Mary Landrieu, on the big advantages of bribery “leverage”:
In recent days, Landrieu has sounded more and more open to voting for Reid’s measure. She told reporters earlier in the week that she was leaning against the vote, but shifted to neutral on Thursday and earlier Friday. By Friday night, with a stack of health care briefing papers under her arm, Landrieu said was leaning in favor of supporting the procedural motion.
She acknowledged that she had fought for changes to the bill to help people in her state. Reid included an extra $100 million in Medicaid funding for states hit by Hurricane Katrina, which includes Louisiana.
“I’m using as much leverage as I have for the issues that I think are important not just to Louisiana but to broad constituencies throughout this country… In some ways, you can’t fix anything unless you keep the debate moving forward but in the other ways, you’ve got to use the leverage when you’ve got it to get some things that are important,” Landrieu said.
At what point does this shit become indictable under RICO statutes?
shortstop
The non-government funded public option is too expensive, and we can’t afford a bill that will save $130 billion over the next decade, but with another $100 million in Medicaid for Louisianans, it all becomes affordable.
Steeplejack
Legislation and sausage–best not to see how they’re made.
valdivia
I for one would love to see the RICO statues used this way. Can you imagine?
A little OT but really a must read from Fallows on the purposely distorted press coverage of Obama’s trip to Asia.
neill
Ah, the liberal media will trace down that Landrieu $100 million and investigate it thoroughly — find out which private medical insurer got the big payoff (my intuitive bet is on Blue Satan, but what do I know?).
I wonder how many of these clowns are gonna be bumps in the road starting today as the senate meanders through the difficult task of pushing legislation while keeping the bribes and hackery ambiguous?
Blanche? Joey? Ben? Blue Satan needs your help today…
beltane
Landrieu has always done this. Louisiana politicians in general have long been adept at shaking the tree of evil big government for every last apple they can get.
If she hung out a some Sons of Sicily social club, smoking cigars and cutting these deals, she’d be in jail right now.
Hunter Gathers
The price of a vote for cloture, just to begin debate.
There will be another bribe to get her to vote for cloture to end debate.
In the end, she will vote against it.
And the state still gets the money.
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Robin G.
I’ve hated that woman since Katrina. She was all snuggly with Bush, then a week later when it became apparent that the country was getting kind of upset about all the people, you know, drowning, she suddenly becomes a big advocate.
Personally, I think after August 2005, she should have stood up at every Senate vote and said, “I’m filibustering until some gets some real help to my state.” Then she should have stood there and read from the phone book until she collapsed, at which point whatever random vote there was goes through, and the next day, she should have come back and started it again with the next vote.
She didn’t, therefore she’s not fit to represent her state. In my opinion, anyhow. I really do hate her.
beltane
@Robin G.: But she looked so concerned on TV. The crocodile tears were so moving.
Malron
Well, since the money is going to help areas hit hard by Katrina I can live with this. I’d still like to see her primaried, though.
demkat620
They go through all this and the Senator from The Connecticut for Lieberman party fucks it up, I’ll be pissed.
Nobody is talking about what Holy Joe has planned for tonight, and that worries me.
JD Rhoades
It’s only indictable if the money flows into her personal pocket. Bringing stuff home for the state is part of the job.
demkat620
@Malron: Yeah, primaried by who? Her brother?
Dems don’t have a good bench in that state anymore.
Violet
It’s the way it’s always been done, but usually no one pays attention. For some reason the media and people in general are paying attention to the whole process this time and it’s not pretty.
Meanwhile, Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) is on my TV explaining how the 88 billion in savings isn’t really savings and it’s all a big fat entitlement expansion. And Lester Holt is prefacing questions with Republican talking points like, “Republicans argue that the government’s decision on mammogram guidelines is just one more example of government interference…” Give me a f^cking break.
The media is a center-right nation. Not the nation.
