(Updated) Procedural Path for Passage of Senate Health Care Reform Bill Starts Today

Update: The White House just released its Statement of Administrative Policy (pdf) on H.R. 3590 — Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 
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Getting a bill passed in the U.S. Senate is tricky. Unlike the simple rules that govern the U.S. House, the rules in the Senate provide ample opportunity for the use of procedural roadblocks, and grant much more power to the minority party to slow things down or stop them altogether. The Senate's rules are complicated -- some say byzantine. Mastering them takes years and a tolerance for nitpicking detail. The better the Senate Majority Leader knows the rules and how to use them to his or her advantage, the more likely the majority party will get its legislation through all the hoops by managing to outflank the minority obstructionists. And the Senate these days has more obstructionists than ever. I wouldn't want to be Harry Reid right now.

In the case of health care reform legislation, the entire GOP Senate caucus is dedicated to stopping the bill in its tracks -- the Party of No is dead set against allowing Obama and the Dems a victory on this no matter how many Americans get hurt, or even die. According an article in the LA Times, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has characterized the coming floor fight as a "holy war." Who knew Orrin Hatch and GOP caucus members were jihadists?

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has been making a lot of noise about requiring the entire 2000+ page bill to be read aloud on the Senate floor. According to Congress Matters, he's backed off that threat due to a tradeoff that will permit debate on the bill all day today and tomorrow -- so Repubs can cram in as much criticism as possible, fact-based or not. In the bargain, the Dems got consent to combine a cloture vote on whether to allow a vote on the motion to proceed with a cloture vote on the motion itself to bring the bill to the floor by means of one single vote on the whole shebang. A little complicated, I know.

Suffice it to say that instead of taking two cloture votes, the Senate will now be required to take only one to get the bill to the Senate Floor. The motion must pass by a 3/5 majority, or 60 votes, given the way the Senate currently operates. 

Normally, there's a 30-hour waiting period after the first cloture vote, which would have negated an up or down vote on bringing the bill to the floor on Saturday. With the negotiated deal, a vote on the combined motion to proceed is scheduled to take place Saturday night at 6:00 PM MST -- and then can proceed directly to the Senate Floor. All this should elate C-SPAN watchers everywhere. Expect some fireworks, and the tension will no doubt be thick enough to cut with a knife. Will Reid have the 60 votes needed to win the procedural battle? Even he's not making a firm prediction.

According to Open Congress, another point to understand is that:

The debate that begins today is, technically, on defeating a Republican filibuster of proceeding to debate of an unrelated House bill, H.R. 3590. The Democrats are bringing up the House bill instead of their own Senate bill because the Constitution requires all legislation affecting taxes or revenues to originate in the House. Since the Senate Democrats’ health care bill includes a number of tax increases and revenue provisions, they’re using the unrelated House bill as a “shell.” Its text will be completely replaced by the health care bill text, which exists in the form of a “substitute amendment,” if adopted.

For more info on the legislation itself, check out the New York Times' handy comparison of the House and Senate reform bills that examines 16 elements of the legislation.