House Vote on S-CHIP Veto Override Set for Oct. 18; Pelosi Looks For 14 More Votes

The House will attempt to override President Bush's S-CHIP veto in an October 18 vote. Congress is in recess this coming week. This off-week will allow House Democratic leadership to work on representatives—of both parties—in an effort to flip roughly 14 members who had previously voted against the $35b expansion of the children's health insurance program.

In his radio address yesterday, President Bush acknowledged that he was open to hammering out a compromise between his proposal for the program, an expansion of $5b over five years, and the bill that Congress has passed, which expands the program by $35b over five years. Bush's Health Secretary, Mike Leavitt, repeated the compromise offer today, though he remained vague as to how much more funding the Bush Administration would accept.

The Democratic leadership is not too interested in the compromise offer.

"You cannot wring another ounce of compromise out of this," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) said last week.

In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is clearly more interested in finding the votes than she is in rewriting the legislation.

"Right now, we have the next 10 days to two weeks to try to peel off about 14 votes in the House," she said.

It seems that the House vote-counters believe they have 274 votes in the bank, even though only 267 members voted for the measure when it was passed in September. The "magic number" is probably around 288.

It is also quite likely that Senate GOP champions of the bill, namely Orrin Hatch (UT) and Chuck Grassley (IA) are talking to their Republicans colleagues in an effort to find enough votes to get to a 2/3 majority.