NYT "Prescriptions" blog:

On Monday, as full debate of the health care bill began, Mr. Reid said he was acting on Ms. Lincoln’s behalf in requesting the unanimous agreement of all senators that amendments be required to be posted on the Internet in order to qualify for debate on the Senate floor. Senator Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming, sensing a Democratic ambush of some sort, objected to the request. Mr. Enzi later accused Mr. Reid of engaging in a "stunt" aimed specifically at drawing a Republican objection on a goal they might otherwise support.

It's beyond disingenuous for Republicans to object to this, but no one's really surprised by it. While latching on to the politically potent "Read the Bill!" rallying cry of the non-partisan transparency movement, the truth is that when it comes to transparency for their own legislative language, the idea's suddenly not all that exciting. Again, this comes as no surprise. Republicans have been grousing about transparency all along, even while hiding the ball on their amendments and motions to recommit.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lincoln for some reason thinks she's got a political winner on her hands with this:

Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas and a strong proponent of transparency in the legislative process, said Tuesday that she would post all amendments to the bill on her own official Web site — even if sponsors of the amendments decline to do so on their own.

Well, maybe not so much.

There's nothing she can do about amendments that proponents don't share with her or have printed in the Congressional Record. And if they're printed in the Congressional Record (as most amendments offered early on in the process are), well, then it's not really all that much of a service to reprint them on her web site -- though it should be noted that the Record's online delivery system is pretty damned crappy. So maybe there's that.

But the bottom line is that all the benefit of her idea was in its ability, if adopted, to mandate that an interested public be given the chance to review proposed amendments, and rule non-compliant amendments out of order. That she's decided in the wake of its rejection to reprint the text of amendments that the sponsors have already elected to share isn't of all that much interest.

What would be of more interest, both politically as well as for non-partisan transparency advocates, is for Democratic Senators to continue to make such unanimous consent requests, and in the absence of an agreement, to pledge as a caucus that as matter of policy during this debate, they'll vote to table amendments not offered for public review.