JD Rhoades
@Violet:
Gee, I wonder why….
aimai
Well, this is the problem. Taibbi has a great chapter on just this misbegotten use of leverage in The Great Derangement. He demonstrates that in order to get Democratic “votes for a timeline to get out of Iraq” tons of pork/bribes were loaded into the (can’t remember the year) appropriations bill. One by one certain Senators came on board. Then for other reasons the timeline was dropped, but the bribes stayed in.
I have absolutely no objection to bribing public servants, with public money, to get a good bill through. But it should be axiomatic that if the Senator or congressman doesn’t vote for the final bill all their additions and bribes are stripped out. This should have been done with the Stupak/Pitts amendment. If you had to vote for the final bill every time you voted for an amendment to it *or your vote for the amendment was retroactively stripped* we’d see less of this bargaining fuckup.
aimai
Brick Oven Bill
Re: At what point does this shit become indictable under RICO statutes?
Around five years ago.
Having made it through the gauntlet of two days training , tomorrow starts day three. We will be supposedly be passed through security, and allowed into the Facility.
1. Don’t steal.
2. Don’t fight.
3. Respect the workplace.
In our training, we have been taught that our big boss is very rich. This man supports the President’s agenda, and is a partner in the grand plan, as far as I can tell.
From this well-earned insider position, observations will be made, and Teabaggers recruited. This is more fun than agriculture.
Violet
@aimai:
Yeah, no kidding. These bozos shouldn’t be allowed to keep all their bribes without voting for the final product. This isn’t like one of those late night infomercials where you get to keep the “free gifts.”
Comrade Scrutinizer
@aimai: Or as Heinlein said, “An honest politician is one who stays bought.”
Brien Jackson
Yeah, that makes absolutely no sense.
burnspbesq
Apparently not a popular view in some places, but my attitude toward getting a healthcare bill passed is “whatever it takes.” This is not the time to suddenly get queasy about the unsavory parts of the legislative process.
A hundred million in additional Medicaid funding for the states that got whacked by Katrina in exchange for Landrieu’s vote? I’ll make that deal all day, every day.
The bazaar is open – who’s next?
jon
@Hunter Gathers: If it costs $100 million to get the $100 billion in savings and cover more people and get the thing to the vote that has to happen before it will pass, I’m okay with her having the political cover to say she voted against something that helps most people, helps some people in Louisiana a bit more, and make it less likely that a right wing cretin will be elected. I’m not going to disallow her this fine little moment of semi-hypocrisy.
It’s not like any Republicans haven’t been for something before they were against it before they were in favor again. And it certainly hasn’t happened much lately.
Leelee for Obama
Someone up thread said what I think. Louisiana needs so much help after Katrina, I can live with this-it actually lifts that witch up a notch for me. I can’t stand her-her brother is a better person, I’ve heard.
As someone else said, what matters is voting FOR the bill afterwards, and what the flying hell Joementum does-I saw as how his constituents were not happy discovering he represents the insurance industry and not them. If they are angry enough, it might, big might, focus his mind a bit. He is such a frickin tool-I rarely want to hit someone in the face, but I could make an exception for him.
Brien Jackson
@Leelee for Obama:
Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty hard to fault members of Congress for squeezing leadership for more shit for their constituents. Ideal or not, that’s the institutional system we decided to set up and stick with, so it’s really not fair to fault people for playing by the rules. At least they’re not demanding large arbitrary reductions in spending to a nice round number so they can go mug for Broder.
JK
Mary Landrieu is a smarmy, sleazy, useless sack of shit who should burn in hell.
Robin G.
@beltane: Hiss. Spit.
El Cid
I really have the opposite view: considering how cheaply many of these legislators can be bought off by actual money going to their areas and pet causes, why hasn’t more of this direct payoff been attempted by the leadership instead of trying to lure these types in by shittying up legislation so that it sucks for all of us?
I’d much rather have overall better legislation in exchange for a $100 million dollar kissing of Landrieu’s ass than trying to win her over ideologically by dropping everything useful and decent out of the bill.
And I know which approach will cost me more — and it isn’t usually the direct buyoff approach.
burnspbesq
@JK:
No disagreement. But she is also a United States Senator, duly elected by the voters of Louisiana, whose vote is needed to get health care done.
