Why is this a big deal:
The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take 34 hours to read cover to cover — and that’s just what Sen. Tom Coburn wants done on the Senate floor.
The Oklahoma Republican has threatened to invoke parliamentary rules to force the Senate clerk (or more likely, a team of clerks) to read the massive bill before the full Senate begins formal debate on the legislation.
The move is strictly according to Senate rules, which say any senator can demand a bill be read in its entirety before debate begins. While Democrats could, if they wish, repeatedly make motions to end the soliloquy, Republicans on the floor could object, and the reading would continue.
Thirty-four hours seems like a pretty short amount of time in the scheme of several decades of trying to attain health care reform. Let them read it. Who cares?
Am I not understanding something here?
demimondian
According to TPM, Coburn has backed down — he and the Republicans traded having the bill read in full for a full day of debate — and for the cloture vote to serve as the vote to procede. If so, then the bill will hit the floor on Sunday, rather than the week after Thanksgiving.
Fencedude
The clerks will revolt.
JoshA
Probably less if they bring this guy over from the House of Representatives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjnR7fe36mk&feature=related
Edward G. Talbot
no big deal at all, you’re right John. I guess the issue is why they don’t do it for every major bill. Healthcare is important, but not necessarily more so than say the AUMF or the bailout when it comes to impact.
bayville
I hope they do this over Thanksgiving weekend and televise it on C-Span.
It’ll give me a reason not to visit my in-laws.
r€nato
Any of you have any particularly wicked and devious ideas for punking a mailing list chock-full of wingnuts who can be counted upon to pass around the latest racist/sexist BS making the rounds?
Violet
Because in the crazy work of the Senate, actually reading a bill is not being a team player. Reading it aloud is akin to treason. They all know the rules and the rules state they let the lobbyists tell them what to think.
Violet
@Violet:
Aack. Where’s that edit button? That should be “world of the Senate”.
gizmo
I’m wondering if those Republican jerks could pronounce all the words in the document? The Democrats ought to load it up with exotic and difficult words, videotape the whole thing, and make sure it gets broadcast in the districts of the GOP assholes who want to engage in this stunt.
Violet
@r€nato:
I wouldn’t dare because it might gain a life of its own and then the media would treat it seriously and then it would be “fact.”
arguingwithsignposts
So Oprah’s ending her talk show to start a cable network. Is this big enough news to push SP off the cable nets?
Bill
That’s 34 hours more for lobbiest to give them even more money from insurance companies. And of course, Coburn can invoke his “last stand” against the encroaching islamofascocommunistic liberal takover. It’d be his own Alamo, of course he’s not from Texas, they have enough wingnuts. And he forgets the good guys lost.
Punchy
What if each Republican Senator aske that it be read? That comes to 40 x 34 hours, or 1,200+ hours.
dr. bloor
I’d go for a full reading if Reid required the Republicans to be in attendance from cover to cover and gave the job of reading it to Senator Byrd.
mousebumples
@Punchy: I’m not positive on the rules in the Senate, but I would presume that reading it once would suffice for all of their requests. Repeating it 40 times doesn’t make any sense. If Senator R isn’t present for the first reading … that’s on him, wouldn’t you think?
Ed Drone
@Punchy:
Once it’s been read, it’s been read. Repeating it is not within the rules. That is, they get one reading, then no more.
At least that’s what I understand.
Ed
JerseyJeffersonian
Well, at least they wouldn’t be able to barf up the excuse that they subsequently used concerning some of the more onerous provisions of the Patriot Act – “We didn’t know what was in the bill! This is HARD!”
Newsflash, boys and girls; it’s your fucking job to know what’s in the bills.
Wannabe Speechwriter
You know how Congress goes. Coalitions can quickly collapse. Senator agrees to a bill, flies back home, hears some bad things about the bill, goes back to DC against the bill. Remember how the GOP passed Medicare Part-D? They kept the vote going for almost 3 hours. That way, they could get people to switch. If 3 hours can switch a couple of votes, think about 34 hours. If they had the votes in bag, I’d agree with you. They don’t and every hour of delay gives the GOP more of a chance to switch a ConservaDem to their side. That’s how the game is played.
arguingwithsignposts
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
Except it’s not usually a game to the rest of the country. It’s life and death (c.f., Iraq and Afghanistan, SCHIP, Unemployment extension, etc., etc., ad infinitum). Fuckers.
