High Anxiety as Leadership Scrambles for Last Health-Care Votes

The partisan spread in the House would seem to give a clear indication of how Speaker Pelosi’s health-care vote will go down—or at least how she’d like it to. Democrats currently hold a 40-seat majority (258-218) over Republicans, which is sizable by historical standards. But as the House winds down its weekend debate of Pelosi’s brick of a bill, the vote won’t mirror the partisan spread. At least 20 conservative Democrats have already vowed to oppose it, and a growing yet unknown number say they’ll do the same. Would Pelosi open a vote on her own bill if it could actually fail?

President Obama visited the Hill early Saturday to offer a pep talk to the Democratic caucus. According to an account of the speech reported by The Washington Post, he told Democrats that they would look back on this bill as their “finest moment in politics" and warned that even a no vote wouldn’t inoculate them from GOP attacks in next year’s elections.

Who was the meeting meant to convince? Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire got a few calls from the White House and Colorado Rep. Jared Polis got some handshakes, too. With both of them, it was an issue of last-minute persuading, which worked. But the stakes are higher with Democratic leaders, especially committee chairmen James Oberstar and Collin Peterson. The two representatives (both from Minnesota) have signaled an inclination to cast a no vote (Petersen more so than Oberstar, reports the Star Tribune). But if Pelosi needs a few final extra votes to push the bill over the margin, she can play hardball with the two by threatening their leadership roles. It’s not a common thing the speaker does, nor does it help her image as a party unifier, but for an issue like health care that has sizable implications for her and Obama, she may be willing to pull out the big guns.

Earlier today, in an effort to quell some anxiety, and as a procedural measure, House leadership held a test vote, usually designed as a taking of stock of where the numbers stand. At that point, the bill survived, with a margin of 50 votes, a split of 242-192. But following the floor debate and the vote over a controversial amendment on abortion, the final vote will be much closer. Most of the reporters in the House gallery (your Gaggler included) have a hunch it’ll pass by the slimmest of hairs. The consensus is also that Pelosi would delay the vote unless she had the numbers completely nailed down. But on Capitol Hill, being absolutely certain of the spread is next to impossible--a reality that has kept everyone, Pelosi likely included, guessing.