Ailing Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has returned to the Washington area and is waiting to cast a potentially decisive vote to advance the Democratic majority's economic stimulus package, according to several Democratic senators.
Kennedy, 76, arrived on Friday from Florida, where he had been recuperating since suffering a seizure during an Inauguration Day luncheon in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. Kennedy is battling a malignant brain tumor.
The White House helped to arrange for Kennedy's return to Washington, one senator said.Kennedy did not return to the Capitol on Friday, according to several senators, but placed a call to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "He told Harry Reid, 'Kennedy reporting for duty," West Virginia Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV said Saturday.
Kennedy aides did not return telephone calls or e-mails seeking comment on the senator's plans for the key vote or his arrangements for returning to and staying in the Washington area this weekend.
If he takes part in an expected Feb. 9 vote to limit debate on a compromise stimulus amendment hammered out Friday, it will be the first vote Kennedy has cast since Nov. 20, when he cast a procedural vote in favor of a bill to extend unemployment insurance (PL 110-449) -- and only his second Senate vote since he was diagnosed with the brain tumor in June. More votes on the stimulus are expected on Feb. 10.
In July, Kennedy received a standing ovation on the Senate floor when he returned from Massachusetts, where he was recovering from brain surgery, to cast a vote that ensured a Democratic victory on a bill blocking a cut in Medicare payments to physicians (PL 110-275). In early January, Kennedy presided over hearings of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that he chairs,Democratic senators started talking about Kennedy's return Friday, when Reid was still hoping to pass an economic recovery bill that night, and Kennedy's vote looked like it could make that possible.
(...) Rockefeller said he believes Kennedy is intent on taking part in the cloture vote. Kennedy's vote would actually put Democrats over the 60-vote threshold needed to end a GOP filibuster.
Democratic senators cited Kennedy's return as a reason to move quickly on the economic recovery package. "We have Sen. Kennedy, God bless him, who came here very sick," said Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill. "We want to give him a chance to vote and return to his doctor's care. . . . We're counting on his vote."
As chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Kennedy could also play a role in advancing the Obama administration's planned health care overhaul. Expanding health care has been a longtime goal of the senator, an early backer of Obama's presidential bid.
Several senators said Kennedy remains engaged through his staff in keeping track of discussions regarding health care and other issues. But Kennedy's illness has prompted questions about how he will balance the demands of his treatment schedule with the private meetings, hearings and markups that would be required to move legislation.
A Kennedy spokesman, Anthony Coley, said on Feb. 5 that Kennedy was "doing very well" but did not indicate when he might return to the Senate full-time. Coley said then that Kennedy was "continuing his treatment and physical rehabilitation in a warmer climate" and talking with his colleagues by phone and video conference about the planned health care overhaul and Cabinet nominees.
Friends in both parties said they believed Kennedy's veteran aides and his fellow se ators would be able to carry some of the load. "If he were to talk to nobody, everybody knows what he thinks. His presence is still large in the debate. And people are going to respond to that," Rockefeller said.
"The downside of his illness is that it takes away from the time he can put into working on issues," a senior Republican senator said. "But the upside is that he has a heck of a lot of good will around here. And that could help to move legislation."
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