MobiusKlein
Waste of time.
Because reading the source code to Microsoft Windows aloud won’t help you understand it.
It’s 34 hours reading it, on top of hours & days & weeks of other time wasting efforts.
libarbarian
I agree. Bring your laptop and a case of RedBull and let them do it.
JR
It would be done in long blocks, and it would be scheduled to coincide with the 24-hour news channels, so they could have a little window in the corner of their shows as a constant reminder that somewhere, somehow, liberals are plotting to feed your children to wood chippers.
ilsita
I don’t get the “threat,” either. Why is that a threat?
Go ahead. Coburn can sit there and listen to the whole thing. Then he can act the whole thing out kabuki style. And then he can have transcribed into hieroglyphics and then knit it into little Christmas sweaters for all the unborn babies.
Anyway, I’ll wait.
scarshapedstar
Hell yeah! Bring in Henry Waxman’s speed reader, give them exactly what they want in probably 45 minutes. This could be legendary, like Preston Brooks beating the shit out of Charles Sumner with a cane.
Max
Many dem senators on the MSNBC have already said if that is what it takes, then so be it.
If I recall, earlier this year they suspected the GOP would request this and they had a speedreader (like that FedEx comm’l) in hand. The guys has since been on Maddow a few times.
Starfish
Am I the only one who remembers that the last time when the Democrats hired a speed reader?
Alex S.
The merged Senate bill contains legal language. The Senate Finance Committee bill however was in plain english and maybe you remember that they had this debate about wanting to have the bill in legal and plain english. The legal language is necessary because it is more precise, but reading it won’t really help understanding the bill.
Wannabe Speechwriter
@ arguingwithsignposts
Won’t argue with you there. If we want to go that route, we can talk about how the Senate is inherently undemocratic because there is no good reason why California and Wyoming should get the same representation in the Senate (or Texas and Vermont for that matter). Also, over 54% of Americans live in a metro area of 1 million or more, yet because the Senate is skewed to smaller states, we fail to get policy that adequately deals with the problems of this country. Given how expensive it is to run for office, keep in mind as well how much money candidates take from special interests and how this effects their voting patterns. And I haven’t even got into the filibuster and the holds…
It is the case that all of our major problems in this country are linked to inherit structural flaws in the system. These are easily exploited and prevent even marginal progress from occurring. This is why when the Glenn Greenwalds and Jane Hamshers of the world go on about how Obama and the Democrats are failing this nation by conspiring with the special interests, I roll my eyes a little, realizing that even a President Howard Zinn with Leader Bernie Saunders and Speaker Dennis Kucinich wouldn’t be able to jump over those procedural and structural flaws miraculously (though, I will agree Harry Reid is a failure as Senate Leader and one always has to keep truth to power). So, arguingwithsignposts, I’m just saying that is how the game is played. However, you’re right. We shouldn’t be playing that game
arguingwithsignposts
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
Oh, I know. I’m just venting. Senators are the most removed from actual “representative” democracy of any creature on the planet outside a politburo or a dictator. Recall they weren’t actually originally elected by the filthy heathen populace, but appointed.
I’m curious, however, what the cost of a six-year term is as opposed to three 2-year terms. Is it really orders of magnitude more? I honestly don’t know.
I don’t know that we’d do better with a parliamentary system, but it would be interesting to try.
Mnemosyne
@dr. bloor:
Yep. If it means that all of the Republicans have to remain on the floor of the Senate for the reading, I say go for it. Democrats can even go in shifts to maintain a quorum so the Republicans can’t call it quits early. Because you know they’d get about three pages in before various Republicans would suddenly start coming up for excuses for why they shouldn’t have to stay for the reading but if the reading ends early, the terrorists win, so everyone else should have to stay.
