Green: The Snowe Queen

One day, many, many years ago, the Founding Fathers set up the U.S. government in the likely possibility that bad sh*t happens.

Within this government, they created three branches, and within one of those branches, they created two legislative bodies, and within one of those legislative bodies are now 100 U.S. senators.

The idea is that just one of those senators would not have enough power to singularly effect major legislation, for example, oh say, health care reform.

But I have a news flash for the Founding Fathers: Your little scheme didn’t work.

Don’t believe me? Turn on CNN or Fox News or Google search health care bill, and you will find that somehow, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, has become the most pivotal player in the creation of a Senate health care reform bill.

This prominence came after Snowe was the only Republican to vote in favor of the $829 billion finance committee bill last Tuesday,

Now that Snowe is on board with committee legislation, Democrats are desperate to maintain her favor. So much so that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has invited Snowe as one of just two other senators who will work to merge the proposed Finance and HELP bills into the legislation that will actually come to a vote on the Senate floor. The only other senators invited? Max Baucus, chairman of the finance committee, and Chris Dodd, leader of the HELP committee’s efforts.

Not only would this position give Snowe the power to have a say in what goes into the final Senate bill, but Reid, who will lead the meeting, seems to be under the impression that pleasing Snowe is of the utmost importance.

“[Reid] is prepared to do what he can to keep her on board while putting together a bill that can get the 60 votes necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster,” Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, said.

Therefore, it is possible that Snowe will have even more influence than Baucus or Dodd.

But the question remains: Why? Snowe is just one senator. Why would Democratic leadership give a Republican non-committee leader this much power?

Certainly not for sheer numbers. The finance committee legislation passed by a vote of 14-9, well above majority. As for the overall Senate vote, there are 58 Democrats and two liberal-leaning Independents ­— more than enough people to supply the 51 votes needed to pass health care reform without Snowe.

The only other fathomable possibility is for the illusion of bipartisanship, something Democratic leadership has spoken to.

According to CNN, President Barack Obama has singled out Snowe “for both the political courage and the seriousness of purpose that she’s demonstrated throughout this process.”

Likewise, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN, “I respect Sen. Snowe and the role she has constructed, the role she has played in the deliberations for the Senate Finance Committee.”

Neither seemed to come out and explicitly say what we are all thinking: If the Democrats were able to bring a Republican on board and the legislation failed, the failure of health care reform could not be attributed solely to the Democratic Party.

And yet, anyone with a sense a reason can see that this is ludicrous.

One moderate Republican does not a bipartisan legislation make.

Not to mention, Republican mouthpieces like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have already vilified Snowe as a RINO, or Republican in name only. Following Snowe’s vote, Limbaugh called Snowe a “predicatable joke” — and even attacked the state of Maine.

“What she cares about every six years is voters in Maine, not voters in Florida … I’ll tell you what it’s time for. Goldwater had it right. Let’s just saw the state off and let it sail out to sea,” Limbaugh said on his popular radio show.

And giving Snowe so much influence presents a serious threat to something many Democrats hold near and dear to their big-government-loving hearts: a public health care option.

In the past, Snowe has urged Obama to forgo the public option in favor of a “trigger” that would activate a public option only if private insurers fail to make coverage affordable.

It therefore stands to reason that the conspicuous absence of a public option in the Finance bill is Snowe’s influence — something that could extend to the final legislation, a fear that has some Democrats very, very unhappy.

“We can’t sort of hedge and say, ‘What’s Olympia going to do?’ We’ve go to decide what we want,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Poltical Capital with Al Hunt.”

The Democrats have the numbers to pass a public option-included health care bill. Perhaps Democratic leadership should worry less about the illusion of bipartisanship and more about satisfying their base — 77 percent of which supports a plan with a public option, according to The Huffington Post.

E-mail Molly at mog4@pitt.edu.