The Race May Be Over

Back on Monday I mentioned it could be a race to see which happened first: a Senate vote on the Baucus Bill or Sen. Ted Kennedy's replacement being named (giving the Dems 60 votes again). That race may have been decided today as Brian Beutler reports.

This is somewhat complicated, and I'll flesh it out and get you video just as soon as I can. But with Democrats anxious to pass a health care bill, and avoiding delays seen as a high political priority, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) indicated today that there may be major delays in the health care process going forward. During today's health care hearing, he told CBO chief Doug Elmendorf today that the Senate Finance Committee must be provided with a complete CBO score of the final package before the panel can hold a vote on it.

"With respect to the issue of when scoring might be available, because...it is critically important that we have scoring before a final vote is cast in the committee," Conrad said, "it is important for us to know, once there is a package, after the amendment process here, can you give us some rough estimate, in days to have a CBO score."

How long will that scoring take?

Elmendorf estimated that the full reporting could take two weeks:

"I think we can update our preliminary analysis...within a few days of the package actually being set. A formal cost estimate would require...two weeks of work by us, once the package is settled."

Two weeks means that Kennedy's replacement will surely have been appointed by then, meaning that the Dems can face things going forward with the votes to crack a filibuster...then again, there's some evidence that they might let Dems get that up or down vote.

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele told students at a historically black college in Arkansas yesterday that Martin Luther King Jr. would be disappointed with President Obama.

"Dr. King would be disappointed in the political leadership of this country for failing to address the least of us," he said.

As Think Progress points out, a student then approached the microphone and asked, "In all seriousness, I'm curious what you think that Dr. King would think about your party's current attempts to block universal health care?"

"It's a great myth that we're doing all this blocking. I wish we had that kind of control with the numbers, but we don't," Steele responded. "As I've said to the president many times, 'If that's the bill you want, vote it up or down.'"

Now I'm 99.9% sure this is Michael Steele being Michael Steele, the world's worst Republican at actually being a Republican. But hey, if he doesn't want to filibuster, craft a real bill then and pass it.