US Senate - Obama Presidency Oral History Back US Senate Index / Organizations Transcript Andrew Stern ...House with the president trying to get the Senate and the House, and Ben Nelson, th... ...were the first endorsers of his US Senate campaign as well as very involved wit... ...guy, this guy. We are backing him for US Senate . People knew him for ACORN, fabulou... ...Then, when he decided to run for the US Senate , SEIU was the first one to endors... ...if it's never going to get a vote in the Senate . So if you're not going to ge... ...we know how to bend the curve, but if the Senate or administration bends th... ...it had been they had done a deal with the Senate , or some senators or a committee o... ...minds. I'm sure the traditionalists in the Senate who are not going to like the idea o... ...House with the president trying to get the Senate and the House, and Ben Nelson, th... ...were the first endorsers of his US Senate campaign as well as very involved wit... ...guy, this guy. We are backing him for US Senate . People knew him for ACORN, fabulou... ...Then, when he decided to run for the US Senate , SEIU was the first one to endors... ...if it's never going to get a vote in the Senate . So if you're not going to ge... ...we know how to bend the curve, but if the Senate or administration bends th... ...it had been they had done a deal with the Senate , or some senators or a committee o... ...minds. I'm sure the traditionalists in the Senate who are not going to like the idea o... Show more... Aneesh Chopra ...And I literally ran down the hallway in the Senate Hart Building. He almost was startle... ...and then phase three was his role in the Senate . So that was my motivation. And I go... Bill McKibben ...but John Kerry, who was managing it in the Senate , as things were beginning to g... ...as you recall. By the time they got to the Senate , it was a rout. And the thing t... ...it before Copenhagen, but it fails in the Senate after Copenhagen. Yes. So Copenhage... ...when we almost lost it on the floor of the Senate . The Obama people hated the whol... ...in the green room waiting to go on, and the Senate was voting while we were there. And ... Bob Kocher ...it. That shows you sort of the power of the Senate holding a hearing or a president usin... ...bill that passed eighty-twenty through the Senate in a bipartisan way. He had so muc... ...expansion. We were negotiating with the Senate . The White House was super silent o... ...undermine the bipartisan negotiation in the Senate , so it was only being attacked. I... ...a White House plan, you've just stopped the Senate from finishing, and we're not going t... ...that you could get both the House and the Senate to pass a bill and maybe do ... ...process. Yeah. There was a worry that the Senate would never finish. Remember, we neede... ...the bill because we were persuaded by the Senate that they would finish. The Financ... ...bill included a public option, but the Senate Finance Committee bill did not includ... ...and I had lots of discussions with the Senate Finance Committee staff about what ar... ...out, that it was going to fall out. On the Senate Finance Committee, in particular, ther... ...it was in the House-passed bill—through the Senate . It was kept in longer because Harr... ...House? The sessions were actually in the Senate . We decamped in the Senate offic... ...actually in the Senate. We decamped in the Senate office buildings for weeks, and I wa... ...team and people from the House and the Senate —and we would go talk through all o... ...the House team recommends. Here's what the Senate team recommends. Here are th... ...and we only have fifty-nine votes in the Senate ,” which today is like a ton. At th... ...a Senate bill. Remember, the House and the Senate don't love each other. The House like... ...out how to get the House to accept the Senate bill and what are the legal ways to d... ...you learned that the House had passed the Senate 's healthcare reform legislation o... Show more... Carol Browner ...Then I go back into the federal—into the Senate , where I work for Lawton Chiles, wh... ...I was at a—so he's just been elected to the Senate , and—this is a funny story—there's ... ...on climate change. And we were. Then, the Senate would never take up the bill... ...Obama works it really, really hard. In the Senate , you had Boxer in one place, [John F.... ...among Democratic legislators in the Senate , was there a set of issues tha... ...House in December of 2009 and moves to the Senate . In that same month, Senator Lindse... ...the prospects for that legislation in the Senate . Oh, he was calling me regularly. H... ...version of Waxman-Markey coming out of the Senate in those early months, December an... ...Did negotiations over cap and trade in the Senate , between the administration and th... ...Senate, between the administration and the Senate , continue as the Deepwater Horizo... ...had, for the most part, fizzled out in the Senate . You said, “The clock ran out. You ha... ...that he wanted two big things. It's the Senate 's fault, [laughs] I would say, tha... ...two committees with jurisdiction. In the Senate , you have the Boxer committee [Senat... ...better chance of getting the votes on the Senate floor than maybe the Boxer-Kerry. S... ...into a conference between the House and the Senate to see what we could come up with. Bu... ...finance reform, to the filibuster in the Senate . We're never going to get climat... ...Then I go back into the federal—into the Senate , where I work for Lawton Chiles, wh... ...I was at a—so he's just been elected to the Senate , and—this is a funny story—there's ... ...on climate change. And we were. Then, the Senate would never take up the bill... ...Obama works it really, really hard. In the Senate , you had Boxer in one place, [John F.... ...among Democratic legislators in the Senate , was there a set of issues tha... ...House in December of 2009 and moves to the Senate . In that same month, Senator Lindse... ...the prospects for that legislation in the Senate . Oh, he was calling me regularly. H... ...version of Waxman-Markey coming out of the Senate in those early months, December an... ...Did negotiations over