Sleeping Dog
The simple answer is to hire the speed talking guy who did the Fed Ex(?) commercials years ago. The Repugs get their reading and the Dems can get on and vote.
CalD
I seem to recall that Reid already said he would ask the Sargent at Arms enforce a quorum (or something very like that) if they tried this. I understood that to mean dragging in any Republicans who preferred not to attend the entire show by bodily force if necessary. I believe that’s actually within his legal power to do.
Wannabe Speechwriter
@arguingwithsignposts:
One of the interesting things about the American system is how the Upper Chamber wields so much power. In most countries, the Upper Chamber is virtually powerless. For example, in Great Britain, all major parties talk about reforming the House of Lords, but none ever get around to it because if it was reformed to be actually democratic, then there would be no reason not to give it equal footing as the House of Commons and therefore they don’t reform it.
I don’t quite know how a Parliamentary system would totally work in this country. I do know that a Parliamentary system would not get rid of one major institutional problem: the failing of the press. Our media believes bipartisan is better than good policy and believes the Newt Gingriches and the Grover Norquests actually have something meaningful to bring to the dialogue. Also, they tend to dismiss good policy (single-payer health care, high speed rail, free public colleges) as “crazy left wing fantasies.” So, a lot of institutional flaws don’t just involve our lawmakers and our elected bodies.
JD Rhoades
@dr. bloor:
I thought we were opposed to torture. Was there a memo?
arguingwithsignposts
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
True all that. I would just love to see a prime minister’s questions for the president, and a little less power in the stupid ass fuckin’ senate. Honestly, I don’t think our people have the backbone for a parliamentary system. Every country that has one has been in existence for thousands of years. We’re the newborn. As much as I admire Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the others, I think they seriously fucked up with the whole Senate idea.
None of this will ever happen, but perhaps it would make a great NaNoWriMo topic.
arguingwithsignposts
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
blame the false objectivity ideal that somehow got spread around this country early in its journalistic history.
Brian J
Aren’t most of these bills excessively long simply because legal language isn’t known for being concise? If you figure that any normal bill would be long, this one would be even longer, since it deals with a much more complex issue. If all of this is true, why is it so goddamn difficult for people to point this out any time some conservative makes an inane reference to a bill’s length?
I think the whole idea behind this is to make it seem ludicrously confusing and thus scare people into thinking that a fast one is being pulled on them. That wouldn’t be true, of course, but if you consider the fact that legal language doesn’t roll off the tongue, it’s easy to trick people into thinking something is out of the norm.
Then again, if they just let them do it, and nobody outside of the death panel crowd makes a big deal about it, after a day and a half, they will be done, and they can continue with the real process of legislating. So perhaps it’s a good idea to let him have his fun.
kay
From the article:
“What’s even more interesting is that Senate Rule XIV (paragraph 2) states that every bill and joint resolution “shall receive three readings prior to its passage.”
“Upon demand of a senator, these readings shall be on three different legislative days,” the rules say.
flounder
I heard the idea floated that Democrats should line up a whole bunch of uninsured, sick, and sick uninsurable people to read the bill.
Imagine some breast cancer patient with hair or a diabetic in a wheelchair going up to the podium every hour. I bet the wingers would back off pretty fast.
flounder
breast cancer patient with no hair.
arguingwithsignposts
@flounder:
I think you SO underestimate these assholes.
RD
I welcome and wholeheartedly endorse the media spectacle that a 34 hour long public reading of the text of the Senate HCR bill would become.
If only to get more people to pay attention.
soonergrunt
@arguingwithsignposts: hopefully it will result in SP getting her own show on said network and then she gets the celebrity that she’s actually after and we can ignore her.
Wins all around.
demimondian
@Wannabe Speechwriter: Actually, Lords was stripped of the last of its remaining powers under the last Blair government.
charles johnson
Is the Senate rule specific enough to prevent the bill pages from being read concurrently? Cause given the text density, 30 clerks could read the whole thing out in prob about 25 minutes, if they all read different pages.
Just Some Fuckhead
@demimondian:
Formal debate- is that where Republicans come to the microphone one after another and declare freedom has died a tragic death at the hands of Democrats?
