South Carolina:
Nikki Haley made history in the state by becoming not only the first woman but the first Indian-American woman to run for governor in last night's run off election.

Representative Tim Scott easily won against Strom Thurmond's son in the 1st District and could be come the Republican's first black congress in over a century. The South may indeed rise again, but with a slightly different look

Utah:
Tea Party backed candidate Mike Lee was selected to head up the GOP Senate race. Utah is overwhelming Republican, so no drastic changes there.

By a vote of 59-39, the Senate voted last night to pass legislation aiming to fix the US financial industry, which almost collapsed back in last 2008. Four Republicans, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Charles Grassley and Scott Brown joined a majority of Democrats in voting for the bill. The Senate was hung up in debate until Scott Brown (MA) got assurances from Congressman Barney Frank that several concerns about Massachusetts' financial institutions would be addressed.

The bill now heads to conference committee to hammer out differences between the House version.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist, currently running for a Senate seat in the state, is expected to switch from running as a Republican to an Independent.

The Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act has been passed by the Senate and is headed to President Obama's desk, to be signed into law. The legislation designed to stimulate jobs by giving employers payroll tax exemptions through 2010 and extending federal highway and other public works projects. The bill passed 69-29, with 11 Republicans voting with the Democratic majority.

The US Department of Transportation has furloughed 2,000 workers, unemployment benefits ended last night, doctors are facing a pay cut and rural satellite tv viewers will be facing dark screens.

What's the common thread? Senator Jim Bunning (Kentucky), who is holding up a $10 billion bill because of his objection to it not being paid for.

Who wants a jobs bill? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that's who! But he's been bad and the Republicans won't let him have it, even though they agree with it. What's the issue? Well, the Senate actually.

With health care reform stalled due to the pesky problem of the Democrats losing their slim majority in the Senate and the House balking at passing the Senate plan with no changes, President Obama is trying a different tactic. He has invited Republican and Democratic leaders to take part in a televised gathering to discuss health care reform, to occur on February 25th.

The US Armed Services Committee is holding hearings on repealing Don't Ak, Don't Tell for the military. Live stream here.

Voter's in Massachusetts head to the polls today to determine who will fill the Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy, choosing either Democrat Martha Coakley or Republican Scott Brown.

The race was originally seen as cakewalk for the Democrats, but Brown's campaign and supporters turned the race into a dead heat and now an seeming victory for Brown, as Nate Silver of 538 is puts Brown at 3:1 and other polls also point to Brown winning.

If Brown wins, that puts 41 Republicans in the Senate, enough to sustain a filibuster, which puts Democrat plans for health care reform in jeopardy. Backup plans are already being considered, including asking the House to back the Senate plan with no changes.

Got something to add? Add it below the fold!

With the US House and Senate having based separate bills on health care reform, it's time to merge the two bills into one, in order to present a single bill that both chambers can pass and send to the President. However, since Republicans seems intent on slowing down the process anyway they can, Democrats, who hold the majority, have decided to do negotiations informally, in a process called "ping pong" where formal procedures are skipped and officials work out agreements outside the chambers and away from the spotlight.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (SC) says he could back legislation that doesn't include a public option, further signaling that the final health care bill from both houses will resemble the Senate version.

Newt Gingrich and the Tea Party are pushing for Republicans in the 2010 and 2012 elections to run on a platform of repealing any health care bill that passes.

Congress is currently not in session, the House returns on January 11th, Senate on the 18th. Though loose negotiations are said to be taking place between the chambers, nothing official will happen until the chambers gavel back into session.

It's Christmas Eve and the US Senate is voting on its health care reform bill at 7am. It's important to realize that this is not the final vote. Once the Senate passes its version, the legislation will need to be reconiled with the version voted on by the House of Representatives and then approved again by both chambers, before being sent to the President, who's been making the rounds to champion the Senate bill.

While all eyes are focused on the 7am Senate vote to pass its health care bill tomorrow, that's not the only work the chamber will be doing. It'll also pass legislation that raises the US debt ceiling by $290 billion dollars, which is enough to keep the government running 'till about mid February.

Naturally, doing this will get political, as the current minority party, the Republicans, seek to blame Democrats in general and Obama specifically for the high level of debt

Two votes down, one to go.
Then it all starts all over again.

