Cantor: Pelosi Can’t Pass a Reconciled Bill

While the press focuses on the Senate, Rep. Eric Cantor (R.,Va.) says that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) will not be able to muster the votes needed to pass a Senate reconciliation bill in the House. In a new memo, he details how the vote count for Pelosi just isn’t there, thanks to vacancies (3), pro-life walks (at least 12), possible spite from retiring members (e.g. Marion Berry), and potential switches from members whose Democratic senator does so first:

Over the last few weeks, we have watched with great interest, and disbelief, as Democrats have doubled-down on their ideological, government-centric approach to health reform. Instead of listening to the American people, not to mention members of their own party, President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Leader Harry Reid are back advocating a proposal that increases health care costs, places onerous mandates on struggling businesses, raises taxes on working families, and will lead to many losing the coverage options they have now. Even the president’s own Health Reform Director, Nancy-Ann DeParle, told reporters yesterday that their proposal is merely the Senate bill “with targeted changes.”

Their endgame is clear: Demand support for their approach, or go it alone using reconciliation. This partisan tactic – once soundly rejected by Democrats – now appears to be a foregone conclusion. That’s a sad statement for bipartisanship and for America.

This has led to the usual handicapping by Washington pundits and politicos about the future of health care. Those handicappers believe Democrats are now close to getting a final bill done, and even Majority Whip Clyburn “believes [the] House will pass [the president’s] health bill by [an] even wider margin.”

With all due respect to my vote-counting counterpart on the Democrat side, the House Republican Whip Team and I think he’s wrong. Surprisingly, someone in the White House agrees with us. Asked by reporters yesterday whether the House could pass the president’s proposal, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded, “I don’t know.” That’s because House Democrats are farther away from securing the votes to pass a government health care bill today than they have ever been.

Here is Cantor’s target list of potential switches — those who voted “yea” during the 220–215 health-care vote in November 2009 and, in his analysis, are now in a position to vote “no” on a reconciliation bill:

Cao, Anh (La.)

Costello, Jerry (Ill.)

Dahlkemper, Kathy (Pa.)

Donnelly, Joe (Ind.)

Driehaus, Steve (Ohio)

Ellsworth, Brad (Ind.)

Kaptur, Marcy (Ohio)

Kildee, Dale (Mich.)

Lipinski, Dan (Ill.)

Oberstar, Jim (Minn.)

Stupak, Bart (Mich.)