Wonk 101: A Camel is a Horse Designed By (Conference) Committee. Also: How the Senate Parliamentarian Might Be King.

In our last installment, we highlighted the circus – complete with large steaming piles – that is floor action. This post will cover what happens when the House and Senate actually get round to passing a bill...but the House version, for example, includes a public option for health care and the Senate version says, “Well, we don't want anyone to die in the street but it could happen.”

Before the bother of a conference committee, the 2d chamber to consider the legislation will usually send a message to the 1^st chamber (where the bill started) asking them to concur with the amendment(s). If the 1^st disagrees with the amendment(s), then they request a conference and appoint conferees. The 2d chamber can either concur with the 1^st house or insist on their amendments and also appoint conferees.

Off to conference...

Conferees are usually the chairs of the committee(s) that considered the underlying bill. The conferees do not need to be representative of both parties – whomever controls each chamber usually stacks the conference in their favor. The conference committee holds one public meeting, mostly to comport with House rules. But the conference committee can be entirely closed to the public if the House votes to make it so.

The conference committee then sets down to work, drafting a conference report that reconciles the differences in the two versions. House and Senate rules (22 and 28, respectively) prohibit new matter from being “air dropped” (as in, out of thin air) into the bill; that is, stuff that neither chamber considered. But, as we've learned, exceptions exist. If something totally unrelated is air-dropped into a conference report, a member can raise a point of order against the new provisions. But there is an exception to that, too. The members who dropped in the new provisions can seeks to waive the rule/point of order but the bar is pretty high – 60 members of the Senate must agree to waive the rule. You've heard of herding cats? Yeah, getting 60 members to agree on anything is sort of like that.

After a majority of conferees agree to the report, it is voted on by each chamber. The conference report is privileged so no amendments are allowed. The 1^st chamber to consider the report can motion to recommit the report but the 2d cannot – the conference committee is dissolved after the 1^st chamber passes the report.

After the report is approved by both chambers, it goes to the White House for signature or veto.

Budget Reconciliation: BR was created in the 70s to rejigger spending or taxes within the budget resolution. Clinton used it in 1993 to raise fuel taxes and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit; Bush used it to pass his tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

So why is chatter about the BR met either with glee or projections of world-ending doom?

Well, budget reconciliation is special. These days, to pass just about anything in the Senate you need 60 "yea" votes to limit debate and actually flippin' vote on anything. But for BR, you only need a simple majority (51) and the Democrats have that, easily.

So the BR could push through health reform without triggering a filibuster. Great and wonderful right? Sadly, no.

In the House, the Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor, and Ways and Means Committees (re)draft legislation. The legislation would go back to the floor to be voted on. Again.

Senate-side, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Finance Committees would be responsible. And then it would go to the floor where Mr. Frumin comes in.

The Senate prides itself on oddities. The rules governing its operation are arcane, weird, and downright frustrating. Among these is something called the Byrd Rule, named after Sen. Robert Byrd. The Byrd Rule forbids "extraneous" language on the budget resolution. Is extraneous defined? Of course not. For an excellent discussion of the Byrd Rule, read Ezra Klein over at American Prospect.

Is health reform extraneous? Well, it isn't strictly tax or spend so I think some members would certainly challenge it (called a point of order). Who decides if the provision is in order? Alan Frumin, the Senate Parliamentarian. What might emerge from the other end of the sausage machine frightens me. We could end up with some provisions stricken and others not -- a disjointed mess that fails in a massive flame out like HillaryCare -- such a result would likely put off real reform for another decade or two.

Even if we manage to get cogent health reform through via the BR, it will expire in five years. Yes, you read that right. All of this blood, sweat, and tears for a five year program.

More Contortions that Cirque de Soliel: The flavor-of-the-month legislative proposal is to split health care reform in two. The legislative provisions – the real meat of what will be covered – would go via normal order. The tax provisions – how to pay for the meat – that are more controversial would go via budget reconciliation. Since the revenue/outlay provisions are likely to survive the Byrd bath, we'd end up with a more-or-less good bill at the end. Or not.

If we go the split route, then the provisions that pay for health reform will expire in five years. But the health reform bill itself has a 10-year horizon. So, midway to covering the majority of uninsured Americans the plan would be subject to the whims of Congress. They could continue the revenue/outlay. Or not.

Sure, in five years the economy might have picked up, the unemployment rate might be falling, the SEC might have grown a pair, and we might still have a Democrat in the White House.

Or not. And I'd really rather not gamble on the odds. This bill and people's very lives are too important.

Photo Credit: Beketchai on Flickr. Creative Commons License.

Comments

[mirc]

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