By Peter Landers

The clock is ticking up to the Senate’s vote scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday on whether to proceed to debate on the health-care bill.

The all-important number is 60. That’s how many votes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to overcome Republican delaying tactics. With 58 Democrats and two independents in the chamber, he is considered likely to clear the bar, but we won’t know for sure until the votes are counted.

One of the last Democratic fence-sitters, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, confirmed Friday he’d vote for the motion to proceed. Nelson said he hasn’t decided whether to support the final bill.

Other points to watch for:

–How will the other wavering Democrats characterize their votes? Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Sen. Blanche Lincoln are the senators who have needed the most wooing from Democratic leaders.

–Will any Republicans vote yes? It’s unlikely. But Reid is still hoping to get support later in the process from Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

–As speeches from both sides continue Saturday on the Senate floor, who makes the most effective case to Americans? During Friday’s debate, Republicans made a particular point of addressing older voters, saying cuts in the bill will threaten Medicare patients. Democrats say trimming the growth of Medicare spending won’t affect basic services and will help keep the system solvent.

If Reid wins the Saturday vote, the full Senate is set to start debate the bill and take up amendments after the Thanksgiving break, in the week of Nov. 30. If he doesn’t win the vote, it’s back to the drawing board.

On November 13, a South Dakota Circuit Court Judge ruled that petition signatures are valid if the signer is not on the list of active registered voters, but is on the list of inactive voters. Inactive voters are those who once registered to vote, but whose registration is considered questionable because the post office reported that the voter had moved and that voter has not re-registered. The judge, Kathleen Trandahl, also ruled that petition sheets are valid even if the notary public who notarized that sheet makes errors in his or her notarization statement, such as putting an incorrect date on when the notary’s seal expires. The case is Trucano v Nelson, 32-cv-09-306. See this story.

It is possible the state will appeal. UPDATE: on November 20, the state decided not to appeal. The case arose because the state had rejected a referendum petition. The 2009 session of the legislature had passed a bill to ban smoking in bars and casinos. Opponents of that new law had then submitted a petition to call for a public vote, which will be held in November 2010.

Kent, Ohio, uses partisan city elections. At the November 3, 2009 election for Mayor, independent candidate Jerry Fiala and Democratic nominee Rick Hawksley ended up in a tie. On November 20, the election was resolved with a toss of a coin. See this story.

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Putting news of President Obama's approval rate dipping below 50% for the first time in historical perspective, USA Today runs an excellent interactive chart plotting presidential approval rates since 1945.

When comparing various presidents to each other, as of right now, President Obama most closely tracks Ronald Reagan.

Briefs are being filed in the Indiana Supreme Court in the case League of Women Voters v Rokita, over whether the Indiana law requiring voters to show government photo-ID at the polls violates the Indiana Constitution. On September 17, the Indiana State Court of Appeals had invalidated the law, so now the Indiana Supreme Court will have the last word.

Amicus curiae briefs against the law have been filed by the ACLU, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the national League of Women Voters, the American Association of Retired Persons, and the National Senior Citizens Law Center. Also, six political science professors have filed a brief against the law, and another brief was filed by two history professors and a law professor. The role of the history professors is to shed light on the intent of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention that wrote Indiana’s Constitution.

No amicus brief was filed in support of the law. All these briefs may be read at the Moritz Law web page, at this link.

With Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) announcing today that he would vote on Saturday night to bring the health care reform bill up for debate, attention turns to four others whose votes may indicate the ultimate success or failure of the bill.

• Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) -- According to Politico, she's already told Reid how she'll vote but she hasn't made her intentions public yet. A new poll shows her vote may be critical to her re-election prospects next year.
• Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) -- She's voiced opposition to the public option, but Bloomberg notes there was a $100 million addition to the bill to win her support
• Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) -- We've already documented his threats to block the public option, but he's stated publicly he'll at least vote to bring the bill to the Senate floor.
• Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) -- She was the only Republican senator to vote the bill out of the Senate Finance Committee, but she's also voiced opposition to the public option.

The Saturday vote is mostly political theater at this point -- even reluctant Democrats know they must at least bring the bill to the floor for debate -- but it's not clear how each of the four will actually vote.