Live updates from Capitol Hill in the race to reform
By Jon Ward - The Daily Caller 03/20/10 at 10:54 AM
BREAKING 1:54 p.m. – Slightly surreal moment. Pelosi, Hoyer, Clyburn, Van Hollen and Slaughter were huddled in the Speaker’s office just off the floor. Plain clothes security preparing to take Pelosi up the elevator. The door opens, and I’m able to see Pelosi huddled with an aide, listening intently.
Hoyer breaks out another door. I run up, stick my mic in his face along with 15 or so other reporters. But I’m in front, in good position. As we walk toward the doors of the Capitol, we pass the elevators.
An elevator opens. Inside, alone, is Tom Delay. He is wearing slacks and a blue dress shirt, collar open, no tie. He looks at the throng of reporters surrounding the man who now holds the position he once held.
Hoyer and throng move on out the doors. The elevator doors close.
BREAKING 1:35 p.m. – Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters on his way out of the Capitol that he does not know for certain that the executive order will be issued but confirmed also that it is being discussed.
“The intent is obviously to express what we have said all along, that we believe the language that has been included in both bills seeks to accomplish, and that is that there will no use of public funds for abortion,” he said.
Walking out the east front of the Capitol, the throng of reporters surrounding Hoyer began to come close to gaggles of protesters standing around the Capitol (most of the protesters are on the other side).
Aides told Hoyer he should get into a black government SUV that pulled up, as protesters yelled at the majority leader.
“Listen to your constituents,” one man said.
“You’re a liar!” another man yelled
“He better get in that car,” another woman said.
BREAKING 1:16 p.m. – Speaker Pelosi and Democratic leadership are huddling in a meeting off the House floor, and pro-choice lawmakers say the detente with pro-life Democrats is over.
But Pelosi has said that President Obama might issue an executive order to clarify abortion language, a spokesman told The Daily Caller.
BREAKING 12:04 p.m. - Henry Waxman, a senior House Democrat from California who is chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, just voiced disagreement with the “Slaughter solution,” the procedure by which Democrats would pass the Senate health care bill without a direct vote on it.
Reports from those watching the hearing are conflicting as to what, exactly he said.
Byron York quotes Waxman as saying, “We’re not going to ‘deem’ the bill passed. We’re going to pass the Senate bill…I would be against the idea of ‘deeming’ something.”
The American Spectator’s Philip Klein has Waxman saying, “I would be against the idea of deeming something. We either pass it, or we don’t pass it.”
Waxman may have said both.
BREAKING 11:32 a.m. – The House Rules Committee is currently in session, debating the health bill. Here are the basics on what they’re doing.
They are up to 104 or 105 amendments, staffers just told me. Not all of them will be debated, but all of them will be voted on. But there can be votes on blocs of amendments.
The hearing will last around six to eight hours, according to staffers. The rules hearing in November prior to the vote to the health bill then went even longer.
The key item, though, is the manager’s amendment, which will include all the changes that Democratic leadership actually wants made to the bill. That’s the thing that Republicans are looking at for last-minute changes to the bill, especially “sweeteners” to woo (some would say buy) undecided voters.
Democrats spent more than 30 minutes, however, debating Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, on the merits of his plan.
The debate was pretty testy at moments.
Ryan said his plan “is still an entitlement” but “is done in a way that is sustainable.”
When Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter, New York Democrat, began to criticize Ryan’s plan, he shot back, “I can tell you don’t understand it accurately.”
Slaughter responded that Ryan’s plan “verges on cruelty.”
Finally, several Democrats, including Rep. Henry Waxman, California Democrat, asked them to move on to debating the actual bill that the House plans to vote on Sunday.
BREAKING 10:45 a.m. – Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who has caused a stir with a last-minute attempt to change the abortion language in the health care bill, has postponed a press conference that was scheduled for 11 a.m.
No time has been given for when it will happen.
It’s a sign that negotiations between Stupak, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the pro-choice caucus have not been resolved. For more on that, read our story from last night.
BREAKING 10:30 a.m. – There are a few thousand (probably 2,000 to 3,000) protesters on the west lawn of the Capitol. A speaker on the stage is instructing them on which Congressional buildings are which, so they can go and deliver letters and signatures. And the speaker also instructed the crowd not to engage with anti-war protesters that they expect to be out today.
Tags: Barack Obama, Health care reform, Jon Ward, Nancy Pelosi, Slaughter solution
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