Maude
@valdivia: I just went over and had a read. I was very disturbed by the coverage and I don’t have tv.
It’s gotten to the point that fiction ought to be the tag on these press reports. I think that they are too lazy to find out what is going on, outside of their own heads of course. We need accurate information.
This also reminds me of the era of the Freedom Fighters when a lot of media would repeat the cutie names for bloodshed and not question it.
Thanks for the link.
Elizabelle
Violet is spot on: “The media is a center-right nation. Not the nation.”
And El Cid at 26 makes a lot of sense to me too.
Real healthcare reform will have so many intangible benefits.
The beancounting opponents focus on the cost (unknown, really, with all the variables) and not the opportunity for major improvement.
Maude
@Maude: There was a website address on my comment box and I didn’t put it in. Has anyone else seen one of these?
kay
Let’s all look at Wyden.
He’s working away, contributing to the final product, because he has an actual good idea he wants to promote, and he’s doing it without threats or grandstanding, and he’s making converts.
Imagine that.
Alex S.
Honestly, I respect Sen. Landrieu for that. Her approach is much better than Blanche Lincoln’s “Hmm, I don’t know, maybe yes, maybe no, I’m scared of Fox News” and Lieberman’s “change everything or I’ll kill it, no matter what my constituents think”. She is someone Harry Reid can work with and the amount of money she demands is relatively minuscule. It will also help her get re-elected in a state that isn’t exactly friendly turf. For the same reason, I respect Ben Nelson.
Brien Jackson
@Alex S.:
Also, it’s not like an extra $100 million for Medicaid coverage in Louisiana is bad policy or anything. Hell, it’s downright progressive. In the grand scheme of things, if you have to extract a price for your vote, there’s a lot worse things you could demand in return than $100 million worth of health coverage for poor people in your state
DK Green
Well, Landrieu’s price is a great policy and it doesn’t just help Louisiana. Kyl was on TV saying it helped ‘any state which was declared a national disaster area 7 years ago’. If I read that correctly, and remember correctly that would be Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. I can’t see why the Republicans would complain about that, unless they both hate Medicaid and could care less about poor people in their own states. Oh, wait.
CalD
You probably wouldn’t like seeing how sausage gets made either.
El Cid
Are you kidding? Haley Barbour thinks we all ort to have the awsum healthamacare they gots in Mississippi
Zacher
Sen. Landrieu addressed this in her remarks on the floor explaining her vote for cloture. Two keypoints:
1. Because of grant money flowing into LA for post-Katrina/Rita reconstruction, per capita income increased hugely. But because this money went towards infrastructure repair/improvement it doesn’t actually reflect a decrease in poverty; in fact, poverty rose in LA. Since federal Medicaid aid is distributed according to per capita income, this resulted in a Medicaid shortfall within the state because of Katrina/Rita.
2. It’s actually $300 million and not $100 million.
I don’t know that this explanation is necessarily true, but it certainly sounds more reasonable than Senate Dems including a blatant bribe in this legislation (rather than, say, promising a separate Katrina bill or something).
This isn’t to say that this would’ve been in the bill absent Landrieu’s leverage (Reid would presumably prefer to leave it out and decrease the cost of the bill), but it seems reasonable and relevant. Somewhere below your run of the mill earmark on the grand scale of corruption.
The Republic of Stupidity
I’m assuming the ‘five years ago’ is meant to include oh so much of the crap the Bush Admin pulled too, and isn’t just directed at Dems.
I’m proud and pleased to say I was calling for RICO charges against the Bush Gang at least 3 years ago.
If the DNC ended up legitimately busted under RICO, I wouldn’t complain in the least, BTW. I’m just soooooo sick of sanctimony of righties when it comes to the same behavior in their pews…
libhomo
This isn’t bribery. She is getting nothing for herself out of this. She is getting money for her state.
TruthOfAngels
What? If all Senators were that easily bought, there’d be single-payer healthcare by the time I finished typing this sentence.