MSNBC "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

SEN. KENT CONRAD (D-ND), SENATE BUDGET CMTE. CHAIRMAN: It would

depend entirely how it"s constructed. And, you know, I wouldn"t sign a

blank check for any provision. I"d want to know the details.

O"DONNELL: Now, for the House to pass the Senate bill, the House has

to trust the Senate. I mean, in effect you"re saying to the House: just

pass exactly what we passed, that will become law, and then we will do a

reconciliation bill which will correct the things that we all kind of agree

need fixing in that bill.

You"d be asking, I guess, in effect, Senator, for the House to trust

the Senate for, I guess, what might be the first time in history. Do you

have anyway of getting them to do that?

CONRAD: Well, Lawrence, nobody knows better than you, the old saw

around here for Democrats in the House, the Republicans are the opposition.

The Senate is the enemy. So, you know, there are these deep divisions

between these institutions. It"s unfortunate, but it"s real.

And the hard reality here is, the Senate has already passed a

comprehensive bill without using reconciliation. It got 60 votes, a super

majority. That happened on Christmas Eve as we all remember. That vote

has sent the bill to the House. If the House passes it, it will go to the

president for signature, and we"ll have comprehensive health care reform.

As you indicate, then the question is: can additional changes be made,

improvements be made from the perspective of some, through the process of

reconciliation? It simply means instead of requiring a supermajority,

there"s only a majority vote required in the United States Senate. That"s

what reconciliation really means.

O"DONNELL: You"ve been on the floor with reconciliation bills in the

past, and as you know, there are several procedural possibilities that

would require 60-vote hurdles to get over. Could you give us some examples

of the kind of 60-vote hurdles that every reconciliation bill faces on the

floor of the Senate?

CONRAD: I certainly can. There are at least six that relate to the

Byrd rule. As you know, the Byrd rule says, if the provisions don"t score

for budget purposes, if they don"t increase revenues or reduce expenditure,

that"s subject to a 60-vote waiver. If a measure is outside the

jurisdiction of the committee that"s reported the reconciliation

instruction, that"s subject to 60 votes.

If the change in budget scoring is only incidental to the policy

change, that"s subject to 60 votes. If a matter is reported and it"s not

germane--an amendment is not germane to the underlying proposal, that is

subject to a 60-vote waiver. As I indicated, there are at least 10 areas

that are subject to 60-vote waivers.

So, the notion that this is just some slam-dunk deal, if you get 51

votes and it"s over--that"s just not right.

O"DONNELL: Senator, I just want--before we go, I just want to talk

to you about the politics of life in the Senate now, where you can be

challenged as you always could be, but challenged in primaries, stimulated

by liberals and progressives who are dissatisfied with the way Democratic

senators are voting.

Blanche Lincoln, for example, who has voted on the finance committee,

on the Senate floor exactly the way Obama has wanted her to, and has

supported so far exactly the Obama legislation as supported by the

president. There are liberals out there we know who have found that

unsatisfactory and helping a challenge, you know, being presented against

her in Arkansas.

What does that do to life in the Senate when you"re following your

president"s, you know, directions in effect and that"s not good enough for

people in your own party?

CONRAD: You know, we see this happening on the right and the left.

Republicans are afraid they"re going to get challenged on the right.

That"s their only meaningful competition. Democrats, in certain states,

afraid they"re going to be challenged on the left. And now, you"ve got

moderates facing internal party challenges as well.

What it means is the ability to get things done is being reduced,

because what"s happening is you got a push to the extremes, the left and

the right. The result is: it"s much more difficult to have people who are

centrists still survive and play a role in actually getting results.

O"DONNELL: Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, thank you

very much for your time tonight.

CONRAD: Always good to be with you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source