Master of the Senate

Red State describes a crucial, yet hidden, roadblock to Obamacare, which has led to the present impasse where each house of Congress has passed legislation, yet a final bill cannot go forward. The hero in this story should not be surprising to conservatives: The House Goes First, Or Obamacare Dies: Thank You Senator DeMint

The Speaker and the White House find themselves in this position because of Senator DeMint (R-SC). He insisted that Senator McConnell object to the appointment of the House-Senate Conferees, thus preventing a Conference on the bill.

The inability of the Dems to have a House-Senate Conference then forced the Speaker to have a House floor vote on the Senate bill, which she can’t pass. And there the process has been stuck. Has not moved an inch since Sen. DeMint’s objection. It can’t, she does not have the votes.

The Speaker could fix the Senate bill on the House floor by amendment, then pass the Senate bill amended and fixed, but then it would have to go back to the Senate, where it would have to get 60 yes votes, or die. Since it will not get 60 votes ever again in the Senate, it will die — if the Speaker tries the amend the Senate bill on the House floor and send it back to the Senate route.

When Senator DeMint (R-SC) denied the Speaker the ability to fix the bill in Conference, he put the Speaker and the White House in their current box. If there had been a House-Senate Conference, then the House could have fixed the bill without a floor vote and the bill could have changed, without having to send it back to the Senate to face 60 vote margins.

But now, they can’t have a conference, and the Speaker and the White House must pass the unpassable Senate bill, in order to even try reconciliation.

DeMint is really one of the GOP's best weapons in the Senate: a principled conservative who also has an intuitive grasp of the parliamentary options available to a Senator. Plus, he wrote a pretty good book as a conservative manifesto for the Obama era. Naturally, the GOP largely ignores him, as do the Democrats and the MSM.