Two Dems Back Republican Push for Countrywide VIP Subpoena

ABCNews' Matthew Jaffe reports:

A House panel's contentious battle over issuing a subpoena to obtain documents about a controversial Countrywide program took a turn Thursday night when two Democratic members on the committee supported the ranking Republican's request to proceed with the investigation.

Rep. Paul Hodes, D-NH, and Rep. Mike Quigley, D-IL, wrote to House Oversight & Government Reform committee chairman Ed Towns, D-NY, and Darrell Issa, R-CA, informing the panel chiefs of their desire to issue a subpoena.

“We write to you today to request that the committee initiate an investigation into Countrywide Financial's “Friends of Angelo” program, and if it was used to gain influence over federal officials,” Hodes and Quigley wrote. “We believe that to properly conduct this investigation, the committee needs to gain access to all documents related to the program that Countrywide used to provide preferred status to certain customers.”

In recent weeks, Issa has vehemently argued for Towns to issue a subpoena, but Towns has refused to do so. Issa then attempted to call a committee vote on the subpoena, but a bizarre sequence of cancellations and lock-outs has prevented the California lawmaker from bringing the panel to a vote.

More HERE

The new support of Hodes and Quigley, a Republican committee aide told ABC News, now gives the GOP the necessary votes to pass the subpoena measure, assuming they can manage to bring it to a vote.

“Ranking member Issa fully supports the outline that Reps. Hodes and Quigley have outlined,” said Kurt Bardella, the spokesman for Issa. “He believes it is a blueprint for a fair and comprehensive investigation that will uncover the full scope of Countrywide's efforts to buy influence.”

Issa has fought to gain documents on the murky Countrywide program, which he has said was used to give sweetheart deals to federal government officials and members of Congress who worked on housing policy in an effort to gain their support.

More HERE

Democrats have called the GOP's push for a vote a political stunt to embarrass two prominent Senate Democrats, Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad, who received special VIP loans from the lender. Dodd chairs the Senate Banking committee and Conrad the Senate Budget committee.

Countrywide, once the nation's largest home mortgage lender, collapsed in 2008 in the midst of the subprime mortgage meltdown. In June, the company's former CEO was charged by the Securities & Exchange Commission with civil fraud and insider trading, making him the highest-profile official to date faced with federal charges stemming from the financial crisis.
More HERE

-Matthew Jaffe

Dems Lock Out Republicans — Literally

ABC News' Rick Klein and Matthew Jaffe report: Somebody call a divorce lawyer.

This tale has secret videotaping, a staged walk-out, and — finally this week — one side secretly changing the locks on the other.

And everyone involved is a member of Congress.

It's the latest turn in an increasingly acrimonious stand-off inside the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the House's chief investigatory committee, the panel perhaps best known in recent years for the steroids-in-baseball hearings.

The dispute was months in the making. But Republicans turned up the temperature last week by vowing to force a committee vote on subpoenaing a fresh round of documents in its investigation of Countrywide Financial, the collapsed mortgage giant.

Democrats labeled that a political stunt, designed to embarrass two key Democratic lawmakers — Sen. Chris Dodd and Sen. Kent Conrad — who got special VIP loans through Countrywide.

But rather than taking the political risk of bringing the motion to a vote, Democrats pulled off what appeared to be a stunt of their own: When the time came for the scheduled vote last Thursday, they huddled in a back room — denying Republicans the quorum they needed to take action.

Then things got interesting. Republican staff members had secretly set up a video camera outside the committee room. The camera captured a stream of Democrats leaving through a side door of the very committee room they were scheduled to be in — calling into question Democrats' claim that a scheduling conflict involving another committee meeting prevented their attendance.

Republicans put the video on YouTube, juxtaposing the empty chairs and the Democrats filing out of the room. They put it all to the tune of “Hit the Road, Jack.”

Not everyone was laughing. On Tuesday, the committee's Democrats let the Republicans know that their keys wouldn't work in the hearing room anymore. They'd had the locks changed.

Why? “Because they [Republicans] don't know how to behave,” Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., told Politico. Towns' office did not respond to request for comment.

