“Parliamentary procedure” on The Daily Caller

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) emerged from a meeting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Monday to announce she would join a GOP filibuster of Wall Street reform. (more)

After an epic and suspenseful fight in the House to pass President Obama’s health-care bill, Republican resistance to passing changes to the law through the Senate looked Wednesday like it would go down with little more than a whimper. (more)

Jon Ward reports from the Hill that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is in a grumpy mood today: (more)

Now that the Health Care reconciliation-fix bill has been posted on the Internet, the 72 hour clock begins counting down to a possible mid-afternoon vote on the House floor this Sunday. This 72 hour “rule” was loosely implemented by Speaker Pelosi back in September of 2009. This was when House members were about to garner enough votes to pass a discharge petition that would require any legislation to be posted on the Internet for 72 hours before a final vote could occur on the House floor. When the Speaker saw the writing on the wall, she embraced the new timetable and thus this 72 hour timetable has been an informal rule in the House ever since. While the clock is ticking, Sen. Coburn and other GOP Senators have directed some of their staff to begin pouring over appropriations bills that will be coming through the House and Senate later this spring. These staffers will be looking for any projects in states or districts of Members of Congress that support the upcoming Health Care bill. In his press conference on Thursday, Sen. Coburn promised to “out” any Members of Congress that might sell his or her vote on the Health Care bill for projects in their state. (more)

I am not a constitutional scholar, but I believe the recently announced “Slaughter Rule” approach is not consistent with the Constitution. Ms. Slaughter is the Democrat chairwoman of the House Rules Committee. Under the Slaughter approach a single vote is cast to (a) deem the Senate version of the health care bill passed, (b) pass reconciliation language that would revise the health care bill that was “deemed” passed, and (c) set a unique procedural rule for the House. If you follow the idea of the Slaughter approach, legislating will fundamentally change to a system fraught with confusion. The court would really need to think twice about its role interpreting basic legislative rules, but we are starting to look at a very bad set of facts. (more)

The stock market does much worse when filibusters are not available. Since 1934, in the 15 years whenever the Senate Democrats held a filibuster proof majority, the Stock Market (using just the price change of the S&P 500 Index to measure) went up on average by 2.6 percent. In contrast, in the 60 years where the minority could successfully filibuster, the market appreciated 7.6 percent, an annual difference of 5 percent. (more)

I can’t believe that!” said Alice. (more)

“Trust but verify.” This famous quote most often attributed to the late President Ronald Reagan is quickly becoming a resounding mantra for the Democrats in Congress, especially those that serve in the House of Representatives. trust is what the speaker of the House must sell to a minimum of 216 members of the House in order for her to garner the needed votes to pass the Senate health care bill through the House chamber in order to send the health care bill to the president to become law. This trust factor is hampering her ability to secure the magic number of votes to pass the bill. You see, the trust factor not only applies to the speaker and her word, but it extends to actions of the U. S. Senate. (more)

The Democrats’ looming plan to use reconciliation to force their unpopular version of health care reform through the Senate stands as a testament to Harry Reid’s failed leadership and his unwillingness to work in a bipartisan fashion. (more)

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Are there any odds in Las Vegas on this yet? (more)

A $15 billion jobs bill was overwhelmingly approved in the U.S. Senate today, thanks to the votes of 13 Republicans. But as Mike Memoli notes, just five of those senators supported a cloture motion earlier this week which allowed the bill to come to the floor for a final up-or-down vote. (more)

President Obama is working on health care legislation intended to reconcile differences between House and Senate Democrats that could be attached to a budget bill and avoid a Republican filibuster, according to a published report. (more)

Two Senate Democrats on Thursday formally launched their quixotic effort to kill the filibuster. (more)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pinning the blame on Republicans for a lack of bipartisanship in Congress and plans to bypass them if they continue to oppose efforts to enact near-universal health care. (more)

Last month, Ben Nelson did a TV ad defending his vote on health care. He talks straight to the camera and disses those “who wanted a government takeover.” That sounds like an attack on people who supported the public option, because that’s as close as Congress got to a “government takeover.” You’ll recall that Nelson helped kill the public option in the Senate and the Medicare buy-in (after he’d already agreed to it), insisted on the inclusion of harsh anti-abortion language, and then threatened to join the Republicans in filibustering the conference report on the deal he already cut. That Ben Nelson. (more)

The Senate has confirmed Ben Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. (more)

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in the next few weeks intends to introduce legislation that would take away the minority’s power to filibuster legislation. (more)

Because of the insular nature of Washington politics, elected officials run the risk of losing sight of who is really in charge. Massachusetts voters reminded Washington what the answer is to that question. Voters are in charge. (more)

After months of debate, lawmakers seeking to pass health-care reform are tantalizingly close to the goal line. But Democrats have found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory—by blowing a Senate race in deep-blue Massachusetts and in so doing handing Republicans the necessary votes to filibuster the final bill. Are their heath-care efforts all for naught? (more)