Fern
@arguingwithsignposts:
Thousands of years? Hardly. Think Canada, Australia and doubtless many more.
Anne Laurie
@CalD:
If it comes to that, the other Republicans can always borrow some adult diapers from ‘Diaper Dave’ Vitter.
arguingwithsignposts
@Fern:
Except Canada (at least – not sure about Australia) is still nominally a british subject), which means they’re following a system we didn’t fuck with. amirite?
Fern
@arguingwithsignposts:
I don`t know about Australia, but in Canada the queen is still technically the head of state, and the Governor General is her representative.
kay
This is a rant, but I simply do not understand or accept why this is being treated so negatively, uniformly, lock-step negatively, by the entire media.
There is this infuriating cynical sneer attached to this, and it’s not justified.
It’s a good piece of work. It covers 31 million additional people, and it “bends the cost curve”, which is what media have been whining incessantly about for months, like they give a rat’s ass about the deficit, but anyway.
Listening to them, it is as if something horrible is going to happen Saturday, and they have to hunker down and all pull together and hope like hell it fails.
Do they hear themselves? Where did they get all this attitude? Where do they get off with this?
Just bullet point the thing and read the words beneath the points, nitwits. Straight information, without the sneer.
arguingwithsignposts
@kay:
They have health care already, which makes it “not their problem.” q.e.d.
mvr
on DailyKos has a good discussion of the relevant rule and seems to indicate that the rules require a reading of the titles and not all of the text. But read the posting by David Waldman for yourself to check if I got that right.
mvr
@mvr:
I seem to have made the entire text of my previous message into the link for the article it talks about. Sorry, but it does work.
Notorious P.A.T.
I’ll read the f**king thing if they want. Don’t have anything else to do.
Regnad Kcin
@Bill:
Depends on if he also has the “Danger Close” and “Cold Blooded” perks equipped.
Just Some Fuckhead
@kay:
How, and how much?
demimondian
@Just Some Fuckhead: Not really. Rather, they intend to declare holy war against the Democrat Party.
Then they plan on promising every last drop of blood in their constituent’s bodies to fighting this evil so-ci-al-is-m.
Regnad Kcin
@scarshapedstar:
Or Preston Sturges beating the pulp out of Sumner Redstone with a plotline…
Just Some Fuckhead
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Don’t just volunteer. Negotiate for some of that kickass governmental heath care coverage.
Royston Vasey
@Fern: Australia and New Zealand both have the Queen as their Head of State.
The New Zealand House of Representatives (120 Seats) has been the NZ Parliament’s sole chamber since 1951.
The NZ Parliament does not have an upper house; it is unicameral rather than bicameral. There was an upper house up to 1950.
RV in NZ
Xenos
@scarshapedstar:
That is a sensitive point, there. Nearly every one of the 350 towns in Massachusetts has a street named after Sumner, and many of the Commonwealth’s soldiers subsequently served under Sherman. Revenge need not be served cold every time.
John O
No, you’re not missing anything.
SATSQ.
Epicurus
The GOP has got bupkis at this point, so all they can do is obstruct. They seem to have forgotten that they are meant to be sitting in the halls of Congress legislating.</em That IS what they are getting paid for, after all. For those earlier in the thread who complain about the Senate’s undue influence, I would suggest it is all part of the Framers’ plan. There are checks and balances on that power, and the entire government is designed to ensure an adversarial relationship.It’s a terrible system, but it’s the best we’ve got. Let’s give it another 200 years before we think about changing it.
Gaucho Politico
its a waste of time. the reading serves no purpose other than to delay a vote just as the floor debate is all about grandstanding for the cameras. its all a bunch of formalistic c-r-a-p.
Martin
The GOP has 1000 such plans as this. You say it’s just a day, but they’re aiming to string 3 years of them together.
Thomas
You know I hate to say it but this hang up on the size and length of the bill is just so typical for the GOPpers these days. Simple minds fixate on simple and irrelevant issues. Oh my god, it weighs so many pounds when printed and double spaced, it takes 34 hours to read, the pages laid end to end would stretch across Manhattan etc., gasp!