The committee had been scheduled to meet again on Thursday — assuming everyone could get inside the room. And with at least one Democrat promising to vote with Republicans, it would have been another interesting meeting.

“If only they would use their creative energy to do some actual oversight and maybe hold a hearing rather than resorting to immature tactics, but I guess we're getting some insight into what lengths they'll go to avoid addressing the Countrywide VIP issue – I'm actually embarrassed for them right now,” said Kurt Bardella, spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the committee's top Republican.

Todaythe panel also postponed the Thursday hearing on Bank of America's controversial merger with Merrill Lynch last year – a hearing at which Issa could have called for the subpoena vote.

Democrats, a GOP source said, had asked Republicans “repeatedly this week” if they intended to call the vote at Thursday's hearing.

“Two weeks, two hearings postponed,” said Bardella. “Why not use the time scheduled for tomorrow to hold a straight up or down vote on the Countrywide subpoena?

Palin Hits Dems on ‘Unsustainable Mandate’, ‘Cadillac Tax’, and C-SPAN Promise

ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is once again weighing in on the health reform debate, this time echoing the insurance industry's argument that the individual mandate contained in the Senate Finance bill will prove unworkable as young and healthy Americans conclude that they are better off paying a small fine than purchasing costly insurance.

“Even factoring in government subsidies, the cost of purchasing a plan is much more than $750,” Palin writes in her latest Facebook message. “The result: many people, especially the young and healthy, will simply not buy coverage, choosing to pay the fine instead.

“They'll wait until they're sick to buy health insurance,” she adds, “confident in the knowledge that insurance companies can't deny them coverage, such a scenario is a perfect storm for increasing the cost of health care and creating an unsustainable mandate program.”

The former Republican vice presidential candidate, whose book, “Going Rogue,” is set to be released on Nov. 17, is keeping people guessing about her political future. Some top Republicans expect her to become a candidate for president in 2012. Others, including some top Republicans with ties to her, think that she wants to be influential on issues of concern to her without undergoing the rigor of a White House run.

Palin's critique of the weakened individual mandate echoes concerns about the Finance bill that were raised last week by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the lobbying arm of the health insurance industry.

After spending months at the table with the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers pushing for a strong individual mandate, AHIP turned against the Senate Finance bill last week just two days before the measure came to a vote. AHIP's campaign against the Finance bill has thus far included a widely criticized report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers warning about higher premium costs and a television ad blitz warning seniors about proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage.

Even though the Finance Committee approved an amendment reducing the individual mandate penalty, the Congressional Budget Office did not change its estimate that the percentage of legal nonelderly U.S. residents with insurance coverage would rise from the current 83 percent to 94 percent over the next decade.

In addition to targeting the “unsustainable” individual mandate penalty, Palin uses her Facebook post to try to drive a wedge between President Obama and some traditional Democratic allies by criticizing the Finance bill for proposing to tax the “so-called 'Cadillac' health care plans enjoyed by many union members.” The union-funded Health Care for America for Now group launched an ad on Thursday blasting the proposed tax on high-cost insurance plans.

When it comes to the process being used to develop health-care policy, Palin criticizes Obama for not sticking by his sweeping campaign promise to broadcast health-care negotiations on C-SPAN.

Obama brought cameras into the White House at the beginning of the reform effort for a made-for-TV event, but the most consequential negotiations have taken place behind closed doors as they have in previous administrations.

Palin is also pushing Obama to live by a promise on his campaign web site not to sign “any nonemergency bill” without giving the American public “an opportunity to review and comment on the White House web site for five days.”

She concludes her post by reiterating her free-market prescription for health reform.

Palin does not support an individual mandate requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance. Instead, she favors (1) allowing individuals to purchase slimmed down, mandate-free health insurance policies across state lines; (2) giving individuals who purchase their own health care the same tax benefits as those who receive coverage from their employer; and (3) converting Medicare from an open-ended entitlement into a voucher system that provides seniors with a fixed sum of money to purchase private health insurance.

What about Joe? Much work remains for Dems after Finance vote

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports:

All eyes are on the Senate Finance Committee this morning, where there have not yet been any surprises.

