Once, holding a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate meant having "control." Even when the Senate is split 50-50 -- as was the case after the 2000 elections -- Republicans kept their majority thanks to the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Cheney. That "control" was lost in 2001 when Vermont's Jim Jeffords quit the GOP and voted to put the Democrats in the majority. And that majority lasted only until the 2002 elections, when Republicans triumphed against the odds and gained seats.

But in the current atmosphere, the thought of 50 or 51 seats being enough to give the majority party real power seems so archaic, if not naive. Now, if you want to get things done, the magic number is 60 -- to ward off a filibuster, real or threatened, which seems to be the case with almost every issue before the Senate. I don't exactly know how the goal went from 51 to 60, but that is the new Senate reality.

Senate Democrats may have 60 seats (to be exact, 58 Dems + 2 Dem-leaning independents). But they don't always have 60 votes, and it remains to be seen whether they will have the 60 needed to pass an overhaul of the nation's health-care system.

On Saturday, Majority Leader Harry Reid succeeded in holding all 60 in the vote to bring the issue to the floor. He needed 60 (three-fifths of the Senate, according to the rules, is needed to ward off a filibuster) and he got 60; every Republican (except for the absent George Voinovich) voted no. And while there had been a sigh of relief Saturday by Democrats when Blanche Lincoln (AR), Mary Landrieu (LA) and Ben Nelson (NE) stayed loyal, there is no guarantee they -- or Joe Lieberman (I-CT) for that matter -- will vote for final passage. Not one that includes the so-called public option.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday, Lieberman called the thought of a government-run insurance program "radical":

We have a health-care system that has real troubles, but we have an economic system that is in real crisis. And I don't want to fix the problems in our health-care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis.

Over at ABC's "This Week," Nelson said he would never vote for a bill that included the public option:

I don't want a big-government, Washington-run operation that undermines the private insurance that 200 million Americans now have.

With these Democrats once again expressing doubts, Reid will once again do his "we need Republicans on board" line. It was the kind of wooing we saw several months ago when the Democrats were shy of 60 votes. But if the public option is going to be part of the bill -- as Reid made sure when he unveiled the final product -- you can forget about Republicans such as Maine's Olympia Snowe, the only GOP lawmaker in either the House or Senate to vote for a health-care bill in committee. (Her fellow Maine Republican, Susan Collins, is also expected to be wined and dined by Democrats and the White House.)

And with all this attention on the Democratic centrists might come some resentment from liberals, such as Ohio's Sherrod Brown, who said on CNN, "I don't want four Democratic senators dictating to the other 56 of us and to the rest of the country -- when the public option has this much support -- that it is not going to be part in it."

Reid, one of a handful of Democratic senators who are expected to have a tough re-election battle in 2010, would love to have a vote on final passage by Christmas. That could be optimistic. But Saturday's vote moved them one step closer.

CONTEST: Our contest to see if any senator would break with party on the vote was, understandably, a bust. No senator did. As Ron Merlo of Glendale, Calif., correctly wrote in advance of Saturday's action, "I can't believe any Democrat would commit political suicide over a procedural vote. They can always tell their constituents that they could not vote for a final version because it contained something they did not believe in. But telling them that they prevented the bill from being discussed would be a much harder sell."

There are 58 Democrats in the U.S. Senate, as well as two independents who often vote with the Democrats.

Majority Leader Harry Reid is going to need every one of them if he is to prevail tomorrow night when, as expected, he brings the Senate's version of health-care overhaul to the floor. The vote is only to allow senators to proceed with debate on the bill, which is expected to last well into December. Republicans are unlikely to provide Reid with much, if any, help in the Saturday night vote, intent on preventing debate with a filibuster.

So what do you think the final tally will be? Ben Nelson (NE), Blanche Lincoln (AR) and Mary Landrieu (LA) are thought to be the most likely of the Democrats with second thoughts about the bill. Will they vote to bring it to the floor for debate? A better question: Would Reid bring it to the floor unsure if he has the 60 votes to prevail?

In addition to the actual vote, list those senators you think will break with their respective parties. I'll figure out some prize for those who correctly nail it. Send your prediction, along with your name and address, to politicaljunkie@npr.org. Deadline is 5 p.m. ET today.

Of course, if the final vote turns out to be 60-40, and no one breaks with his or her party, then this is a most boring contest.

Thirty-nine Democrats voted against the House version of health-care overhaul that passed on Saturday. Had three more Dems joined that group, the measure would have gone down to defeat.

The House vote, as David Herszenhorn wrote in today's New York Times, "was supposed to be the easy part." Democrats, after all, have a commanding 258-177 majority.

Well, there was nothing easy in the final vote, which was 220 to 215. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, needing every vote she could get, threw a bone -- a big bone -- at pro-life Democrats to get them on board: a vote on the "Stupak Amendment." Rep. Bart Stupak, an anti-abortion Democrat from Michigan, offered an amendment that would ban any funding of abortions under the new health plan except in cases of rape, incest or where the mother's life is endangered.

