Congressman Steve Scalise, the majority whip who rallies Republican votes in the House of Representatives and one of around two dozen lawmakers at the baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, was shot in the hip, but was in stable condition after surgery, according to his office.
Neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate have been able to produce a farm bill that gets wide support. In fact, neither chamber have approved a bill, though there are committee proposals. But both conservative and liberal groups are blasting the proposals as bad policy.
Conventional wisdom said votes to extend some of the Bush-era tax cuts and to repeal the healthcare reform bill will fall along party lines, and they still may. But with election just months away, elected officials are plugging numbers into a more detailed equation to figure out how to cast their vote.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, largely upholding President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform bill, Republicans are trying a different strategy. They’re trying to get voters fired up and retake the Senate in November, so they can repeal the measure in Congress.
The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act was an election-year victory for President Barack Obama. But the debate over the law is far from over. Disappointed by the ruling, many Republicans have intensified their calls for repeal.
As the Supreme Court takes up the last day of arguments over the Affordable Care Act, supporters of the bill are pointing to what they say are dire consequences of a decision to strike down the federal expansion of Medicaid. They say such an expansion could put an end to programs like unemployment benefits, the Clean Air Act or the Civil Rights Act.