But Republicans are circulating snippets from an interview conducted by Don Imus of Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Independent from Connecticut who caucuses with Democrats. He's one of the 60 votes Democrats will need to pass a sweeping reform bill.

In a reminder that once the Finance Committee passes its bill today, there is still a very long road for health reform, Lieberman told Imus he doesn't support the Baucus bill and he thinks President Obama is trying to do too much.

“I've been saying for a couple of months now that I'm concerned, that I'm concerned that there's a danger that we're trying to do too much here and the president is trying to do two good things. But doing them at once in the middle of a recession may be hard to pull off,” Lieberman said, according to a transcript circulated by Republicans.

He went on: “And the two good things are to bend the cost of health care down by changing a lot of the ways health care is delivered. The second thing is to cover some of the people, millions of people, who are not covered with insurance. So, this puts us in the position where you say, on the one hand, what we're about to do in adopting health care reform will, will reduce the cost of health insurance from what it would otherwise be and the other hand you say, oh incidentally, we're going to raise your taxes or cut your Medicare to the tune of $900 billion or a trillion. And people are beginning to think that maybe they'd do better holding on to what they have now.”

Lieberman's statement underscore the perilous situation for Democrats who will take the Baucus bill and try to marry it with what the HELP Committee passed in July. They will have to attract Lieberman's vote on one end of the spectrum. And only the votes of more liberal senators who think the Baucus bill does not go far enough toward universal coverage. Only one Democrat, Sen. Roland Burris of Illinois, has said he won't vote for a bill that lacks a public option.

“The inclusion of a public option as a central component to any healthcare reform legislation is the only way to create meaningful competition with the insurance companies, and in turn, bring down costs and improve quality of care for the people of Illinois and all Americans,” said Burris on the Senate floor recently.

But other liberals, like Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia have pledged to do their best to force a public option and affordability votes on the Senate floor.

It's hard to square those pledges with changes to mollify Lieberman and other moderates, who opposes a public option.

Wiggle room on the public option could come in the form of wordplay. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose job it will be to marry the HELP and Baucus Finance Committee bills, has said there are different variations of a public option, even suggesting that the series of non-governmental co-ops envisioned by the Baucus bill could substitute for the public option.

But where it comes to affordability for people who currently have health insurance, there is less wiggle room. And there is also the undeniable fact that the Baucus bill does not insure every American.

“The bill before us still falls short of what people need and what people expect from us,” said Rockefeller during today's Finance Committee markup.

“It is not enough,” Rockefeller said. “Universal coverage has always been the goal”

He'll have to swallow his reservations and support the Baucus bill in the committee vote later today if he wants to make changes on the Senate floor in the future.

Dems Gang Up on McChrystal

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

With members of Congress set to huddle at the White House this afternoon to discuss Afghanistan strategy with President Obama, leading Democrats are ratcheting up criticism of Gen. Stanley McChrystal for publicly discussing his recommendations to the president as part of the strategic review.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last night told Charlie Rose that McChrystal should be making his arguments only in private.

“Let me say this about Gen. McChrystal, with all due respect: His recommendations to the president should go up the line of command. They shouldn't be in press conferences,” said Pelosi, D-Calif.

Pelosi also had praise for Vice President Joe Biden's view — that al Qaeda should be dealt with in Afghanistan through the use of more drone strikes and special forces, not additional troops.

“Let me say this: The vice president's views are ones that widely shared,” Pelosi said.

This morning, Sen. Jim Webb, a former Navy secretary and a veteran, said it was “pretty odd” that McChrystal gave an interview to “60 Minutes” and spoke to a London think-tank about his recommendations, even as President Obama deliberates on the best way forward.

“At a time when people were meeting in the White House discussing Afghanistan, he was giving a speech in London,” Webb, D-Va., told MSNBC. “I thought that was pretty odd.”

At a forum last night, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said decisions regarding troop strength should not be made as part of a public debate.

But Gates said his comments were “absolutely not” aimed at McChrystal, and he voiced his support for the general's leadership in Afghanistan.

McChrystal's grave assessment of the situation in Iraq was leaked to The Washington Post last month. The Obama administration has resisted calls from members of Congress to have McChrystal testify in front of Congress on his recommendations before the president makes up his mind.

