Actually, It’s 50 Votes, Not 51

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


From Monday’s Washington Post:

Increasingly, the White House appears to favor having the House pass a version of the measure that cleared the Senate with 60 votes in December. The Senate would then pass changes to the bill to satisfy some demands of House Democrats. That Senate vote would take place under a parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation, which requires 51 votes rather than 60.

If this is President Barack Obama’s path to health care reform—and it seems like his only option at this point (though I’m told some in the White House have not given up on the idea of a bipartisan deal)—he won’t need 51 votes in the Senate. He will need 50. On a 50-50 tie, Vice President Joe Biden will get to be the decider. That would, no doubt, prompt futher howls from Republicans who already are trying to denigrate reconciliation as the absolute antithesis of constitutional democracy. But a close win is a win, whether it’s with 51 or 50 votes. And given that the vote count in the Senate seems unclear but rather close, it’s important for anyone following the debate to realize that the magic number is 50, not 50-plus-one.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate