During an exchange on the Senate floor this morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) restated their opposition to using budget reconciliation to finish health care reform. But, ignoring the GOP's history with the procedure, the senators deceptively focused on the controversy over judicial filibusters in 2005. "In the interest of full disclosure, Republicans when they were in the majority, we tried to change [the rules]," McCain said. Alexander added, "The senator from Arizona has a certain amount of credibility on this."
MCCAIN: We'll be glad to vote, but we want to vote preserving the institution of the Senate of the 60-vote rule. And, in the interest of full disclosure, Republicans when they were in the majority, we tried to change it, as the senator from Tennessee remembers. [...]
ALEXANDER: Well, I appreciate the senator from Arizona bringing this up. And I think it's important for the American people to be reminded that the senator from Arizona has a certain amount of credibility on this - because it was the Republicans, about four years ago when we were in the majority, and we became frustrated because Democrats were blocking President Bush's judicial appointments. So, some of us - some Republicans, I didn't - but some Republicans said, well, let's just jam it through. We won the election. Let's get it with 51 votes. Let's change the rules. But Senator McCain and a group of others said, Wait just a minute. He said then what he said just today. He said the United States founders set up the United States Senate to be a protector of minority rights. And as Senator Byrd, the senior Democratic senator, has said, sometimes the minority is right. [...] As Senator Byrd has said, running the health care bill through the Senate like a freight train is an outrage, and it would be an outrage.
As Media Matters Action has noted, the comparison to 2005 is terribly dishonest. Republicans literally wanted to "change the rules" in the middle of the game, in order to prohibit filibusters on President Bush's judicial nominees. That scheme, which McCain helped defeat in the "Gang of 14," was known as the "nuclear option." Today, Democrats simply want to utilize the existing rules, as Republicans did repeatedly to enact conservative legislation when they were in power. And, rather than using reconciliation to pass major legislation, they only want to make minor changes to a bill that already passed with 60 votes.
Additionally, Alexander's implication that he never supported majority-rule is false, as is his claim that McCain "has a certain amount of credibility on the issue." Alexander voted for several reconciliation bills during the Bush administration, including the 2003 tax cuts for the rich. McCain joined Alexander in supporting the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which passed via reconciliation with zero Democratic supporters. (Both of those bills required Vice President Cheney's vote to break a 50-50 tie.) In a speech last March, McCain conceded that Republicans had "engaged in using reconciliation to further the party's agenda," adding that "the groundwork has been laid."
Finally, Alexander's reference to Sen. Robert Byrd (R-WV) is misleading. While Byrd did say reconciliation shouldn't be used to pass comprehensive health reform, he supports using the procedure pass a fix to the bill that already passed.
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