The Democrats seemed like that had a plan for passing health care reform: drop the controversial public option in exchange for lower the age of medicare. Senator Joe Lieberman didn't like that idea (even though he was ok with it three months ago) and it looks like he's going to get his way since his vote is needed. The result? Some form of health care reform will pass, but it won't be as strong as it could have been.

Instapundit makes a comment about how Bush was about to pass legislation when majorities in both houses, something current President Obama supposedly can't. Washington Monthly unpacks the remark and examines the two very different atmospheres each President operated in:

When I look back at the Bush/Cheney era, I think of a lot of things -- incompetence, corruption, mismanagement, neglect, spectacular failures on a generational scale in almost every imaginable area of public policy -- but "accomplished legislative record" isn't one of them. He passed huge tax cuts, increased spending, expanded the federal bureaucracy, and expanded Medicare, but most of those accomplishments came in his first three years. In his entire second term, Bush sought very little -- after his Social Security privatization failed, the White House effectively stopped having a domestic agenda -- and got very little in return.

Noting the seeming mandate that the US 2008 elections, a large electoral victory, and majorities in both the House and Senate, yet major legislation remains stalled or is slowly passed, a new term is coined, Californication:

We are living through the Californiafication of America -- a country in which the combination of a determined minority and a procedural supermajority legislative requirement makes it impossible to rationally address public policy challenges. And thus the Democratic president and his allies in Congress are evaluated on the basis of extreme compromise measures -- supplicating to dispassionate Wise Men like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman, buying Olympia Snowe a vacation home, working bills through 76 committees and countless "procedural" votes -- rather than the substantive, policy achievements of bills that would merely require a simple majority to pass.

Here's to the impossible dream: ending the filibuster and letting a simple majority rule

Senators Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg, Chairman and Ranking member respectively of the US Senate Budget Committee have introduced legislation to create a a bipartisan commission to focus on reducing the deficit.

However, there's an odd aspect to it, namely how it makes recommendations:

Conrad said the task force would have 18 members - 16 from Congress, evenly divided between both parties, and two from the administration, including the Treasury secretary.

The commission's report would be due after the 2010 elections. And at least 14 of the 18 members must agree to the report's recommendations before submitting it to Congress.

Congress would then have to vote yes or no to the commission'ssuggestions without filibustering or amending them. And they would need to do so before Dec. 31, 2010. To pass, the recommendations would need to garner at least 60 votes in the Senate and a 60% majority of votes in the House.

Seems to set a lot of high bars to get recommendations passed by Congress.

While most of US politics is focused on health care or Tiger Woods, the House and Senate have been working on other reforms. Senator Chris Dodd is trying to push through a reform bill designed to put tighter control measures on the financial sector (Details), which may wind up influencing cap and trade legislation.

The latest step in trying to find get health care reform passed is more talking and new version of the public option.

First up, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has asked ten Democrats Senators to negotiate among themselves a comprise that'll unite the party and enable reform to pass. On one side are Sens. Blanche Lincoln, Ark., Mary Landrieu, La., Ben Nelson, Neb., Tom Carper, Del., and Mark Pryor,Ark. On the other side is Charles Schumer, NY Jay Rockefeller, W.Va., Sherrod Brown, Ohio, Tom Harkin, Iowa, and Russ Feingold, Wisc. The group has met briefly, but it still has a lot of work to do in bridging the divide among Democrats and the two Independents that caucus with them, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Meanwhile, a new version of the public option is being trotted out: "a national health plan similar to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan, which provides insurance to members of Congress and federal workers. It would be administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal plan, and all of the insurance options would be not-for-profit." It would allow for national insurance plans, as opposed to state plans, but wouldn't be run directly by the government per se (The OPM vs the Health and Human Services Agency), but the OPM, supposedly because of its previous experience would have leverage to make good, affordable deals for citizens, particularly since it would all citizens in its risk pool,

Roll Call is reporting that Senator Max Baucus (D-Mon.), who as Senate Finance Committee Chairman plays a major role health care reform, has “confirmed late Friday night that the Montana Democrat was carrying on an affair with his state office director, Melodee Hanes, when he nominated her to be U.S. attorney in Montana.”    Continues...

