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Thadius -> RE: No news is interesting news. (2/27/2010 10:26:32 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: truckinslave
I've heard various and seemingly contradictory things about reconciliation.
The chairman of the appropriate Senate committee (I forget the names- Finance?) is on record as saying that all bills that can be "reconciled" must originate in the House (constitutionally, of course, don't all revenue bills have to originate there?)?
I think the Pres of the Senate (the VP) is actually the arbiter of whether or not each particular item to be reconciled is eligible for reconciliation ( i.e. has a substantial impact on... taxes and revenues?) but in practice has always deferred to the Parlimentarian?
Doesn't the bill have to reconciled clause by clause, (section by section?), and unlimited opportunities for amendments offered in each case?
Byrd and Rockefeller have both spoken against reconciliation? It might be hard to get 50 votes......
ALL reconciled matters sunset in five years???
Most drama in DC since Nam, for my money.... but looking at the above, it seems to me the Ds are beating a dead horse.
Reconciliation is basicly a sending the bill back to the Senate with instructions related to budgetary and deficit items. In other words, to get the process started the House would have to vote through the current Senate bill without changing even a comma, then draft another bill that included the budget instructions. From my understanding each portion of the reconciled bill would be up for a simple majority vote as long as they related to existing mandates and the budget. Sen. Byrd got an additional rule passed in relation to the reconciliation rule that he helped draft. The Byrd rule disallows any extraneous material to get passed via the process, meaning anything not dealing with the budget and a current mandate would be subject to philibuster
Basicly the only parts of the bill that would be passable under reconciliation would be the new taxes and the cuts to medicare, everything else would be fodder. If the Dems attempted to have the VP overrule the parlimentarian, there would be an unlimited number of points of order, numerous votes on such, and if the VP was allowed to waive the Byrd rule through that process, it would open the bill up to unlimited ammendments being offered, which again would have to go through the usual Senate process.
To sum it up, the reconciliation process does not allow for policies and agendas to be railroaded through the Senate, and if there are any doubts about that just look at what the now majority was saying when they were the minority in 2005.
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