Wednesday, January 20
State Senator Scott Brown (R) defeated Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) 52 percent-47 percent yesterday in a special election for the Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat, which was held for 47 years by Democrat Ted Kennedy. This election, widely projected a month ago as a safe Democrat seat, capped three weeks of a pitch perfect campaign by Brown against Coakley, who had committed numerous missteps and was handicapped by lending prior support to increasingly unpopular legislation in Congress such as Health Care Reform, Cap and Trade, Card Check, and increased deficits and unpopular spending.
Brown will be the first Republican to be elected to represent Massachusetts in the Senate since 1972, when Edward Brooke won re-election, before losing to Paul Tsongas in the 1978 Senatorial election. Republicans make up 11.62% of the votes in the state, with Democrats consisting of almost 37%. Turnout in Massachusetts was incredibly high for a special election, being higher than every non-presidential election year in the past 12 years.
President Obama still is very popular personally though this popularity has not been shown to extend to his political allies. He has now campaigned for three statewide Democrat candidates since his election in 2008; Virginia, Massachusetts and New Jersey. They have all lost.
This election creates a quandary for Congressional Democrats and President Obama, who have been attempting to negotiate substantive differences between bills overhauling the health care market. With a razor thin margin in the House and virtually no room for loss of support in the Senate, the pass to a final bill is now much tougher.
One option that Congressional leaders have is for the House to pass the Senate bill as it currently exists. This would bypass the need to return the bill to the Senate, where it would face additional problems. However, even this option faces challenges. The original House bill passed 220 to 215, with 218 votes needed at a minimum to pass any bill. Since that vote was held, Representative Joseph Cao (LA), who was the lone Republican to vote for the bill, has been hesitant to support another bill, Representative Bar Stupak (D-MI) will not support the Senate language on abortion, and Representative Robert Wexler (D-Florida) resigned from Congress to run the Center for Middle East Peace, leaving Speaker Pelosi with very little room for negotiation.
In addition, many House Democrats are looking at the political realities of a tough election year ahead. Coakley only won 47 percent of the vote, compared to Obama’s 62 percent of the vote in the 2008 election. This loss of 15%, if carried over to the 2010 Congressional elections, would result in losses for 72 of the 257 House Democrats, all other things being equal. This political reality could easily cause an avalanche of defections from the House Democrats and their support for the bills. Defections may start to occur starting late this week, before the President’s State of the Union, which is scheduled for January 27.
Rather than the House approving the Senate bill, Democrat Congressional leaders could also decide they need to further change the bills. If so, the bill will face multiple 60-vote thresholds in the Senate, something that the Democrats presently do not have with the election of Brown.
Before the election, both Senate Democratic leadership and Massachusetts State officials hinted that they might delay seating Brown, giving Congress the opportunity to finish health care legislation. This is seen as increasing unlikely though, as Senators such as Jim Webb (D-Virginia) have said that there should be no further health care action taken until Brown is seated. Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) indicated Democrats will make no attempts to delay Brown. In a statement released tonight, Reid said he would move to seat him “as soon as the proper paperwork has been received.” This could take as long as until the start of February.
It is uncertain what the next steps the Congressional Democrats will take. There may be no resolution to the health care reform legislation until after the President’s address to Congress next Wednesday. Even then, there may not be enough support for passage of a final unified bill.
As the legislation continues to evolve, COSE will continue to work with Congress, asking for legislative proposals that will drive down the cost of health care; make it easier for small businesses to provide insurance for their employees and families; give sole-proprietors the same ability to fully deduct health care costs that larger companies do; make basic, low-cost coverage available; and extend coverage to more Americans. As the legislative outlook changes, we will work to make sure you are informed of how these changes could affect you and your business.
Posted by:Steve Millard