Rep. Drier: Democrats Down About 10 Votes; More Votes "Peeling Off"

Confirming, sort of, Gabe's own whip count:

n a press conference on Capitol Hill today, Rep. David Dreier (R., Calif.), ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee, said the word around the House is that Democrats are still about 10 votes away from securing the 216 they will need to pass changes to the health-care bill. Dreier added that that number might be moving in the wrong direction for Democrats.

“You are hearing that people are peeling off,” he said.

Dreier also repeated the warnings about the Senate that many Congressional Republicans have been issuing to the other side of the aisle. He said that, assuming House Democratssucceed in passing a reconciliation measure along to the Senate, even marginal changes made there would require the measure to return to the House yet again.

“I would not be terribly sanguine about the prospect of the Senate effectively dealing with this,” Dreier said, adding that only once in history has a reconciliation measure passed through the Senate without a single amendment.

posted by Ace at 04:31 PM

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