It’s time to call McCaskill and your congressman, if you live in Clay’s, Carnahan’s, Cleaver’s, or Skelton’s district and tell her and him to Pass. The. Damn. Bill.
Steve Benen quotes Mark Kleimann and then puts in his own two cents:
Today I called the Washington office of Sen. Diane Feinstein.
(…)The polite young man who answered the phone said that he could take a comment about a legislative matter, listened politely to about three polite sentences of Pass the Damned Bill and an expression of displeasure about DiFi’s “slow down” comment, assured me that the Senator had voted for the bill and was eager to see it pass — and then gave me the first ray of sunshine I’ve seen since the catastrophe in Massachusetts. He said that they’d been getting a lot of Pass the Damned Bill phone calls and wanted to know whether my call was part of an organized effort. [emphasis added]
I’m … curious to see whether there’s a cumulative effect to all of this. Since, say, Wednesday or Thursday, Democratic policymakers have been urged to finish the deal by leading reform advocates, major union leaders, health care policy experts, and the nation’s most influential progressive pundits, all of whom emphasized the exact same thing, giving Dems the exact same advice.
But at the end of the day, lawmakers are probably more likely to be influenced by their own constituents than anyone else. The more congressional Democrats hear PTDB, the more likely it is to happen.
[emphasis mine]
DiFI’s “slow down” comment sounds like our junior senator’s “get the wax out of their ears” bon mot. Both of them need to get the wax out of their own ears and understand that voters want to see the change they were promised. So get on the horn and tell them to pass the damn bill.
WillyK said:
Marshall printed frontpaged this comment from a reader at TPM …
I’ve called and I’ll call again – I’ll even call dead-between-the-ears Akin, although that’s whistling down a well -at least he’ll know that there people watching what he does.
grog said:
When asked “has the Senator committed to passing a supplementary fix in reconciliation if the House committs to passing the Senate’s existing bill”, the answer was…drum roll please:
No.
Senator McCaskill wins this week’s Claude Rains Memorial Gambling Awareness Award. Typical Claire.
That being said, I politely told the staffer that I was calling to then urge to do so. I was told my comments would be passed along.
Can’t do much more than that.
If she does end up voting to support this, she’ll make sure her vote entails no political risk.
hotflash said:
the Senate health care reform bill in hopes of improving it later in reconciliation.
Any word on how Cleaver, Carnahan and Skelton (ugh) plan to vote.