Liberal Groups Target Ark. Dems on Health Care

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: So much for Rahm Emanuel’s cease-fire.

Two liberal groups are launching new advertising campaigns targeting moderate Democratic members of Congress from Arkansas, attacking them for not supporting a “public option” as part of health care reform.

One ad bluntly warns Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., that they will face Democratic primary challenges if they persist in “trying to kill the public health insurance option.”

“Stand with Democrats now — or we’ll find someone who will,” says the ad from the FDL Action PAC, which organizers said would run for the next 10-14 days in the Little Rock market.

That ad also uses footage from raucous rallies and town-hall meetings, and cites Rep. Joe Wilson’s “you lie!” outburst on the House floor last week.

Another group, Change Congress, is also targeting Ross. The ad uses footage of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann attacking Ross — a leading “Blue Dog” conservative Democrat — for opposing the public option.

“Congressman, if you’re so tired of raising money from special interests who oppose your constituents on issues like health care, do something,” says that ad, which asks Ross to support a bill that would establish public funding for congressional races.

Ads from liberal groups targeting Democrats have been less prevalent since White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel warned a collection of groups to stop running them, dismissing them as “stupid.”

But advocates of a public option have been harshly critical of Sen. Max Baucus’ health care reform bill, which does not include provisions for a government-established plan that would compete with private insurers.

For months, liberal groups have been frustrated by concessions made by leaders in Congress to appease their fellow Democrats — notwithstanding their large majority in the House and the Senate.

Gang of Six Nears Closure; Dems Use “Means” vs. “Ends” Talking Point

ABC News'Z. Byron Wolf reports:

Bipartisan negotiators – the so-called “Gang of 6” senators seeking middle ground on health reform – met again this morning in one of their final sessions together before a deadline imposed by Democrats for a specific bill hits next week.

Even as President Obama works to keep moderate Democrats skittish about health reform on board with the idea of sweeping health care reform, the Gang of 6 bipartisan negotiators has continued to work. They have met behind closed doors for months seeking middle ground on health care reform. Lead negotiator and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus haspledged to present a bill next week and vote on it in committee the week after.

Baucus said he hopes to know whether any of the three Republican negotiators will support his proposal Monday or Tuesday.

“It’s understood that we have to start making some decisions because the rubber is starting to meet the road here,” Baucus said.

What Baucus does not yet know is the cost of his plan. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is still crunching numbers and guessing at the implications of his plan. But Baucus pledged, as did President Obama, that whatever passes, will not add to the deficit in ten years time.

Baucus, a proponent of the public option who has abandoned it in favor of a proposal for a series of non-profit co-ops that he thinks will garner more votes in the Senate, said he is onthe same page asObama and all Democrats in Congress, even though the president advocated for a strong public plan in his address to Congress this week.

“To keep the insurance industry’s feet to the fire and insurance market reforms – that’s his goal,” Baucus said. “He’s much more focused on the goal rather than the means and I think I can speak for most members of the Congress in saying that Democrats, and also those Republicans who are supporting health care reform that’s their goal too. They care less about the means. They care more about accomplishing that goal and getting more competition.”

This idea of ends versus means is obviously becoming a Democratic talking point. Moderate Democrat Evan Bayh, who has not supported a public health insurance option, said much the same thing in a paper statement after he and 16 other moderate Democrats met Thursday evening with Obama.

Other issues still being discussed by the gang, according to Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND, include a measure having to do with curbing medical malpractice lawsuits, guaranteeing that federal dollars are not used for abortions by those receiving federally subsidized insurance and how to expand Medicaid programs for the poor without bankrupting states, who share Medicaid costs with the federal government.

Conrad said the gang has made progress on efforts to keep undocumented immigrants from receiving medical benefits subsidized by the federal government under any reform bill.

“There’s a high degree of confidence that we have an outline to keep anyone who is here illegally from benefiting from any of these initiatives,” said Conrad.

He did not elaborate on that outline, otherthan tosay that it would include the vetting of social security numbers for those receiving subsidized benefits. Conrad ceded, however, that there would be nothing to prevent illegal immigrants from buying insurance on the Health Insurance Exchange.