Georgia's House speaker has resigned after a suicide attempt and alleged affair with a lobbyist.

The United States only lost 11,000 jobs in November and no, that's not a typo. According to the nice bar graph at Washington Monthly, job losses have been slowing since January of 09 for the most part (there was huge lose in June).

NATO has pledged 7,000 troops to Afghanistan, in addition to America's 30,000. No specifics though on exactly what NATO are contributing troops.

In U.S. health care reform, the Senate is is chugging through amendments. Senator Ben Nelson doesn't have the votes to get strict abortion language inserted into the bill, while Senators Tom Coburn an David Vitter are trying to force Congressional members to use whatever health care plan is approved. Doesn't seem like it'll pass. Meanwhile, Senator Mary Landrieu, who is against the public option, has offered her own health care idea, which appears to be a federally financed, but state funded "competitive community option" which kicks in only if coverage isn't deemed affordable.

The Senate takes up the health care debate today, here's seven issues to look for. The big fight though will be within the Democratic party, as Senators Bill Nelson (D-Neb.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) have all come out solidly against the public option, which is seen as pivotal to the final bill.

Filed under "nice dream, but ain't gonna happen": Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fl-8) is trying to get Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to change the rules of the Senate so that invoking cloture only needs 55 votes, not 60. One of the main reasons it's not going to happen is because 67 Senate votes are needed to change Senate rules.

Historical note: Until 1975, 2/3 of the Senate or 67 votes wee required to end a filibuster. Also, a filibuster used to be much more serious, in that it literally ground the Senate to a halt, no other business could be done in the chamber while a filibuster was occurring, thus making them much less likely to happen. All that changed with dual tracking of Senate bills, meaning a filibuster could still occur, but of just that bill, while other Senate business still went on.

In the wake of the Senate's slim margins for health care debate (60 votes are needed to invoke cloture) Harry Reid is said to be casting about for potential Republican votes. The most likely place is Maine, where Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who voted with the Democrats on the stimulus bill, are being sought as potential votes on health care reform.

The US Senate will be debating the health care reform bill all day today, ahead of the 8pm vote on whether to allow the bill to reach the Senate floor. CSPAN will be carrying the a live feed from the Senate floor starting at 10am as the various Senators argue for and against health care reform.    Continues...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will unveil that chamber's version of health care reform to other Democrats this evening. Reid is pleased about the CBO score, which should be publicly available to today. He's cautiously optimistic about getting 60 votes to pass it.

The Charleston County Republican Party voted to censure to South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham for working with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry on the Cap and Trade bill. It's not the first time the state party has censured Graham. Back in 2007, the local GOP party rebuked him for supporting an immigration bill.

There's been ongoing friction between Graham and local Republicans for a while. Though he's solidly conservative, he's not above working with Democrats, which tends to infruiate the right ward pulling GOP, some of whom have branded him a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and (gasp!) a moderate, which if fine with Graham, who's determined not to have the Republicans be the party of angry, old, white guys or Ron Paul.

Remember how health care reform was supposed to be passed by the end of year? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is signaling that there may be a slight delay. How much delay? Nothing specific but before the State of the Union address on January 20th is being bandied about.

Meanwhile the final House bill on health care is heading to the floor and may be voted by Friday evening.

"My mission is to frame this health care debate in terms of the fiscal ruin of this country"
-Senator Tom Coburn, on his plans for the health care debate

Senate bill S.1938 was introduced yesterday, aiming to "establish a program to reduce injuries and deaths caused by cellphone use and texting while driving"

"The legislation would create a grant program for states that enact laws prohibiting texting and cell phone use while driving. To qualify for the grants, states would have to enact a ban on texting while driving and impose significant penalties for drivers who cause an accident.

States would also have to limit cell phone use to devices with hands-free capabilities, and drivers under 18 years old would not be able to use a cell phone at all. The grants would be paid for with surplus funds from the existing seatbelt safety program."

There is pushback from some states, who argue that Federal laws are too broad and states should be held hostage to national guides in order to receive funds, such as Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison:

“While some have pushed for specific mandates on the states, I disagree,” she said. “States should not be threatened with the loss of federal highway funds that have been paid for by their drivers. We can better accomplish these goals through incentives to individual states rather than heavy-handed mandates from the federal government.”

