Ho Ho Healthcare
Nothing says Christmas in Washington like a cloture vote!
Keep those fir trees, ornaments, the city blanketed in white — though of course the U.S. capital has all of those this year too. What real Washingtonians are looking for is a getaway by December 25. And with an early morning vote today to cut off Senate debate on healthcare reform legislation, it could actually happen.
It’s all about cloture. And don’t feel bad if you’ve never seen that word before. It’s an inside-the-Beltway term that means agreeing to limit legislative debate. Cloture requires a 60-vote majority of the 100-member Senate, rather than a simple majority. It’s going to take three cloture votes to get to the final vote on the bill, expected late on Christmas Eve.
The mere fact that members of Congress are still working during the week leading up to Christmas is pushing the envelope.
Veteran Washington-watchers recall the days when U.S. lawmakers came back for a week or two after Thanksgiving and then headed home to their districts for a long holiday break. That tradition was broken, definitively, in 1998, when they stayed in session until December 19 to impeach President Bill Clinton. This year, the House of Representatives has already left town while senators hang around for a series of healthcare votes.
The first cloture vote was early on Monday, the second was this morning and a third one is expected on Wednesday.
Which Obama will be Gift Giver-in-Chief?
First lady Michelle Obama’s favorite childhood Christmas present was a dollhouse, a gift that may have presaged her current role as the nation’s tastemaker, admired and followed for her stylish clothing and the mark she is making on the White House.
“It was a metal dollhouse with plastic furniture,” she told U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey for her upcoming “Christmas at the White House” television special that airs on ABC at 10 p.m. Sunday. “… I remember I really didn’t know how to set up a house, so I had all the furniture lined up along the walls as opposed to nestled around the fireplace, but I loved that little dollhouse.”
President Barack Obama’s favorite present? A basketball given by his father, who was absent for most of his childhood, and which the president later realized probably had a lot to do with his lifelong love for the sport.
“I do remember the one time I met my father he was visiting during Christmas and he gave me a basketball and – the degree to which I came to love basketball – it wasn’t until much later in life that I realized, ‘Actually, he gave me that basketball’,” Obama said. “I think there was some cause and effect there in terms of the degree to which I just ended up taking up the sport as a kid who didn’t know his dad.”
But this year, the pressure is on the president, the first lady joked, after Winfrey asked whether Obama felt more pressure to give a better gift because of his new position. This holiday season is the couple’s first in the White House.
“You should feel pressure,” Michelle Obama said.