“They would not be getting any government assistance,” he said. “What we are trying to prevent is anybody who is here illegally from getting any federal benefit. You cannot prevent somebody from preventing an insurance policy, but it would not be one that is federally assisted,” he said.

None of the Republican negotiators appeared before reporters after the meeting.

On Health Care, Dems Learn to Speak Softly, Carry Big Stick

ABC News’ Teddy Davis and Ferdous Al-Faruque report:

<img src=”http://plsdontcallme.info/wp3/wp-content/uploads/on-health-care-dems-learn-tobr-speak-softly-carry-big-stick-1.jpg&#8221; alt=”On Health Care, Dems Learn to
Speak Softly, Carry Big Stick” title=”On Health Care, Dems Learn to
Speak Softly, Carry Big Stick” />

 

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., discussed health care reform at the Center for American Progress on March 27, in Washington, D.C.
Ferdous Al-Faruque/ ABC News 

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mt., the powerful chairman of the Finance Committee who is taking the lead on reforming the nation’s health-care system, told the liberal Center for American Progress on Friday that circumventing Republicans on this issue “would not be a good idea”.

He — and several other Democrats — are not, however, ruling out the possibility of bypassing GOP senators through the budget reconciliation process if a deal is not reached by the end of the summer. Reconciliation allows legislation to pass the 100-member Senate with a simple majority rather than the usual 60 votes.

The threat of the budget reconciliation process is an important “club” for Democrats to wield, said Norm Ornstein, an expert on Congress from the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

It gives the party in power leverage over Republicans and the insurance industry that they otherwise would not have.

“We are not at a point yet where the Republican Party wants to be a partner in making major legislation and that’s where reconciliation issue comes back,” said Ornstein. “Whether the administration can artfully use a club over people’s heads, not to use it, but to say . . . to Republicans: ‘we have got an option here and we can freeze you out and do it with 50 votes.'”

“And if you don’t use it, and don’t threaten in a way that alienates everybody, it’s another reason to be hopeful that we can actually get this thing done,” he added.

Ornstein made his comments at the Center for American Progress during a panel discussion which followed the Baucus speech. He was joined on the panel by former Clinton adviser Paul Begala and Time Magazine writer Karen Tumulty. The discussion was moderated by Judy Feder, a fellow with the Center for American Progress who teaches at Georgetown University.

Read the Baucus remarks as prepared for delivery here.

Kos to Dems: Toe Populist Line — or Else

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:

 

Markos Moulitsas, publisher of the liberal DailyKos blog, helped launch a political action committee on Thursday called Accountability Now which will target congressional Democrats who become “more responsive to corporate America than to their constituents.” Moulitsas spoke about the new PAC at ABC’s Washington Bureau.
Ferdous Al-Faruque/ ABC News 

Leading progressives are putting congressional Democrats on notice that they will recruit and support primary challenges to vulnerable incumbents who become “more responsive to corporate America than to their constituents.”

“We don’t want a repeat of 1994 and we don’t want our own version of 2006,” said Markos Moulitsas, publisher of the liberal DailyKos blog, invoking two recent elections in which the congressional party in power was voted out of office.

To ensure that congressional Democrats do not lose touch with their constituents, Moulitsas visited ABC News’ Washington bureau Thursday to promote the launch of Accountability Now PAC.

The new political action committee is supported not only by DailyKos but also by MoveOn.org, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), ColorofChange.org, Democracy for America, 21st Century Democrats, and BlogPAC.

Accountability Now, which was co-founded by Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake.com, draws its inspiration from the way in which former Rep. Al Wynn, D-Md., was ousted from office in 2007 by current Rep. Donna Edwards, a more liberal Democrat, who portrayed Wynn as beholden to corporate interests.

The liberal group has been described as the liberal equivalent of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group that backs primary challenges to Republican incumbents who vote for higher taxes.

The founders of Accountability Now, however, go to great pains to reject the comparison, saying that they are not interested in backing primary challengers with no chance of winning as the Club for Growth did in 2006 when it unsuccessfully backed Republican Steve Laffey in a primary challenge to Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a liberal Republican who voted against the Bush tax cuts.

