would still have a difficult time voting for the reconciliation bill unless there was some guarantee that the Senate could pass it as well.

To that end, one version of the resolution apparently being discussed between Pelosi and Stupak would say that the Senate bill won't be considered as having passed in the House until the Senate sends a message to the House stating that it has also passed the Stupak resolution, according to a knowledgeable Democratic aide.
But that would seem to be a very heavy lift for the Senate -- and possibly even the House -- even under the best of circumstances.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/87989-pro-choice-caucus-angry-at-talk-of-pelosi-stupak-deal