The big news is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will include a public option in the Senate's health care bill enabling individual states to opt out of the public option. it's widely thought that right leaning states will be the most likely to do so. Still, just getting any sort of public option into the Senate bill is being hailed as a victory.

But as Ezra Klein points out, this is a compromise. This isn't a single payer system. It isn't even an expansion of Medicare. States will be able to opt out, so it won't be national policy. It will only be available to those eligible for health exchanges, which doesn't apply to the majority of the population who get health insurance through their employers. Even if a person is eligible, they'll still be limited by what their state decides.    Continues...

Over in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems ok with legislation letting the states opt out of any public option.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid supposedly has close to the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster, based on the idea that states would be able to opt out a national public option

The only problem is the White House, which prefers Olympia Snowe's idea for triggers, thus getting her vote and being able to call the bill bi-partisan. The White House says those reports are false though.

Iran is reportedly close to making a deal on its nuclear program.

The U.S. House of Representatives have agreed to allow Gitmo prisoners to be transferred to the states to stand trial.

The U.S. Senate is again looking at ending the 100:1 sentencing disparity between crack and power cocaine.

The Afghanistan election is heading to a runoff, which may quell some of the accusations of fraud and vote tampering.

As the Senate Finance Committee prepares to vote on health care reform, Republican member Olympia Snowe has said that she will vote for the committee's bill. However, she was quick to warn her vote on the final health care bill, whatever it may look like, is in no way guaranteed.

An amendment to the 2010 appropriations bill requiring a CBO score and a 72 hour period of reviews has been defeated on procedural grounds. Evidently in this case it's against the rules to attach amendments to general appropriations bills that have nothing to do with the actual bill.

With the U.S. Senate Finance Committee getting ready to vote on on health care reform, Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware) has suggested another compromise to woo centrist Democrats and Republicans: the public option at the state government level, seeded by $6 billion in federal money. States would also be able to ban together to create regional co-ops.

Most polls show that Americans want a bipartisan health care reform bill, bu they're not married to it. If the choice is a bipartisan bill with no public option or Democrat only bill with a public option, the majority want the latter.

Something to keep in mind as the Senate Finance committee finishes up its version of reform this week and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid begins work on reconciling that bill and the HELP committee's bill, which does have a public option.

Yes, ok, Nevada Senator John Ensign had an affair with a top aide's wife. When the aide, Douglas Hampton, found out, on top of attempting to pay him off, Ensign tried to helped Hampton get a job with a firm that did political consulting, assisted with getting several donors to be Hampton's clients. Hampton then got Ensign to intervene on said client's behalf with federal agencies. The only problem is that there's a ban on senior aides lobbying the Senate with a year after leaving and by ban, I mean law.

The New York Times has all the juicy details, including examples such as this:

After requests from Mr. Hampton, Mr. Ensign called the secretary of transportation last year to plead the case for a Nevada airline, Allegiant Air, which was under investigation for allegedly overcharging for tickets. In April, he arranged for Mr. Hampton and his clients to meet the new transportation secretary in a successful effort to resolve a dispute with a foreign competitor.

Hot on the heels of news that a second uranium enrichment plant is being built in Iran, the US House and Senate are preparing bills to enact "tough" new sanctions against the country.

Proposed sanctions include cutting of Iran's gasoline supplies, isolating it financially, expanding restrictions on oil and gas pipelines and allowing Americans to divest from energy firms that do business with Iran.

Critics say imposing sanctions hasn't worked so far and just gives the Iranian government political points as it allows them to point to the US's attempts to control the country.

Slate is live blogging the Senate Finance committee's markup of health care legislation, which started on bacon on Sept. 22nd. It's lovely view of the sausage making, as Republicans complain about the government takeover of health care and the attack on civil liberties (Senator John Kyl (AZ), what would we do without you?). Other highlights include surly Senators wanting to know the cost of the bill, only to be told that since it has 564 amendments, the CBO doesn't know yet, arguments of whether they should vote on the amendments legislative language which hasn't bee written yet (this is common) and other tactics to delay the bill. Fun times.

Slate has also complied a list of all the proposed amendments to the bill.

