By Jared Allen and Jeffrey Young
The Hill
3/12/2010
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday said she will need “certain assurances” from Senate Democrats before the House votes on healthcare reform as early as next week.
Pelosi did not say what those assurances would be, but acknowledged that extracting them would be necessary to counter lingering concerns from within her caucus that the Senate will not be able to pass a reconciliation bill.
“With reconciliation, a simple majority, a constitutional majority, I think members are much more comfortable with the fact that this reconciliation will happen,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “Nonetheless, there are certain assurances that they want, and that we will get from [Senate Democrats] before I ask them to take the vote.”…
…“There’s been a tidal change, I think, in the last 72 hours or so,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who a day earlier said that “even the most trusting [House] member I think is skeptical of the Senate.”
“The very idea that we’re talking about kind of the endgame, tactical stuff, is as sign that, I think, there’s increasing confidence that we’re going to get this done,” Weiner said Friday…
The entire article is at The Hill.
