WASHINGTON–Efforts are underway by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to resuscitate his asbestos legislation by modifying it to attract the 60 votes he needs on the Senate floor to keep it alive.
Privately, industry officials and trade group lobbyists said they doubted Sen. Specter's new game plan for his bill would work because it would still be subject not only to a budget point of order but also to a filibuster. The inability of Sen. Specter and the bill's supporters to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a budget point of order doomed the bill on the Senate floor Feb. 14.
Moreover, Sen. Specter has as yet failed to persuade Sen. William Frist, R-Tenn., the Senate majority leader, that he has the votes to get the bill through. Sen. Frist must approve floor time for the asbestos bill in order to start the process.
Sen. Frist, although a supporter of the bill, is dubious that the bill has the 60 votes needed to get through the Senate, and wants to focus on must-do legislation “unless he is persuaded the asbestos bill has the votes,” an insurance industry lobbyist said.
Sen. Frist must also deal with the fact that Senate floor time will be at a premium this year because Congress will adjourn early for midterm elections and plans an unusually large number of recesses.
Insurance lawyers and lobbyists said rumors of Sen. Specter's new initiatives helped move the stocks of industrial companies that would be helped if his bill gets through on Monday, but the stocks later fell back when reports of the new initiative could not be confirmed.
Aides to Sen. Specter declined yesterday and today to respond to National Underwriter's efforts to confirm the new initiative. But several lobbyists said that aides to the senator had confirmed the plan to certain lobbying groups interested in the measure.
They said Sen. Specter plans to bring a “new bill” directly to the Senate floor from the Senate Judiciary Committee as early as next Tuesday, when Congress returns from a 10-day recess. He is doing so under an arcane parliamentary procedure known as Senate Rule 14, they revealed.
To win the three votes the industry believes he needs to get to 60 and overcome the budget point of order that doomed the bill, Sen. Specter is making some modifications to the bill.
It is unclear what those modifications are, the lobbyist said, and the aides to Sen. Specter would not be more specific.
The bill not only faces a budget point of order and a motion to proceed, but even if it hurdles those barriers, it is still subject to a filibuster, one lobbyist noted.
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