Counting bailout votes

After much debate, congressional leaders and the White House have agreed to a $15 billion rescue package for the so-called Big Three.

But does it have the votes to pass?

The main reason why the Big Three are not getting the $34 billion in loans they requested last month is because that was too much for lawmakers to swallow. A smaller loan amount was deemed to be able to attract more votes in the Senate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has made it clear she will not schedule a vote on the auto bill until it is approved by the upper chamber. Her rationale: Why schedule such a politically difficult vote if it is going to be bottled up on the other side of the Capitol?

Senate Republicans have made some noise about filibustering the bailout package. Getting to 60 votes will be challenging, especially with President-elect Obama’s Senate seat vacant and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who has accepted Obama’s offer to become his secretary of State, likely to abstain from voting.

Asked on “Fox News Sunday” whether the votes are there, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) responded, “That’s obviously a much more complicated question.”

The politics surrounding the auto bill are intriguing. How much will Obama get involved in rounding up votes? Will President Bush urge GOP senators to refrain from a filibuster? How will members sell their “yes” votes when they go home to their constituents, many of whom are fed up with the government rescuing private institutions?

While it is unclear whether this rescue package passes, it does appear certain that Congress will not leave until it passes something. The nation’s loss of 533,000 jobs in November has changed the political landscape.

Most lawmakers and the Bush administration do not want the holidays to be dominated by headlines of the Big Three going under and thousands of auto workers out on the streets.

But they are also worried that the government investment in the Big Three may not be wise.

If the bill gets through the Senate, the journey through the House should not be considered a fait accompli.

Conventional wisdom was dead wrong when the House first debated the $700 billion financial rescue bailout earlier this fall. The votes, in fact, were not there, and the measure failed. The House later cleared another bailout package.

The $15 billion auto bill will not be easy to pass, but the only way it gets into law is if lawmakers use some of their political capital to push it to the finish line.