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Washington (CNN) – Coming out of their Wednesday meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana both had positive comments that suggested they were more ready to vote for a motion that would allow debate to begin on the Democrats' health care plan than they had been prior to this afternoon's sitdown.

Landrieu and Nelson, along with fellow moderate Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, met with Reid in his office.

"Sen. Reid gave me some assurances that some of my concerns will be dealt with," said Landrieu, who stressed she would not make a decision on whether to vote for the motion to proceed until the text of the bill was released, and she had a chance to review some of the provisions again.

"I’ve been very clear. There are two or three issues," she told CNN. "One, does this bill actually drive down costs to individuals, to businesses and to the government. Number two, is there a quote, public option that will undermine the private insurance market - and if there is, it needs to come out at some point. It needs to come out at some point.

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Washington (CNN) – Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who last week insisted that the Senate health care bill include tight restrictions passed by the House on the use of federal money for abortion coverage, now says he would be satisfied with the less restrictive language approved by the Senate Finance Committee.

Nelson's position is apt to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is trying to cobble together a health care bill - which is full of policy mine fields such as abortion - without losing the support of any Democrats, many of whom support abortion rights, while others, like Nelson, do not.

At issue is whether federal money that is used to subsidize health insurance premiums can be separated from private funds to pay for abortions. In the Senate language, that would be allowed. In the House language, it would not.

(updated Tuesday 11/17 to clarify Nelson response)

The task of reconciling two Senate health care bills will fall to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – After the Senate Finance Committee votes Tuesday on its overhaul bill, the focus of the long-simmering health care debate will shift to the work led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who must merge the conservative-leaning Finance bill with a more liberally-drawn bill approved by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

The goal is to emerge with a single bill that can win at least 60 votes in the Senate, meet President Obama's ambitious promise to dramatically change the way health care is paid for and provided, and cost no more than $900 billion over the next ten years.

The work could take one to two weeks to complete, according to Senate aides. It will take place behind closed-doors in Reid's ornate Capitol suite, just off the Senate floor, which has views of the Mall. Joining Reid, D-Nevada, in the decision-making will be: Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, the Finance Committee Chairman; Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the senior Democrats on the health committee; and Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Senate will honor the late Ted Kennedy with a moment of silence shortly after 2 pm. A resolution in his honor is also expected to be adopted at the end of the day.

Sen. Alexander warned Tuesday against Democratic attempts to overhaul the nation's health care system without support from congressional Republicans.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - A top Republican senator warned Tuesday that if Democrats try to overhaul health care without Republican support, "it will wreck our health care system and wreck the Democratic Party."

"The intensity on this issue across the country is like nothing I"ve seen in a long, long time," said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate.

After a month of town halls back home, Alexander said it's clear to him and other Republicans that Americans are "scared to death" about the sweeping policy changes coming from Washington this year and the massive debt they are creating.

Alexander warned there would be "a minor revolution in this country" if Democrats try to "ram" a health care overhaul using a legislative tool called reconciliation, which would allow a bill to pass with 50 votes instead of 60.

Alexander also complained the White House has cut Republicans out of talks.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) - Sen. Ted Kennedy's desk in the Senate chamber is draped in a black cloth and has a vase of white roses sitting on it, as is customarily done when a member of the Senate dies. The chamber is currently open to the public but since the Senate is not in session, no video or still pictures can be taken of the desk.

Also on the desk, according to Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: a copy of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken."

Read text of Frost's poem after the jump:

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WASHINGTON (CNN) – Following Sen. Edward Kennedy's death, the staff in his personal office will have 60 days to archive his materials and close his office, according to the Secretary of the Senate's office, which oversees the process.

Kennedy staff members must only work on closing the office, and cannot continue any legislative or other work they had underway before his death.

All ongoing constituent casework will need to be either closed out or transferred to another member of the Massachusetts delegation, said Beth Provenzano, an aide to Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Top Senate Democrats Thursday lashed out at conservative protestors for disrupting health care town hall meetings but said Democrats would not be deterred from promoting the emerging health overhaul over the August recess.

“We’re not going to be sidetracked by people trying to sabotage a civil process,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV.

