Counting Votes and Racing the Clock

As expected today, the US Senate voted 61 to 37 passing President Obama’s Economic Stimulus Bill.

The vote included three Republican Senators and both of the Senate’s Independent members (note, there are 50 US Senators and there is one vacant seat from Minnesota and the Republican Senator from New Hampshire abstained due to a potential conflict of interest since he is President Obama’s selected Secretary of Commerce and is awaiting a confirmation hearing).

It wasn’t pretty and not the way the President envisioned the bill moving through the House or Senate. The tough part still remains, reconciling the two versions of the bill into one agreed upon version. Senators selected to be on the Conference Committee are holding a firm line on their $838 billion version, as opposed to the House version, which totaled $820 billion.

Conference Committee work is tough and political in several ways – the power of Senators versus House members; as well as the more traditional battle of the parties are just some of the dynamics at play. During President Obama’s national press conference and comments made yesterday and today in his town hall meetings, the President stated preference for programs cut out of the Senate version of the bill. Some of the programs the President mentioned included school construction money and environmental sustainability initiatives.



At the end of the day though, getting the bill done and to the President’s desk for his signature is the priority. The clock is ticking and the sooner it arrives and is signed, the better. There will be other days to fight for appropriations as the legislative process returns to the day-to-day business of the nation.

Today’s Presidential town hall meeting in Florida was interesting as President Obama was escorted and introduced by Florida’s Republican Governor, Charlie Crist. Governor Crist talked on multiple broadcast news interviews about the importance of this bill to Floridians suffering from a staggering number of mortgage foreclosures and rising unemployment. Yet, not one Republican member of Florida’s Congressional delegation voted for the bill.

So, it will be interesting to see which Floridians voting in 2010 will hold their representatives accountable.

Of course, two years can be a lifetime in politics and more pressing matters might make this a distant memory, although it is hard to believe anyone is going to forget what President Obama described last night as the “winter of our hardship.”