SCHIP: Round Two Goes to POTUS

Here is an AP News Alert proving that the Democratic Congress hasn't learned its lesson yet:

WASHINGTON (AP) Congress has passed a children's health bill in spite of President Bush's threat of a second straight veto.

Bring on the veto pen, Mr. President.

UPDATE 1: A RINO learns that the House doesn't work like the Senate... (The Hill)

What works in the Senate doesn’t necessarily work in the House, a truism that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has been reminded of during the debate over children’s health insurance.

Grassley has taken a notably activist stance in moving a $35 billion bill through the House that would reauthorize and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), working side by side with the House Democratic leadership and trying to convert rank-and-file House Republicans over to his position against the wishes of their leaders and President Bush.

This guy managed to tick off Republican leaders in BOTH chambers with this stunt...

A lawmaker making a sales pitch for a bill he co-authored doesn’t qualify as unusual, but Grassley did not share these documents with the House Republican leadership before delivering them to rank-and-file GOP members.

Instead, he showed them to House Democratic leadership staff for review before sending them out, House Democratic and Republican aides said.

Somebody ought to remind Grassley that he is a Republican...and I can't think of a better reason to remind folks to not give a single dime to the RNSC until they state that they are not going to support Donkeys wearing Elephant suits...

House Republican leaders have loudly complained that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has frozen them out of the SCHIP negotiating process. House GOP leadership aides indicated that they also were less than pleased with what they perceived to be Grassley’s aiding and abetting the opposition.

A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that Grassley didn’t engage the House Republican leadership on SCHIP until after the House passed its second SCHIP bill in September.

“He wasn’t involved [with the GOP leadership] in the House side prior to House passage,” the spokesman said.

“In the House, we stick together,” said a spokeswoman for Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). Grassley’s efforts to change the votes of individual House Republicans were bound to fail because the culture of the House, unlike the Senate, is more cohesive within the parties, she added.

“With a Senate Republican coming over to the House and trying to sway House Republican members, it’s just not going to be effective,” she said. Member-to-member deal-making on major bills is “not really how the House works.”

Not one Republican changed his vote last time...and I'm not seeing any reason to believe that a veto would be overturned this time either.

Apparently, Democrats want this program to go away...

Back to Grassley, who managed to tick off Senate Republican leadership as well:

The Senate Republican leadership has lodged its own complaints about Grassley. On Tuesday, Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) protested that he and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were not invited to the meeting between the Finance Committee members and the House GOP leaders.

...and Grassley, apparently, has been co-opted to help the Democrats blow it on SCHIP.