“These are nothing more than destructive efforts to interrupt a debate we should be having,” Reid said. “They’re doing this because they don’t have any better ideas.”

Top White House aides, David Axelrod and Jim Messina, huddled with Senate Democrats in the Capitol Tuesday to strategize about how best to talk to their constituents about health care when they return home. During the meeting, senators watched videos of recent town hall meetings during which protestors shouted down lawmakers.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Senate will okay new funding for the "cash for clunkers" program before leaving this week for the August recess, Senate leaders from each party predicted Tuesday, clearing the way for the surprisingly popular program to continue uninterrupted.

"We'll pass cash for clunkers....before we leave here," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

"In the end, we know where the numbers are," acknowledged the third-ranking Senate Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a critic of the program who said now he expects all Democrats and several Republicans to vote for additional funding.

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(CNN) – Six high school-aged Senate pages are sick with flu symptoms that could be the H1N1 swine flu, but doctors are "not overly concerned" about an outbreak of the virus on Capitol Hill, Senate Sgt. at Arms Terry Gainer told CNN Wednesday.

Two of the pages have recovered to the point that they are expected back to work Thursday, Gainer said.

Five of the pages received treatment in their rooms at the page dorm on Capitol Hill. One intern, who lives locally, was treated at home.

None was hospitalized.

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Sen. Orrin Hatch withdrew from bipartisan health care talks on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - A key Republican quit bipartisan health care talks Wednesday, saying he has major disagreements with direction the talks are taking.

"I decided to withdraw because I'm having difficulty with the high costs of a number of the provisions that I think they're ultimately going to come up with," Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah told CNN. "Right now, with some of the provisions that I know they are going to have to put in there, I just can't agree with them."

Hatch's decision is a blow - although not likely a fatal one - to the talks among a group of Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee. The talks are widely considered the most likely place a bipartisan compromise on a health care overhaul could be reached.

In quitting the talks, Hatch cited his opposition to a number of key issues that have been part of the talks for weeks. Specifically, he objects to policies that would require employers to pay for health insurance for their employees, mandate that all Americans buy insurance, and expand the Medicaid program, which, he said, would hurt the financially strapped states.

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Twelve Democrats and seven Republicans are seated on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – When the Senate reorganized after the last election, in which Democrats grew their majority to at least 59 seats, Republicans and Democrats agreed the Democrats would hold an 11 to 8 seat majority in the Judiciary Committee.

In the last Senate, Democrats held a 10-9 edge in that committee. But at the time, the Democrats held a narrower 55-45 seat advantage in the Senate.

After former GOP Sen. Arlen Specter flipped parties, it was decided to just add his Judiciary seat to the Democratic side of the aisle without replacing him on the Republican side.

That gave the Democrats the current 12-7 advantage on the committee.

One note: Sen. Al Franken joined the committee last week, but that didn't change the committee ratio because Sen. Ron Wyden - who at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's request was a place holder on the committee until the Minnesota Senate race was resolved - left the committee upon Franken's arrival.

President Obama will meet with top congressional Democrats to discuss how to pay for health care.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Obama will huddle with five top congressional Democrats on Monday afternoon to discuss how to pay for the health care reform bills that are stalled in Congress, largely over the issue of which taxes should be raised to cover the $1 trillion price tag, congressional aides told CNN.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed the meeting during his daily press briefing.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada will join the chairs of the tax-writing committees in the House and Senate - Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York and Sen. Max Baucus of Montana - for the White House gathering. A Democratic aide told CNN that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is also attending the meeting.

Obama invited the leaders to the 4:30 p.m. meeting in part to sift through the various proposals lawmakers are considering to raise hundreds of billions of dollars for health reform.

It's Obama's first health care reform meeting with congressional leaders since returning from an overseas trip.

On Capitol Hill, aides were reluctant to publicize the meeting. One said it was meant to be kept "secret."

Republicans and Democrats, meanwhile, sparred Sunday over how to pay for health care reform.

Full story

Updated: 3:23 p.m.