“We’re obsessed with polling,” said Moulitsas.

The founders of Accountability Now say they do not insist on down-the-line liberalism from their candidates.

To buttress their argument, they point to Montana Sen. Jon Tester and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, two Democrats who won surprise victories in 2006 with the help of liberal bloggers. Both have conservative positions on guns while also being strong economic populists.

Looking ahead to 2010, Accountability Now does not yet know the specific Democratic apostasies that it will seek to punish. Issues that the group will monitor include universal health care, tax fairness, and cramdown legislation that provides bankruptcy judges with the power to rewrite mortgage terms.

“If you’re carrying water for the banking industry in 2009, the odds are that you’re not voting your district,” Jeff Hauser, Accountability Now’s executive director, told ABC News.

Although Accountability Now has not yet generated a list of Democratic incumbents it wants to target, it is already reaching out to left-leaning blogs around the country to familiarize itself with potential primary challengers.

“I’d like everyone to be primaried,” said Moulitsas while noting that Accountability Now PAC will focus on a small handful of races.

Asked to defend the wisdom of backing challenges to incumbent Democrats, given that Connecticut Sen. Joe Liberman managed to get re-elected even after Ned Lamont denied him the Democratic Party’s Senate nomination in 2006, Moulitsas said Lieberman was saved by a “quirk in Connecticut law” that allowed him to appear on the general election ballot as the candidate of his own party.

“2012 is the last of Joe Lieberman,” said Moulitsas. “My fear is he will retire. I want to take him out in an election.”

ABC News’ David Chalian and Ferdous Al-Faruque contributed to this report.

Transparency Department: Will Dems keep open conference pledge?

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports: This gets into the parliamentary weeds just a bit, but it bears mentioning that conference committees have been a rarity on Capitol Hill in recent years.

Time was after the Senate passed a bill and the House passed a bill, representatives of the two would get together and have a conference.

The way legislation has been moving through Congress, however, there have not been many conferences in recent years. And the ones there have been have often been closed. The 2008 Farm Bill was a notable exception.

When Democrats took control of Congress, they promised to be more open, unlock the doors and let the sun shine in on conference committees.

Here is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November 2006, after it was clear Democrats had won the House and just before George Allen conceded defeat to give Democrats control of the House, too.

“We have so much to work on,” Reid said. “And I think it would be untoward for us to talk about what we’re going to do when we take control of the Senate. A lot of things to do. Whatever we do, we’re going to try to do it on a bipartisan basis. If we are fortunate enough to pass something — we’re going to have something that a lot of you young journalists have never seen, and that is an open conference committee, where we — the Democrats and Republicans — sit down in a room just like this around a table, and you raise issues and you say, oh, is this a good or bad issue? And there’s a vote that takes place. That’s what we’re going to do.”

Later that same month, he reiterated the point.

Reid: “My goal is to reestablish the legislative branch of government as deemed to be so important in checks and balances by our Founding Fathers,” Reid said. “We’re going to do things that haven’t been — that have not been done in many years. We’re going to treat the minority, the Republicans as they did not treat us. They’ll be involved in decisions when we have legislation that passes this body. We’re going to have conferences with the House. I’ve already spoken to Leader Pelosi — real conferences, public conferences, where public issues will be debated and voted upon before taking a conference report back to the two bodies.”

There has been only one conference since Democrats took control of Congress; most bills have been passed when the House accepted the Senate’s version. But today Reid is in the predicament of actually having to hold a conference on the stimulus bill, which passed the Senate only with a delicate compromise crafted behind closed doors by centrist Republicans and Democrats.

At a press conference on Capitol Hill today, Reid said the simple fact that the conference was taking place was a step in the right direction.

“Normally what we do in conferences — now, remember, the Republicans, when they controlled the Congress, we’ve had no conferences. The few conferences that were held were done in secret with only the Republicans being part of the conference. And then, during the eight years of the Bush administration, there were absolutely none done,” he argued. “This is all new. As I explained to my caucus today, the majority of senators who are Democrats have never been involved in a — in a conference. So this is going to — this is a conference.”

So, will the upcoming conference be public and open with cameras rolling? No word yet and the conference is supposed to start tonight.