Of the 220 representatives who voted for the House healthcare bill in November, only 216 Democrats remain. It currently takes 217 votes to establish a majority in the House, meaning that Pelosi will have to turn at least one of the "No" votes from November into a "Yes" vote in order to pass the Senate bill. She will also need to turn one "No" vote for each member she loses over the Senate's abortion language. It's likely that she's lost some additional votes over the healthcare effort's increasing unpopularity, but she may have also gained others simply because the Senate bill is more moderate than the original House bill was.
Presumably, some Dems sought Nancy Pelosi's permission to vote against the House bill to avoid taking a beating back home. These members would have been prepared to vote in favor of the bill, but only if necessary for passage. If the bill could pass without them, they would have wanted to vote against it.
When Pelosi goes looking for votes to make up for her losses, she's going to start with those "pocket votes." When the Senate bill comes through the House, she'll be calling in those votes to make up for Murtha, Wexler and Abercrombie, and whoever Stupak's taken with him. I expect her to get Kucinich as well, and I think she would have gotten Massa's vote if he wasn't resigning.
So just how many such "hole cards" does Nancy have? Well, as Jay Cost has pointed out, if Pelosi was sandbagging more votes than Stupak had, then she would have used those votes to keep the Stupak amendment from ever getting to the floor. It can't be that many.
Below is CSPAN video of the House of Representatives passing its healthcare reform bill. I picked this clip because it starts before the bill reaches majority. What I want you to see happens within the first minute.
What we should expect to find is that some Democrat "No" votes are held back until the "Yes" votes reach 218. Remember, those members can only cast their votes against the bill if there are enough votes to pass it without them. So they would withhold their votes to the very end, not really knowing until the last minute which way they'll have to go.
As the video opens, the Democrats are at 216-36, with 6 votes to go. Allowing that what we see on the count may not fully explain what's actually taking place on the House floor, three "No" votes are registered in fairly quick succession.
I can only imagine that these votes were held till the very end because it took that long for certain members to be sure the bill could pass without them.
I'd also like to point out that of the 39 who voted against the original House bill, at least 20 voted for the Stupak language. I think it's safe to say that those 20 are not going to be voting for the Senate bill, leaving Pelosi with about 16 or 17 Democrats that she could potentially turn, including her original hole cards. And if Stupak's taken as many votes as he says he's taken, she's going to have to dig deep into that reserve.
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