cap and trade in the Senate , between the administration and th... ...Senate, between the administration and the Senate , continue as the Deepwater Horizo... ...had, for the most part, fizzled out in the Senate . You said, “The clock ran out. You ha... ...that he wanted two big things. It's the Senate 's fault, [laughs] I would say, tha... ...two committees with jurisdiction. In the Senate , you have the Boxer committee [Senat... ...better chance of getting the votes on the Senate floor than maybe the Boxer-Kerry. S... ...into a conference between the House and the Senate to see what we could come up with. Bu... ...finance reform, to the filibuster in the Senate . We're never going to get climat... Show more... Carolyn Britton ...were very interested when he won in the Senate and really proved himself able to g... Courtney Hight ...voices in the political space; and that the Senate is able to function and get around th... Don Verrilli ...the vote wasn't close on the floor of the Senate . I think it was seventy-some-odd vote... ...senators going onto the floor of the Senate and giving speeches, regularly... ...it was. And it got unanimous support in the Senate and almost unanimous support in th... Elizabeth Fowler ...controlled both the House and the Senate . I think the Democrats were ver... ...Baucus, who was, of course, chair of the Senate Finance Committee. Why was 2008 th... ...the right time for you to return to the Senate ? I think what changed between—well... ...private sector, in between your time in the Senate , that was new in terms of how yo... ...within Senator Baucus's office within the Senate Finance Committee? Yeah. Got it, b... ...for example, would say that [laughs] the Senate provided the inspiration for thei... ...to ask you about the way in which the Senate Finance Committee and HELP coordinate... ...major differences between the vision of the Senate Finance Committee and HELP at tha... ...drugs. In terms of the analyses that the Senate Finance Committee had done and th... ...would've gone back to the House and the Senate without reconciliation. What happene... ...reform passed was for the House to pass the Senate bill—which they hated. They did no... ...they hated. They did not like the Senate bill [laughs]—and then to fix some o... ...Palin first advanced. As an observer in the Senate , were you surprised by the extent t... ...lobbied against a provision in the Senate bill that called for an automati... ...with the Gang of Six and with the Senate Finance Committee? I don't know tha... ...said, “Look, you can get a good deal in the Senate Finance Committee, but then it goes t... ...Finance Committee, but then it goes to the Senate floor and it gets more conservative... ...reasonable approach to health reform in the Senate Finance Committee. But then you've go... ...in the final bill. But Republicans in the Senate are looking at what's in a House bil... ...of the HELP bill increase pressure on the Senate Finance Committee to get a bill out o... ...hand, there were enough moderates in the Senate among the Democratic Caucus that reall... ...the public option, in October of 2009, the Senate Finance Committee approved healthcar... ...Olympia Snowe, the lone Republican on the Senate Finance Committee to vote for the bill... ...have a public option in it, which was the Senate bill introduced in October of 2009... ...of that bill on the floor of the Senate ? What happens to an idea like Senato... ...remember, we had exactly sixty votes in the Senate . That meant we needed every single on... ...before that comes up again as the Senate bill gets introduced in October... ...healthcare reform. The CBO said that the Senate Finance Committee bill would be pai... ...terms of the operation for the rules in the Senate . So yes, they were highly speculative... ...industry released a report arguing the Senate Finance Committee bill could increas... ...over the next decade. Given that the Senate Finance Committee bill didn't include ... ...Eve, December twenty-fourth, 2009, the Senate passed the Patient Protection an... ...in efforts to reconcile the House and the Senate versions of healthcare legislation. Yo... ...among Democrats in the House and the Senate as those bills were conferenced i... ...our session that the House really hated the Senate bill. They really hated the Senate bil... ...the Senate bill. They really hated the Senate bill [laughs], and there were a lot o... ...were a lot of things they hated about the Senate bill. The Senate also had a lot o... ...and it raised quite a bit of money in the Senate version of the bill, and it wa... ...president to reconcile the House and the Senate bills? Yes [laughs], many of whic... ...also up for debate among members of the Senate Finance Committee? No, no. You hav... ...was, could they pass a bill that fixed the Senate bill before they passed the Senat... ...the Senate bill before they passed the Senate bill. They had this approac... ...I want to emphasize how much they hated the Senate bill at the time. So instead of passin... ...bill at the time. So instead of passing the Senate bill and then fixing it throug... ...the only answer was for them to pass the Senate bill, and then we have a reconciliatio... ...about having the House pass the Senate bill began right away after Senato... ...with the leadership in the House and the Senate in making that decision. Is there ... ...2010, when the House passed the Senate 's healthcare reform legislation? ... ...lot to be done. There was a passage of the Senate bill, and then the reconciliation bill... ...okay with you, in your first role after the Senate Finance Committee in July of 2010, whe... ...Remember that because the House passed the Senate bill, which had not—there was a lot o... ...played and speculation that the reason the Senate bill didn't have a public option wa... ...healthcare reform legislation, first in the Senate and then in the Obama administration... Show more... Frances Beinecke ...was July 2009, and then it went over to the Senate , and it kind of languished. It jus... ...We want an environmental majority in the Senate and the House. And if we're not willin... 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