Prob not. Then again, they had the votes for Medicaid expansion. Was a public option, albeit probably a horrendously mean-tested POS, completely out of the question?
Replies
The House passed a public option, the Senate had Joe Lieberman, who said he would in no way vote for a public option, and then Ten Kennedy died and we had chaos for a while and Massachusetts elected a Republican making the whole point moot with only a "59" Senate majority.
jul 15, 2025, 4:29 pm • 0 0 • view
Was the nuclear option out of the question?
jul 15, 2025, 4:31 pm • 0 0 • view
Yes, because again, Joe Manchin wouldn't have been a possible vote 45 out of 60 "Democrats" to make that happen. The nuclear option just was never on the table for long time institutionalists in the US Senate that lost in 2010/2012/2014.
jul 15, 2025, 4:33 pm • 1 0 • view
But Senate Dems used the NO in 2013, well after the 2010 Tea Party wave. Could they not have bullied 45 guys in 2008?
jul 15, 2025, 5:26 pm • 0 0 • view
Reid controlled his caucus as much as he could on this, he got them to Yes on quite a few bills they didn't support, but on an ideological level you can't get someone to Yes on fundamentally changing the institution you're a part of. The 2013 NO was on appointments and not bills.
jul 15, 2025, 5:28 pm • 0 0 • view
You can't even get the Senate GOP today to agree to go full nuclear option on things they actually agree about, it's simply not as easy to break as people think due to the length of tenure by members.
jul 15, 2025, 5:29 pm • 0 0 • view
Reid was against using the NO to do fillibuster reform in 2008. Maybe he should get the heat for squandering an historical moment.
jul 15, 2025, 5:33 pm • 0 0 • view
Again, the Senators wouldn't have done it. Just like fundamentally Schumer has no real control over what his caucus believes, Reid got deals that he could get with the members he had. You wouldn't have gotten to 40 yes votes on changing the cloture rule in 2009-2010.
jul 15, 2025, 5:35 pm • 1 0 • view
But the bill didn't even get put forward. They didn't even try.
jul 15, 2025, 5:37 pm • 0 0 • view
Why would you put a bill up that your members are saying "I will vote against this"? Messaging for a bill failing is meaningless, it doesn't change political calculus at all. Again, if Joe Manchin is to the -left- of at least 15 members, why waste valuable floor time on a failed vote?
jul 15, 2025, 5:39 pm • 0 0 • view
Democrats had a total of about 4 months, half of them working months, in the US Senate in 2009-2010 that they could have passed bills. In one of them, they passed what became the ACA since they lost that 60th vote, and then they reconciled what parts they could after the lost that 60th vote.
jul 15, 2025, 4:30 pm • 0 0 • view