No More Excuses: John Tester Brings 51st Senate Vote for Public Option

Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left at 4:40 AM on October 10, 2009.

I have just received word that Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) would vote in favor of Senator Schumer's "level playing field" public option.

This pushes the Senate whip count to 51, even without Joe Biden casting a tie-breaking vote.

Since there are now finally 60 active, voting Democrats, it is possible to break any Republican filibuster. Hell, it actually only requires 51 votes to break a filibuster, if Senators were more honest about process. Further, if they didn't even want to both with filibusters, they could always just go with reconciliation, since Tester now gives them enough votes even if Robert Byrd (who is opposed to using reconciliation for health care) defects.

Senate Democrats have the votes. No more process excuses. Pass the public option.

Chris Bowers was a full-time editor at MyDD from May 2004 until June 2007. Some of his projects have included the creation of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, the first scientifically random poll of progressive netroots activists, the Use It Or Lose It campaign, the nation's most accurate forecast of Democratic house pickups in 2006, and the 2006 Googlebomb the Elections campaign.