In 2009, Democrats chose to proceed with a health-care bill under the regular order – that is, they sought to pass the legislation under normal House and Senate rules. They did not put together a budget reconciliation bill with health care in it, something that could have passed the Senate with a simple majority vote. They conceded that such an approach would likely produce a flawed product, as many non-budgetary provisions in a health-care plan would not survive the reconciliation process. And so they decided to try and pass a bill without resorting to reconciliation, even though they knew they would need sixty votes in the Senate to succeed. It worked. They passed a bill in the House in November, and a somewhat different version in the Senate in December.

Then came Scott Brown. His stunning election to the Senate on January 19 upended the Democrats’ end-game. They were going to work out the differences between the House and Senate-passed bills in January and proceed to pass an agreed-upon version in both chambers as expeditiously as possible. But that plan was contingent on getting sixty votes again in the Senate. With Brown’s election, Senate Republicans increased their numbers from forty to forty-one, thus forcing Democrats to find at least one Republican Senator to support their final bill.

For the past two months, the White House and Democrats in Congress have been weaving ever-more complicated legislative webs all with the express intent of avoiding at all costs any need to negotiate with the now slightly enlarged Senate minority. In effect, what Democratic leaders want to do is – at the very end of the legislative process – switch from regular order to a reconciliation process in order to avoid having to deal seriously with any elected Republicans.

But it’s become increasingly clear that the Democratic scheming and maneuvering necessary to pull off such a high-wire act has created a web of entanglements that could very well doom passage of the entire effort.

In particular, there now appear to be two huge hurdles standing directly in the way of a plan to jam a bill through in the coming days.

First, there is the matter of the liberal abortion provisions in the Senate bill. As the Catholic Bishops conference has noted the Senate-passed bill includes several provisions that would allow taxpayer funding of elective abortions. Consequently, the Bishops opposed passage of that bill when it was considered in the Senate, and now oppose its passage by the House. The problem for House Democrats is that every version of the end-game they are now considering is predicated on having the House take up the Senate bill and pass it unchanged for presidential signature.

That is entirely unacceptable to the Catholic Bishops. They oppose House passage of the Senate’s pro-abortion health bill. Period. And their opposition hasn’t come with procedural loopholes that would let members off the hook if they promised to pass a fix separately. That would be fool’s bargain, and the Bishops know it. So pro-life House Democrats, led by Congressman Bart Stupak, really have no choice here. They can’t support the Senate bill unless they want to be known for supporting the most pro-abortion bill ever considered in Congress. Their only real option is to force House leaders to amend the Senate bill before passing it to include strong restrictions on funding of abortion. Yes, that would mean the bill would have to go back through the Senate again before going to the president, but so be it. That’s not the Bishops’ problem. It would mean the president and the Democrats would have to really negotiate to get some Republican support, which is of course the norm for sweeping and important legislation.

This post originally appeared at National Review Online.

The Hill reports today that “Republicans say they have found a loophole in the budget reconciliation process that could allow them to offer an indefinite number of amendments. Though it has never been done, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says he’s prepared to test the Senate’s stamina to block the Democrats from using the process to expedite changes to the healthcare bill. Experts on Senate procedural rules, from both parties, note that such a filibuster is possible.” A close reading of the rules allows for unlimited numbers of amendments to a reconciliation package after debate is complete.

The DeMint tactic is in response to the liberal’s new secret plan to use reconciliation – the Nuclear Option – to force parts of ObamaCare through the Senate with a simple majority vote, thereby avoiding the filibuster rule. House leaders would pass the Senate-passed ObamaCare bill after the reconciliation measure passes the Senate. The reconciliation measure will carry all the changes to the Senate passed ObamaCare bill necessary to get a bill to the President’s desk. It is very confusing, but the bottom line is that the secret plan includes two bills that add up to ObamaCare.

Liberals in Congress need to change the rules of the game to avoid using the regular rules of engagement in the Senate after the victory of Senator-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) to the Senate. They have come up with a controversial plan that allows them to change the rules of the game. The Democrat Caucus does not have 60 votes to pass legislation through the Senate with the power to block amendments and debate, so they need to resort to special budget rules of reconciliation.

The left is angry that anybody would dare to fight back against these strong arm tactics of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev). Jon Walker at FireDogLake argues for the left to toss the rules of the game out of the window. Walker rants that “Reid has the power to call a point of order and with the help of the Chair of the Senate, VP Joe Biden, and fifty members, put an end to this nonsense. Changing the rules mid-session is an extreme measure, but extreme obstructionism calls for extreme solutions.” The left will not rest until they have gutted the rules of the Senate and have passed an ObamaCare bill that even the people of liberal Massachusetts have soundly rejected.