SALON

Wednesday, Aug 26, 2009 1:25 PM UTC

After Kennedy’s death, what happens to healthcare?

With one less vote in the Senate, Democrats will have a harder time passing the late senator's biggest priority

By

Topics: Ted Kennedy, Healthcare Reform, War Room,

 Sen. Ted Kennedy’s absence from the Senate had already hampered the push for one of his most cherished causes, healthcare reform. Now, his death may prove to be even more of an obstacle.

It’s uncomfortable to contemplate so soon after his passing, but there is a cold logic to the math now at work: Once, the Democrats had 60 senators, enough to defeat a filibuster if they all stuck together. (Kennedy hadn’t been voting much due to his illness — same with Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. — but he had come to the Senate floor for the really big votes.)

Now, they’re down to 59, and most likely will be until early next year; Massachusetts law doesn’t allow the governor to appoint even a temporary replacement, and requires a special election to be held between 145 and 160 days after a seat opens up. This appears to be the exact problem Kennedy was thinking of when he sent a letter to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and other state lawmakers last month in which he asked for a change in the law to allow for a temporary appointment by the governor.

It’s too late to make that change now, and though Democrats will almost certainly try to invoke Kennedy as a reason to work harder to pass reform legislation, their task just got more difficult. Now, they’ll have to peel off an additional Republican vote in the Senate, which will be no easy feat, especially since they may already need a couple defectors to guard against the possibility that a Democrat like Montana Sen. Max Baucus or North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad balks. And the concessions that would likely be involved might further alienate liberal House Democrats, who are already unhappy about the more moderate turn the bill is taking,

There is, of course, the possibility that progress on healthcare could simply be delayed an additional couple of months, until Kennedy’s successor is elected. There are reasons that Democrats would want to avoid that, though — first of all, it means going even further past the deadlines that President Obama and congressional leadership set to get the bill done, and it means having to hold the vote just as an election year begins.

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon. More Alex Koppelman.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 38 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations