Bart Stupak's trying a new tactic to get the abortion deal that he wants into HCR. He calls it the "enrollment corrections bill." He was on GMA today and shed some light on it.
Stephanopoulos asked about the idea floated by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), another pro-life Democrat, to hold a separate vote on reinstating the Stupak language on abortion insurance, as a whole different bill. Stupak said that this was one possibility -- but he wanted to make sure such a bill would in fact be signed into law.
"Okay, we pass the bill, it has to go to the Senate. This is an enrollment corrections bill. It has to be passed before the president would sign the Senate bill. So there's a long ways to go," said Stupak. "And you know, dealing with the Senate has been unusually difficult these last two years, so I'm not a lot of confident it's gonna go any farther than the House of Representatives."
David Waldman explains what Stupak has in mind.
Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. You're not gonna believe how low down in the weeds we're gonna have to get for this one.
We just learned from mcjoan that Bart Stupak is after a deal that would somehow jam a foot in the health insurance reform door for his now-notorious Stupak amendment on abortion:
This morning, during an appearance on Good Morning America, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) reaffirmed that he might vote for the Senate health care bill if Democrats pass the Stupak abortion amendment as a separate measure. Stupak said that Democrats have shown a "renewed" interest in tying his amendment to the Senate bill:
STUPAK: George, that’s called an enrollment corrections bill. I presented that to leadership about ten days ago. There’s renewed interest in that piece of legislation that I and a number of us are ready to introduce. It’s prepared. Everybody’s looking at it right now. That’s one way, maybe. But we set the deal with the Senate. You give us a vote in the House. We had a vote in the House. It was overwhelmingly 240-194, to keep public law, no public funding for abortion.
It seems to me that if the Senate parliamentarian is indeed insisting that the reconciliation bill address "current law," then that means the Senate bill must be not only enrolled, but signed by the President before reconciliation can be considered, at least in the Senate. I assume the House parliamentarian has no such objection to the House beginning its work (which is curious in itself), since he's apparently allowing the House to consider and pass reconciliation before the Senate bill is enrolled.
He went on MSNBC later with Norah and she first tried to get him to admit that the HCR bill as it stands now does not allow for government funding for abortions, but even with all the facts that she had like the AP and fellow pro-life Dems who are now supporting the bill, he flatly denies it. He calls it a "drastic break from current law for the last thirty three years." Even Allen Boyd is voting yes now.
(h/t Heather for the video)
There are a lot of rumors swirling, but we're hearing that Stupak may very well get his wish since the vote appears to be so close in the House and as a friend emailed: "I knew they would go there because that was the path of least resistance."
Please donate to Connie's campaign so we can take Stupak down.
Via Twitter:
Pro-choice female Dems are shuttling in and out of Pelosi's office and they won't say why.
Even if they calculate accurately and know this latest Stupak bullshit won't pass, it really sucks that pro-choice women have to deal with this issue from the Democratic Party for years to come.