After a leader of the Blue Dogs says he's completely against the public option, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi begins planning to include one in the House bill anyway.

The Senate Finance committee beings marking up its version of reform today.

On that note, Senator Kent Conrad, a member of the "Gang of Six" in the Finance Committee working on reform, wants a full CBO score on the Finance Committee's bill before voting on it, which would take about two weeks.

Vice-President Joe Biden is stepping up his role in the reform debate.

Health insurance premiums rose by 5 percent this year, while wages only went up by 3.1 percent.

Barring unforeseen procedural hurdles, the Senate should get its 2nd senator from Massachusetts forthwith. The Mass. Senate approved an interim appointment bill, or, as Wonkette called it, the "TED KENNEDY MEMORIAL PARTISAN WARM-BODY ACT."

After months of seeking bipartsian support for health care, Max Baucaus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released a draft of a bill on health care reform yesterday.

It's a terrible bill. It has no Republican support, no public option, has an employer mandate that "penalizes employers for hiring low-income workers who are eligible for subsidies".

The committee is supposed to be release a final version next week and then the "fun" begins as the differences between this and the HELP committee's version (PDF) are hammered out in the Senate before reconciling with the more liberal House bills.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold oversight hearings to review three expiring provisions USA and decided whether they should renewed. The provisions include authorizations for roving wiretaps, access to business records of national security targets and monitoring of "lone wolf" terrorists i.e. those with no known connection to groups or countries.

The Obama administration has signaled its support for renewal, but is 'willing to consider stronger civil rights protections in the new law "provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important (provisions)." '

The Senate Appropriations Committee has unanimously approved the 2010 Pentagon budget. The bill has a price tag of $636 billion (PDF summary) and covers all the Pentagon expenses, including $128 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A few notes:

* Adds 21,000 troops to Afghanistan, bringing total number to 68,000.

* Boeing Co. comes out nicely, with an orders for extra cargo planes and Navy jets which were not requested.

* $100 million requested by the Administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison were strongly rejected and transfer, release or incarceration in the U.S. by any detainees is flatly forbidden.

As if you didn't know, the President will be giving a speech about health care reform to both houses of Congress at 8pm EST. Live broadcast available via CNN, CSPAN and MSNBC or most major tv stations. Let's watch and talk about it.

A few links on non-health care politics:

Patrick Leahy, Chairmen of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, is pushing for more federal judges, citing heavy case loads.

In a surprising bit of news, money the U.S. government spent on bailing out theauto industry is unlikely to be recouped.

There are more calls for South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to resign.

A Texas school district that bravely stepped up and refused to allow students to be indoctrinated by President Obama's speech will bus students to hear a speech by former President George Bush

Over the weekend, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus presented his idea for health care reform. It has no public option, would cost about $900 billion, tax insurance companies to pay for the uninsured and would have yearly limits of $11,900 for a family and $5,950 for an individual. Supposedly Baucus designed this to appeal to Republicans, but they don't seem interested.

The big issue is still the "public option" which is either a government take over of health care, or was to force private to be competitive for the greater good. Most conservatives don't want it, most liberals do. Currently, meaning this particular day, a "trigger option" is being floated around for the "public option" which cause the latter to kick in only if some still undefined things didn't happen from the insurance companies. The trigger is seen as a way of appealing to conservatives, both Republican and Democrat, who are wary of the public option. It doesn't seem to be too appealing though.

The President is set to make speech tomorrow before a joint session of Congress, but it's unclear how that will go. The White House still favors a public option, but it hasn't strongly advocated for one. What's next? No one really knows. Some kind of health care reform will pass, but the width and depth of it is still very uncertain.

Ted Kennedy knew it was coming, and wanted to fix a situation that his party was responsible for. The same situation, in reverse, doomed Roland Burris' Senate career the day it started. Enter Our Hero, Russ Feingold, with a solution. Not everyone agrees.

Senator Ted Kennedy, the long serving Senator of Massachusetts, died last night from brain cancer. Known as the "Liberal Lion" of the Senate, he spent his career championing numerous causes and passing legislation including SCHIP, Mental Health and Health Insurance.

He was so popular that his closet race for Senate was in 1994, again Mitt Romney, where Kennedy won 58-41. Reactions have been pouring in from around the world.