The signers to Michael Bennet’s letter to pass the public option through reconciliation have continued to roll in. Before I get to that, I want to respond to a couple comments in the last thread on this about why I’m monitoring this action.

There are two questions being asked – one about whether Senators would be willing to use reconciliation to pass the health care bill, and one about whether they would sign on to the Bennet letter. These questions should be viewed separately. The reconciliation question essentially asks whether these Senators want to pass health care at all, because a reconciliation sidecar is really the only way to get the bill done. The public option question gauges what kind of support there is within reconciliation for something beyond the set of compromises that were determined before Scott Brown won in Massachusetts.

First off, if you’re following the health care debate, this is one of the two remaining hurdles to get to a bill. The other is abortion funding and the Stupak amendment, which could prove an eventual brick wall, as I’ve been saying for weeks and weeks. But it’s worthwhile to know if reconciliation has majority support in the Senate, in addition to the public option. Whether these events actually occur or not, knowing a clear whip count demystifies the process. It puts legislators on the record. It forces accountability. And that’s never a bad thing. Harry Reid cannot say “we don’t have the votes” if you can wave a piece of paper in front of his face and announce “yes you do.”

So where are we at with this project? Last night, Dianne Feinstein signed on to the Bennet letter. along with Jack Reed. Amy Klobuchar and Ben Cardin endorsed using the reconciliation, but were more noncommital on the public option. I can confirm this morning that Tom Udall of New Mexico, who yesterday agreed to reconciliation as a means to finish the bill, is now a yes on the Bennet letter. And Barbara Boxer signed on as well.

There is an indication that HELP Committee chair Tom Harkin would also support reconciliation and the public option, but he has not formally signed on to any process.

So the current tabulation has 28 yes votes for reconciliation and two maybes (Harkin is listed as a maybe along with Mark Pryor, I think that’s pretty cautious), getting us 3/5 of the way to a majority in support of using the process. On the Bennet letter, there are 15 yes votes and 5 maybes.

How does this compare to the original public option letter in the Senate, signed in October by 30 members, calling for it to be placed in the merged Senate bill? Well, most of the names are the same. The only new addition is Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), but the original letter included Paul Kirk of Massachusetts, who has since been replaced by Scott Brown.

Of the five “maybe” votes on the public option – Klobuchar, Cardin, Harkin, Bob Casey and Claire McCaskill, three of them (Klobuchar, Harkin and McCaskill) were not original co-signers. The remaining original co-signers have not indicated a preference yet:

John D. Rockefeller (D-WV); Russell D. Feingold (D-WI); Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI); Ron Wyden (D-OR); Debbie Stabenow (D-MI); Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ); Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD); Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI); Edward E. Kaufman (D-DE); Arlen Specter (D-PA); Maria Cantwell (D-WA); Robert Menendez (D-NJ); Herb Kohl (D-WI).

They would represent the low-hanging fruit of this project. And if they consented to reconciliation, we would approach a majority in the Senate favoring the strategy.

UPDATE: Barbara Mikulski and Frank Lautenberg have signed the Bennet letter, bringing the unofficial total to 16. Whip Congress does not include Carl Levin in their counts, though over counts do. 31 Democrats supports the use of reconciliation, with 2 maybes and only 2 no votes (Democrats could lose 9 total).