House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thinks so. Pelosi, speaking to a group of reporters in her office, was asked about the slow pace of the Senate Finance Committee, which has for weeks been trying to draft a bipartisan health care bill but won’t be done until September at the earliest.
The House, meanwhile, has passed its health care proposal out of three committees before it adjourned for August on Friday.
Pelosi pointed to an historical term that describes the senate as a cooling saucer. According to political lore, George Washington told Thomas Jefferson that the framers had created the Senate to “cool” House legislation in the same manner a saucer cooled hot tea.
“There is no question that the House of Representatives, historically,sets a different pace about what we want to accomplish,” Pelosi said.
As for the Senate, Pelosi said, “they are really doing the saucer thing to the hilt. They are cooling off this thing.”
