Bailout heads for 218

This time around, House leaders aren’t taking anything for granted.

Heading into Friday’s sequel to the historic Wall Street bailout vote, both Democratic and Republican House leaders were furiously counting votes, twisting arms, counting again and desperately trying to wrangle — and hold together — the necessary 218 votes on the Senate-amended bill.

{mosads}And while leaders on both sides tried to project confidence, there were signs that trouble is still lingering on the horizon.

With the world watching, the House can ill afford to fail a second time in passing legislation giving the Treasury Department some $700 billion to buy troubled debt from banks in the hopes of unfreezing the credit market.

That is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters Thursday afternoon that she won’t bring the bill to the floor if leaders don’t have the votes to pass it.

The Senate amended and passed the original bailout plan overwhelming Wednesday evening, 74-25. And President Bush called more than three dozen House members Wednesday and Thursday.

The stock market closed down 348 points Thursday in a three-year low for the Dow Jones.

Democrats have been adamant that the onus is on the Republicans to deliver far more than the 65 votes they delivered on Monday, when the bill went down in a 205-228 ball of flames.

“It’s up to the GOP to do their part this time,” a Democratic leadership aide said.

In a sign of how tense the vote-counting might be, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Thursday admittedly backed down from a Wednesday assertion that the Republicans needed to deliver 100 votes for the bill to pass.

“On reflection, I have decided that the safer course and the more appropriate course is to say we need a significantly greater number of Republicans,” Hoyer said. “In other words, I don’t want to put an arbitrary number on it.”

But Democrats may have significant problems in their own backyard with a powerful bloc of fiscally conservative members of the Blue Dog Coalition who are fuming over the Senate’s inclusion of $149 billion in tax breaks that will go directly to the government’s books as deficit spending. Of the Blue Dogs’ 49 members, 23 voted for the bill Monday.

One possibility is that the bill’s Blue Dog supporters will still vote yes, but vote against the procedural rule needed to bring the bailout to the floor for a vote.

Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.), a top Blue Dog leader, said he will oppose the rule Friday. He added that the topic of opposing the rule was widely discussed at a Blue Dog meeting Thursday, but no official Blue Dog position was taken, explaining, “You bet it came up.”

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) said that while most Blue Dogs intend to stay put on the bailout bill itself, “there are changes in nuance.” Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who voted for the rule on Monday but opposes the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch without offsets, said she will vote for the bill, but was leaning toward voting no on the rule.

If the Blue Dogs protest the Senate’s changes by voting against their party on procedural questions, they risk derailing the bill and the entire agreement that got the bill through the Senate.

Because of the Blue Dog threat to vote against the procedural measure, Hoyer is asking Republican leaders to round up votes to pass the rule. Those procedural votes usually fall along party lines, and Republicans generally vote against them as a bloc.

And if Democratic leaders can’t prevent the Blue Dog protest, they will have to find an equal or greater number of Republicans to vote for the Democratic rule. That was only adding to migraines that leaders on both sides were experiencing on Thursday.

Even though a number of Republicans — including Reps. Zach Wamp (Tenn.), Lee Terry (Neb.), John Shadegg (Ariz.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.), Tim Murphy (Pa.) and Patrick Tiberi (Ohio) — told national media outlets they might switch their “no” votes to yes, Republicans leaders were having a difficult time as of Thursday afternoon convincing a large swath of their members to support the bill, according to some sources.

And in between meetings with Hoyer, GOP Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) was calling members into his office by the truckload, supplementing a hard push by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the White House.

“Everything we’re doing to reach out to members is predicated on the fact that failure is not an option,” said Blunt spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier.

But not all of those efforts were fruitful. Blunt’s visit to the meeting of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) was met with criticism that leadership was asking them to vote for a bill that members now considered “impure” because of alleged pork projects.

{mospagebreak}Two sources said that Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) raised his voice to Blunt at the RSC meeting, telling him, “We elect you to represent us, and you aren’t doing it.”

Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) filed an amendment with the House Rules Committee late Thursday, seeking to “strip egregious pork projects from [the bailout bill] and save taxpayers nearly half a trillion dollars,” according to a release from the lawmaker.

At a press conference, LaTourette said he is among 23 Republicans who are pushing the amendment, including House Financial Services ranking member Spencer Bachus (Ala.). Twenty of the 23 voted against the bailout bill on Monday, LaTourette said.

{mosads}Bachus made the case for the amendment at a Rules Committee hearing on Thursday. Democrats disputed the GOP “pork” claims and Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) noted that an adoption of the amendment would force the rescue bill back to the Senate for another vote.

At press time it was unclear if the House Rules Committee would allow amendments to the bailout legislation.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who voted against the bill on Monday and said he had returned to Washington a “soft yes,” disagreed with some of the Senate provisions inserted into the bill that he considered “pork.”  

Hoekstra said he had spoken to Boehner earlier on Thursday and told him that the offending provisions needed to be removed.

And while Blunt said he believed the addition of the one-year fix to the AMT and billions in business tax breaks would be music to the ears of a great many Republicans, the top GOP vote-counter was not offering up any numbers.

Democrats were partially assuaged by the publicized vote-switching of some of their own members, including Reps. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) and Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), but were still gun-shy on announcing their 140 yes votes were still all locked up.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said that a $1,000 credit for property taxes could attract some Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members. The Democratic whip also said raising the limit on federal deposit insurance “may have satisfied one or two people,” and aides indicated that the Senate’s decision to include mental health parity may win over some votes in the CBC and Progressive Caucus.

Asked about her level of confidence in her own members, Pelosi said: “We’re looking to see if we still have the [140] votes, and right now they’re coming in pretty well.”

Clyburn started whipping Wednesday night by sending out a questionnaire on the Senate bill. As of press time, they still had 75 unanswered inquiries.

“We may lose people,” Hoyer said. “And I have informed the Republican leadership that that may be the case. Because, frankly, the things that were added on and the way they were added on essentially appeal to Republicans. “

Hoyer added that despite the importance of the bill, Democratic leaders weren’t prepared to turn the screws on their members who aren’t supportive.

Michael O’Brien and Sam Youngman contributed to this article.