Wannabe Speechwriter
@demimondian:
I didn’t realize that. I thought they still had the power to delay a bill for 3 months. However, what I was trying to point out is, beside the ending of heredity titles, not much was done to turn Lords into a truly democratic house because if the House of Lords, for example, was elected by popular vote, there would be no good reason to turn it into a coequal with the House of Commons. However, since the early 1900s, the House of Lords has exercised no real power over the House of Commons, so Commons doesn’t want to upset this structure. A similar thing can be seen in any attempt to reform the Canadian Senate: why would the House of Commons want to give any power to any other body.
In the US, the Senate is undemocratic. The principal of “one person, one vote” doesn’t apply because Wyoming the same number of seats as my home state of California and California has 70 times more people. However, unlike the House of Lords or the Canadian Senate, the Upper Chamber here has more power than the Lower Chamber. Add to that the filibuster and the holds. I just think any talk of reform on any issue has to include structural reform and how these “little quirks” in the system are standing in the way of changes we need to make. But, what do I know?
demimondian
By the way, John, the reason it’s a threat is that the Senate can’t do *anything* else while the reading is gong on. If they’re in session, then the possibility of a quorum call can drag all the majority party onto the floor constantly. (The minority, which doesn’t want the bill to pass, would be quite happy to see a quorum call fail, so the majority is stuck with the job of fixing things.)
Reid, however, neatly set up Coburn this time; since the Senate was going to be out of session for Thanksgiving, Reid could have the reading take place then. No quorum calls — but lots off calls for unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. Guess who’s stuck *then*?
Q
Pencil him in for Saturday morning till Sunday afternoon. I’m sure lots will be watching.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I heard that Coburn complained that the ‘lesbian problem’ in south Oklahoma schools is so bad that some schools are only allowing girls to use the bathroom one at a time.
Oh teh horror! I am laughing so hard I am nearly choking. Hey Tom! How about the guys? I guess buttsecks is fine?
Nellcote
@Regnad Kcin:
Awesome image!
Chuck Butcher
Funny thing, Republicans say it’s so and magically an exaggeration of about 7x magically becomes so. Latest reports are that in ordinary book font on ordinary book pages it would go 430 pages that would be about 5 hours w/o need for a speed reader.
Zaphod65
34 hours is also the running time for the new Stephen King novel. A bored Senator could sneak in an iPod and listen to that instead.
TaosJohn
I don’t think you are, but a lot of people don’t realize that there’s no health, no care, and certainly no “reform” in the goddamn pile of dung that is the Insurance Company Enrichment Act. Maybe if they do read the bill out loud, someone will notice that exclusion for pre-existing conditions is still legal for FOUR MORE YEARS, or that all the drones stay stuck with stupid, overpriced, shitty insurance because the public option is a joke. Or that Medicare and Social Security will take a hit, just before the boomers really need it.
Read the damn thing, sure. Read it a thousand times, and kill the bill. Please.
gwangung
@TaosJohn:
This is not what Ezra Klein says. Trust him before you.
And only an idiot thinks we’ll get something more progressive if we kill this bill–an idiot ignorant of the history of past progressive initiative.
Wait a minute. You must be Republican.
KS
Why don’t we follow all the rules and make them actually (instead of procedurally) filibuster like in the old days? They should stand up and read the phone book without leaning on anything or sitting down. They don’t get to take any breaks to piss to take a drink. They can sleep on cots. They can miss Thanksgiving and Christmas with their families. I double dog dare them to do it “in service of the country.”
If they want to follow the rules, they can go ahead and do it. I just wish someone – i.e. Harry Reid – would grow a damn pair make them follow all the rules.
Anyone up for calling Senator Reid’s office (202-224-3542) and telling him to make the Republicans follow ALL the Rules of the Senate, and not just the ones they like when they’re out of power?
