- In the House, Democrats enjoy a 258-177 majority. In the Senate, Republicans are also a minority, but have much more power.
- This means that Nancy Pelosi could afford to lose 40 votes from his own party and still pass the bill. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can not afford to lose a single vote of the caucus. And that's just to put the bill on the floor; he also needs to thwart a Republican filibuster.
- In addition, Pelosi exerts more control over the proceedings in the House that Mr. Reid is the Senate. She has a rules committee that determines the parameters of debate - including amendments are proposed. The best Reid can do is prepare for an ambush near-certain Republican amendments. And can Democrats.
- This also means that when the floor debate in the House only took one day he could (and probably) take several weeks in the Senate.
And at this point, there is not even a bill to try to bring to the floor. Why? For there are two bills that must be merged into one; many factions to be appeased among Democrats before addressing the Republican opposition; a credible threat of Senator Tom Coburn to read all the two thousand pages of draft aloud law.
Phew, that's a lot.
From where we're standing, the task of Mr. Reid made the passage of the bill in the House seem as easy as dropping a newspaper.
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