If Harry Reid decides to use the Senate's "reconciliation" process to ram health care legislation through his chamber and crush a filibuster, then he'll have to reconcile something else: his astounding hypocrisy.
The majority leader from Nevada is working behind closed doors to merge health care bills passed by the Senate's health and finance committees. He desperately wants to come up with something that can get 60 votes -- the number needed to halt any attempt by minority Republicans to block a final vote on the massive expansion of federal authority.
Although Reid has 60 votes in his caucus, it might be an impossible task. Moderate Democrats oppose a "public option" that allows the government to sell health insurance and undercut private-sector providers, and far-left Democrats are insisting that any bill include the first step toward nationalized health care.
So Reid has let it be known that wrangling over the public option might compel him to go with the "nuclear option": ending a filibuster without 60 votes.
To do that, Reid would have to use a parliamentary maneuver called "budget reconciliation." Votes on the federal budget are exempt from filibusters. If he takes this route, Reid would have to pretend the legislation is a simple matter of fiscal housekeeping -- a routine issue that needs just 51 votes to pass.
Given the complexity and controversy surrounding new health insurance mandates and regulations, such an end-around would be unprecedented.
It also would represent one of the greatest flip-flops in recent memory. Just 41/2 years ago, when he was Senate minority leader, Reid was the undisputed champion of the filibuster, using it time and again to block President George W. Bush's judicial nominees and the GOP agenda.
Reid went to his obstructionist playbook so frequently that Republican leadership hatched a plan to abolish the filibuster in the judicial confirmation process.
The senator used the occasion to channel the founders and articulate some of the most principled, measured rhetoric of his political career.
"It encourages moderation and consensus," Reid said in a 2005 floor speech in defense of the filibuster. "It gives voice to the minority, so that cooler heads may prevail.
"It also separates us from the House of Representatives -- where the majority rules. And it is very much in keeping with the spirit of the government established by the framers of our Constitution: limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances. ..."
"The filibuster is a critical tool in keeping the majority in check," Reid continued. "This central fact has been acknowledged and even praised by senators from both parties. ..."
"The right to extended debate is never more important than when one party controls Congress and the White House. ..."
"Some in this Chamber want to throw out 217 years of Senate history in the quest for absolute power. They want to do away with Mr. Smith coming to Washington. They want to do away with the filibuster. They think they are wiser than our Founding Fathers. I doubt that's true."
Reid said then that preserving the filibuster was the "most important issue I've dealt with in my 40 years of public service."
Reid won that fight thanks to a compromise brokered by moderate Republican and Democratic senators that allowed some Bush nominees to be confirmed while permitting Reid to continue filibustering at will. He could hardly contain himself upon being allowed to keep his favorite toy.
"The Senate has worked its will on behalf of reason, responsibility and the greater good," Reid said on May 24, 2005. "Abuse of power will not be tolerated, and attempts to trample the Constitution and grab absolute control are over.
"The nuclear option is gone for our lifetime."
As Reid has been known to say, that was then and this is now.
In other words, the filibuster is "a critical tool in keeping the majority in check" when Democrats are in the minority, but it's a disposable relic when liberals are trying to run up the national debt and regulate our economy to death.
That Reid has given this possibility even a moment's thought shows how little he values his own word.
There's no splitting this particular hair. You can't support using the filibuster when it suits your interests, then get rid of it when it doesn't. And if the ability to filibuster a handful of appellate court nominees is a hill to die for, then surely it's worth preserving when one party is attempting to remake one-sixth of the country's economy.
Perhaps Reid won't need to resort to reconciliation after he introduces his consolidated bill next week. Perhaps he'll be able to get the votes of Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, R-Maine, along with some of his own party's pesky Blue Dogs.
But if he decides to take the filibuster out back and shoot it, he risks incurring even more wrath from Nevada voters, who already are growing tired of his expedience and pandering to the far left. A Review-Journal poll conducted this month found 54 percent of registered Nevada voters don't want Reid to use reconciliation to pass sweeping health insurance regulations. Only 32 percent approve of the tactic.
"If he does that, he is resigning himself to not being re-elected (in 2010)," said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., which conducted the poll.
If he does that, no amount of explaining, no amount of convenient forgetting will save Hypocrite Harry.
Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is a Review-Journal editorial writer.
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