But if allowing the vote pleased the pro-life Dems, it infuriated the party's pro-choice wing, which is far more sizable.

Continue reading "Health Care And Abortion: Democratic Party Fault Lines" >

The Senate Finance Committee -- with its 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans -- voted 14-9 to approve its version of the health-care overhaul plan. All 13 Democrats voted yes, along with one Republican -- Maine's Olympia Snowe.

Before the full Senate can act, it will have to merge the Finance Committee bill with that of the Health Committee's version, which does not include the public option and which is more expensive.

Then, the Senate bill will have to merge with whatever the House votes out, and there are three competing committee bills there as well.

So, while all eyes have been on today's Finance Committee vote, this is not the end of the debate. Nor are we anywhere close to seeing the final product.

The issue was never whether the Democrats in the Senate Finance Committee had the votes to pass their version of health-care overhaul, a vote that is coming later today.

It was whether it would attract any Republicans.

Today that was answered, in the affirmative. Maine's Olympia Snowe, the one Republican who was long courted by the White House, said that she would vote yes. She is thus far the only Republican to announce her support, and for all we know she may be the only Republican the bill gets.

And we still don't know exactly what the bill will look like. There are two Senate bills -- the one pushed forward by Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT) and one already passed by the Health Committee. That one, unlike the Baucus bill, includes the public option and is considerably more expensive.

There are also three competing House votes that need to come together before the full House votes. And then there is the delicate task of combining the final House and Senate bills in Conference Committee.

Yes, a long way to go. And yes, there are likely to be many changes in what will be included. But first things first. Snowe's announcement is good news for President Obama, who of course wants to have Congress pass a health-care bill, but who desperately wanted it to be considered "bipartisan." And Snowe's yea, at least in today's anticipated Senate Finance vote, is a step in that direction.

Here's the audio of Snowe's complete statement, courtesy of our friends at NPR's blog, The Two Way:

It is impossible to figure out precisely what happened last night.

I mean, there is the easy stuff to explain, of course. We know, for example, that President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress on the importance of overhauling the nation's health-care program. We know that in his approximately 45 minute speech, the president laid out the case -- his case -- why the status quo is not acceptable, why the combination of rising costs and millions uninsured is doing great harm to the nation. We know that Democrats liked what they heard, and that Republicans, with some exceptions, did not.

We even heard one GOP member, Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, yell out at one point, "You lie" -- or something to that effect. That came in response to Obama's insistence that illegal immigrants will not be covered by these proposals, which many Republicans frankly doubt. Even after witnessing an August filled with town-hall meeting rancor, the incident was extremely disturbing.

(Wilson later apologized, saying he "let my emotions get the best of me," adding that his comments "were inappropriate and regrettable" that lacked "civility." To say the least.)

And there was, to no surprise, the constant occurrences of Democrats on their feet, Republicans staying put in their seats.

But what actually happened? What minds were changed? What votes shifted? Did the chances for passage change in any pronounced way?

Continue reading "The President Spoke. What Did People Hear? What Will Congress Do?" >

Republicans, having lost the White House the previous year by a convincing margin, made it clear they would do anything they could to block the president's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system. They called it too expensive, too expansive.

The president, for his part, knew that his plan could, in some ways, set the course for the remainder of his term. The stakes were high. The best way to reach the widest possible audience: an address before a joint session of Congress -- a Congress controlled by the Democrats, but with not every Democrat on board.

It is September 22, 1993, and President Clinton is about to embark on a mission to define his presidency. Health care is the issue that helped bring him to the White House, and now he was attempting to make good on his promise.

Continue reading "Let Me Know If This Health-Care Scenario Sounds Familiar To You ..." >

Roll Call reports that Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and is beginning treatment. Sensenbrenner, 66 years old and first elected to Congress in 1978, said in a statement that there should be no change to his current work schedule:

In late July, during a routine checkup, my PSA (prostate-specific antigen) levels were found to be high, which can be an indicator of prostate cancer. After some additional testing was conducted, the doctor confirmed that I have an early stage of prostate cancer. Fortunately, it was caught in time, and the cancer has not spread beyond the prostate.

The statement also quoted Sensenbrenner's doctor as saying the cure rate is between 85 and 95 percent.

He has announced he plans to seek a 17th term in 2010.

-- Rep. Denny Rehberg is recovering from a boat accident in which the Montana Republican suffered an ankle injury -- which required surgery -- and a fracture around his eye. The boat was driven by Montana state Sen. Greg Barkus. Five people, including Rehberg and two of his staffers, were injured. One of them, state director Dustin Frost, "has a serious but 'survivable' head injury.

-- CBS Radio reporter Cami McCormick is recovering from injuries sustained last week from an IED explosion while traveling with a group of U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan. One of the soldiers was killed and two others were injured. McCormick, who suffered fractures to her arms and legs, will be transported to Walter Reed Army Medical Center sometime this week.