Protesters Arrested at Lieberman’s Office

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports:

It is protest day, for the Left and the Right, on Capitol Hill.

First out of the gate -9 Protesters backing a universal health care system briefly occupied Sen. Joe Lieberman's office this morning.

Protesters werearrested, one by one, and dragged out of his office amid chants of “Everyone in and noone out, universal healthcare now!” and “Represent Connecticut, not AETNA!”

The whole affair, from occupation to final arrest, lasted 40 minutes.

Lieberman, the Connecticut Independent, has said he will join Republicans to filibuster a Democractic health bill if it contains a public health insurance option to operate alongside the private insurance market.

Later we will see much a larger protest from the other side of the political spectrum as potentially thousands of protesters gather with Republican lawmakers on the West side of the Capitol. Those protesters will lobby against Democrats' health care bills in large part because they include a public option..

Schumer Spins Lieberman’s Filibuster Threat

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports:

Prepare to enter Chuck Schumer’s spin zone.

Schumer, who was instrumental in convincing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to include the opt-out public option in his health reform bill, tried at a news conference on Capitol Hill, tried to explain how Democrats would get Sen. Joe Lieberman’s out of his pledge to filibuster the bill if it contains a public option after debate on the Senate floor.

“The question has never been the public option’s popularity in the public. Its whether we can muster 60 votes,” said Schumer, who called Reid “the best vote counter and vote getter that I have ever seen in my 35 years as a legislator.”

He was asked several times about Lieberman and said he didn’t know what the big deal was all about.

“I thought the fuss made about what Sen. Lieberman said was greater than I anticipated,” said Schumer. “In fact the fact that he said he was definitely voting on moving to proceed on the motion to proceed we regarded as a good sign because he was one of the four of five people who hadn’t, who our view was hadn’t privately committed to that. “

And Schumer is already casting ahead to the argument he’ll make to moderates to get them to support a final bill in the Senate.

“We all know that the bill that emerges after weeks of debate on the Senate floor is not going to be the same one that leader Reid submitted. And there’s going to be lots of change and lots of compromise and lots of push and pull, hopefully in a bipartisan way, but certainly among the 60 Democrats, who have a wide range of views.”

“And I talked to Joe Lieberman, you know, later in the day and I said just keep your options open. So to speak. Um. That you know there’s going to all kinds of different changes and I think everyone’s going to look at the bill in totality. You have Senators who say well, more moderate senators, who say I’m okay on public option, but I don’t like this. And others who say this and this are good, but you know maybe we should change public option – you’re going to have to let the process wend its way through. The first step is getting the 60 Democratic votes to move forward on the motion to proceed. That’s what we’re working on now and my belief is – and this is just speaking for me – once we get that the process will unfold and we’ll get 60 votes to move forward on final passage as well.“

Schumer implied that the health reform vote will ultimately distill into a black and white decision – either something passes or it doesn’t.

“It’s almos – it is universal – it is not almost it is universal that failure is not an option,” he said. “And so there’s going to be willingness to give by the left by the center by the right. And we will come up with a bill we can all support. We must.”

Lieberman Courted by Both Parties on Health Reform

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports:

Sen. Joe Lieberman is technically Independent, but today he dominated press conferences by the leaders of both parties in the Senate.

Lieberman's announced today that he'd probably vote for cloture on whether to consider a health reform bill, but oppose cloture on the bill later on the Senate floor if it still had a public option.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid heaped praise on Lieberman.

“I don't have anyone that I have worked harder with, have more respect for in the Senate than Joe Lieberman. As you know, he's my friend. There are a lot of senators, Democrat and Republicans, who don't like part of what's in this bill that we went over to CBO. We're going to see what the final product is. We're not there yet. Senator Lieberman will let us get on the bill, and he'll be involved in the amendment process,” Reid said, pointing to Lieberman's bipartisan work in the past.

“I have the greatest confidence in Joe Lieberman's ability as a legislator. And he will work with us when this gets on the floor, and I'm sure he'll have some interesting things to do in the way of an amendment. But Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid's problems,” said Harry Reid.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, had a far different assessment. He did not mention Lieberman by name, but said any vote for cloture – even one to consider health reform bill as Lieberman indicates he could support – is a vote for everything in the bill.

McConnell invoked the infamous and fateful statement by Sen. John Kerry about an appropriations bill in 2004 that he “voted for it before he voted against it.”

“I think it's appropriate to make the point at the outset that a vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to this bill will be treated as a vote on the merits of the bill. We all recall Senator Kerry's strained way in the 2004 campaign of explaining why he voted for it before he voted against, and I think it is perfectly clear that most Americans will treat the vote to get on the bill as a vote on the substance of the bill,” said McConnell. “So our view is that cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill is a bill — is a vote to endorse a half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts, $400 billion in new taxes, and higher insurance — health insurance premiums for everyone else.”

McConnell brought it up again later.

“I think we all remember the Kerry campaign, and we all remember the difficulty of explaining to our constituents why we were for something before we were against it,” he said.