Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) tells TPMDC that he plans to sign a letter urging Senate leadership to pass a public option via reconciliation.
“I expect that I will” sign, Carper said. The letter, written by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), has been signed by 23 senators so far.
That’s a bit of a departure from his position just yesterday. Asked by TPMDC if he thought passing a public option via reconciliation was appropriate or desirable, Carper said he thought it wouldn’t fly procedurally.
“I don’t know that that’s going to be part of a reconciliation bill,” Carper said. “In fact, I don’t know that you can actually do public option in the context of a very narrow reconciliation–I just don’t know if that’s possible.”
He doesn’t sound too hopeful that it will work – so I wonder if this is a free pass for Senators – they can pretend they care about the public option without actually having to vote for it. Keep up the pressure on the Senate to give it a try.
Update
Carper’s spokesman says Carper misunderstood the question:
His spokeswoman now tells us the senator misunderstood the question, thinking that we were referencing another proposed letter which promises House Democrats that fixes to the Senate bill would be passed via reconciliation.
It’s a letter basically to shore up commitment from wary House Democrats that if they pass the Senate bill in its current form they won’t be hosed.
“The senator just misunderstood your question, thinking you were talking about the proposed reconciliation letter,” the spokeswoman said. “He does not support public option in reconciliation.”
This sounds a lot more like the Carper we know.