Batocchio
The issue is that Coburn’s doing it just to be a dick, and delay debate and a vote on the actual bill. But yeah, it’s in the rules and I don’t have a huge problem with it. (The article suggests there’s some requirement that it be read aloud three times, but I’d have to see that confirmed.) I just think it’d be better if the GOP showed any real interest in health care reform, or solving many other problems.
Ian
Have you read if you give a mouse a cookie?
Ian
@arguingwithsignposts:
That is history fail.
Yutsano
@gwangung:
Nope. Just a purist. Single-payer or nothing bitchez. Ignoring other examples of health care systems all over the world.
robertdsc-PowerBook & 27 titles
lol.
“Get some!” indeed.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
I think that if you request the bill be read you have to be willing and prepared to read it yourself.
So, Coburn, you ready to stand and read for 34 hours? Or are you going to make teenagers (pages) do it?
kay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
By taxing high-priced plans. You were right when you kept repeating that we don’t just pay too much for health insurance, we pay too much for health care. That’s the real third rail, that no one wants to talk about, because it goes to the heart of the fee for service system, and the fact that people with generous plans don’t pay out of pocket, so the system just keeps getting more bloated, with no incentive to cut costs, at the delivery end.
We have the worst possible system, I have learned. We have a system where half the people get expensive care that does not result in better outcomes, and half the people get skimpy care that does not result in better outcomes. Even the people with expensive employer-provided plans are 1. getting ripped off and 2. not getting good care, although they get A LOT of care, the point here is “better health”, not “a lot of medical care”.
It’s easier to cut costs in the public system. Medicare Advantage has to go. It’s a no-brainer. It’s a pure taxpayer rip-off. They can shave two points of the cost growth of Medicare just by ending Medicare Advantage.
Look at the resistance to just two small suggestions: mammograms and cervical cancer screenings. They have known mammograms were overused since 1991. They may be actually harming women with testing. Yet. it continued.
Today, the College of Physicians and Surgeons finally admitted that screening every 21 year old female every year for cervical cancer is 1. not good medical care and 2. a waste of money. They want to screen high risk 21 year olds, not every twenty one year old. They know that makes sense. Yet, people with insurance are going to fight like hell to keep the “benefit” of uneccesary testing.
We have to grow up about health care. “More” doesn’t mean better, or we would have better outcomes. “none” of course is terrible.
We’re supposed to be shooting for quality, like in every other good or service.
Matthew B.
@arguingwithsignposts: The Queen is technically the head of state of Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, etc., etc. But that doesn’t make Canada a British possession, any more than it makes Australia a Jamaican possession. All of the Commonwealth realms are independent.
oklahomo
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
He and some of the even crazier (oh yes, even crazier) state senators and reps have this very strange idea about the lesbian gangs of Southern Oklahoma. If you should ever chance to meet him, do not look into his eyes. It’s like he has gazed upon the face of the Great Old Ones and there is soul-shattering crazy lodged deep, deep within.
Randy P
@Brian J:
Well, that plus unrelated amendments to build a highway in somebody’s district or defund ACORN. Or give money to the company owned by some big donor, using legal language to disguise the fact that only one company meets the guidelines: “and 10 million dollars, a pony and an unlimited supply of popcorn will be given to any company incorporated in the state of South Carolina with no less than 132 employees and no more than 133 which does business in the Marianas Islands…”
Just Some Fuckhead
@kay: With respect, I don’t see how that is bending the cost curve on the health care delivery side, the prices hospitals, doctors and drug companies charge. That’s the real monster.
Ecks
@Just Some Fuckhead: It does it very indirectly. By setting rules that govern how health care is paid for (i.e., insurance companies, and neutered public options), you can influence how they negotiate with providers, which hopefully leads to them being tougher and bending the curve. You can’t do it any more directly than that, otherwise people will scream bloody murder that government bureaucrats are intervening between them and their doctor. Yes, they’ll scream that anyway, but if you give them an example of an action that even looks like that it might kinda sorta be happening, if you don’t think about it too much, and take a slanted enough Fox-eye view, then Chuck Todd will be telling us all with great impartial weight that this atrocity has just happened.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ecks: That’s retarded. Insurance companies already have the profit motive to negotiate lower prices on the delivery side.