Sen.-elect Al Franken will be sworn in on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Senator-elect Al Franken will meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and be sworn in Tuesday, according to Reid's office.

Franken has been assigned suite 320 in the Hart Senate Office Building, the same office used by former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, who conceded the race earlier this week.

Sen. John Ensign apologized to his fellow Republicans on Tuesday – less than one week after admitting to an affair with a staff member.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Less than a week after admitting to an affair with a staff member, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, apologized to his Republican colleagues for his actions, which have already caused him to step down from his party leadership post and could threaten his Senate career.

"He apologized to us and his family. He said he was going to try to work to regain the confidence of his family and his colleagues," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said after the weekly Republican policy lunch in the Capitol, during which Ensign stood to speak.

On Monday night, Ensign was greeted warmly when he returned to the Senate after several days' absence dealing with the fallout from the scandal. More than a dozen senators - Republicans and Democrats - hugged him, shook his hand, or patted him on the shoulder.

"We all recognize what a painful experience this has been for him and his family and others involved. I think we just appreciated him saying how sorry he was," Cornyn said.

Obama administration officials including Rahm Emanuel and Kathleen Sebelius met privately in the Capitol with Democratic senators Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Top Obama administration officials met privately in the Capitol with Democratic senators involved in health care reform Tuesday to assess where the complicated legislation stands and what the next steps need to be to pass it.

"We had to have it," said Finance Committe Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, about the meeting, which lasted an hour and a half. "To compare notes with the White House so the president's chief of staff hears our concerns and hears them directly."

Baucus declined to specify the "concerns" presented at the meeting, although the legislation has been slowed by Democratic differences over policy and financing.

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Updated at 12:30 p.m. with Senate vote

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday was scheduled to consider a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for the wrongs of slavery.

The nonbinding resolution sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is similar to a House resolution adopted last year that acknowledged the wrongs of slavery but offered no reparations.

Several states have passed similar resolutions, but the House resolution was the first time a branch of the federal government did so.

Harkin's resolution "acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery, and Jim Crow laws," and "apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws."

Jim Crow, or Jim Crow laws, were state and local laws enacted mostly in the Southern and border states of the United States between the 1870s and 1965, when African-Americans were denied the right to vote and other civil liberties, and were legally segregated from whites.

Some members of the African-American community have called on lawmakers to give cash payments or other financial benefits to descendants of slaves as compensation for the suffering caused by slavery.

UPDATE: The measure passed the Senate Thursday on a voice vote. While the House passed a similar resolution last year, the chamber will have to vote on it again this session. It is unclear if and when the House will take it up.

The measure will not go to the president because this is a non-binding resolution of the Congress.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Overwhelmed by problems trying to write a bill overhauling the nation's health care system, the Senate Finance Committee will postpone votes on the legislation until after the July 4th recess, two Democratic Senate sources confirmed to CNN.

The decision, which one source described as not 100 percent final, is a setback for Democrats who wanted the bill out of committee before the recess so the full Senate could have the entire month of July to debate health care reform.

Key stumbling blocks for the Democrats who control the committee include the high overall cost of the bill and the lack of any solid Republican support for the measure in its current form, one of the sources said.

The bill is different from the one the Senate HELP Committee took up Wednesday. But those two bills are expected to be merged in hopes of getting a final bill to President Obama by Oct. 15.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Congressional Budget Office has told Congress that one of the major health reform bills moving in the Senate would cost about $1.6 trillion over 10 years, multiple congressional sources told CNN.

That figure, based on the CBO's recent findings, is well above what leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, which is writing the bill, say is their goal - to bring the overhaul in for under $1 trillion.

When Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, was asked earlier Tuesday about a rumored sky-high estimate from CBO, he refused to confirm the figure but said it was outdated.

"That reflects policy of almost two weeks ago," he said. "And doesn't reflect savings in the bill."

When asked what had changed in two weeks, Baucus replied, "senators talking to each other" about "new, better ideas."

On Monday, the non-partisan CBO produced a cost estimate on a different Senate bill - one written by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee - saying it would cost $1 trillion, but would not insure as many people as the Democratic leaders of that committee had hoped.