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You Go First! Democrats Clash Over Reconciliation
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
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Democrats finally seem ready to act on health care reform, and for perhaps the first time in the entire year-long health care reform debate, they're speaking--openly--about the likelihood that they'll invoke the budget reconciliation process to make some tweaks to the Senate's health care bill. But there remains no clear path forward, with the House and Senate still jockeying over who will make the first move, and even Senate Democrats divided on how the process should work in their chamber and who among them gets to decide on it.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she won't pass the Senate bill until the reconciliation process is complete. And Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) says the Senate can't do reconciliation until after the House acts on the Senate bill. Has an unstoppable force just met an immovable object?
Not necessarily.
House and Senate aides privately point out that this is a question being worked out among leadership, and that the decision is not Conrad's to make. And a Senate leadership aide points me to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statements from yesterday where he said "nothing's off the table" with respect to reconciliation.
Still, Conrad says the question--can the Congress pass a reconciliation bill before the House passes the Senate health care bill?--is his to answer.
"At the end of the day it's the chairman of the Budget Committee's [job]," he told me after a joint House-Senate health care meeting.
He went on to explain his position. He says it's logistically impossible to pass a reconciliation bill, which is meant to amend a separate bill that hasn't passed. "I don't know how you would deal with the scoring, I don't know how I'd be able to look you in the eye and say this package reduces the deficit," he told me.
I asked Conrad why the Congressional Budget Office couldn't treat a reconciliation bill like any other amendment package, and score it together with the Senate bill.
"I don't know the answer to that question."
Admittedly, it's a very abstract question regarding a rare, if not unprecedented, set of procedural circumstances. But the fact that the Senate's top budget guy still doesn't know how leadership plans to proceed is striking, and the sense pervades in the Senate that the House must act first. Sen. Jay Rockefeller also (D-WV) says the House must pass the Senate bill before the reconciliation process touches off. Other Senate Democrats have weighed the possibility of sending the House a letter, signed by 50-plus members, vowing to act on reconciliation if the House enacts the Senate bill first.
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mans_best_friend
February 25, 2010 9:58 AM
Conrad's just trying to defend his turf. Nothing to see here.
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magster
February 25, 2010 10:19 AM in reply to mans_best_friend
If he's defending his turf, he should consider how his being a butthead is going to cost Dems the majority, and he won't be chairman next January anymore.
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Tommy Douglas
February 25, 2010 10:37 AM in reply to magster
Can't believe that some Centrists from a state that is 3rd least populous, with only about 646,850, has so much say. The difference between the House bill's coverage and the Senate's is about 5 million, about 8 times the amount of his state alone.
The House is doing the right thing making the Senate go first.
How can you trust the Senate filled with people like Conrad?
This guy really seems to love attention. He makes noise, whines and cries whenever he can.
I think he's a plant from the Right, (or just corporate America).
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bvd
February 25, 2010 11:19 AM in reply to Tommy Douglas
Rightly or wrongly that was the original concept of the Senate - each state has an equal number of votes. The House is where population size makes a difference. In the Senate each state is equal.
Blame the Founding Fathers.
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Tommy Douglas
February 25, 2010 11:50 AM in reply to bvd
Really? I didn't know that, Professor. By the way, Senators used to be appointed, which we might want to think about returning to in order to avoid BRIBERY via corporate campaign contributions.
The fact is Conrad is flippant about the issues of HCR.
The point is that the House bill will cover more people than the populations of Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Delaware, and South Dakota.
The differences in these bills effect a huge part of population. The House should not back down and just trust the Senate.
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mans_best_friend
February 25, 2010 10:41 AM in reply to magster
If you collected the egos of all 100 Senators, you couldn't fit them all in the Grand Canyon. That's all this is about. Conrad's just having a hissy fit to remind everyone how important he is. I think the leadership understands they've flubbed this whole thing, that this is their last chance to pass a reform bill and that if they don't they're going to get crucified in November. They're not going to let Conrad screw it up.
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slb
February 25, 2010 4:31 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
I'm not sure you could even fit a single Senator's ego in the Grand Canyon!
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hunter
February 25, 2010 12:53 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
I have to say, the argument that you can't amend a bill that hasn't passed does not seem totally crazy to me.
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kindness
February 25, 2010 1:00 PM in reply to hunter
Be honest. If the House passed the Senate's bill, do you think the Senate would pass a reconciliation bill? I don't. I KNOW there are Senators who would love to stick it to the House. Honor? Integrity? I have yet to see it from the Senate and fully support the House saying the Senate must lead with the reason being, they don't trust the Senate to follow through as they are promising.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
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Rick
February 25, 2010 3:35 PM in reply to kindness
Ding ding ding!
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slb
February 25, 2010 4:34 PM in reply to kindness
Well, exactly. A number of House members put their necks on the line voting for things that later died in the Senate, and not just on HCR. They're saying that it's now the Senate's turn to risk taking the initiative.
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
February 25, 2010 1:04 PM in reply to hunter
Yeah, but don't try to tell anyone here that.
There is, in fact a work around for the problem which basically involves the House passes the reconciliation bill, then the Senate passing the reconciliation bill, then the House, assured of the Senate's good faith at last, passes the original Senate Bill. Obama signs the Senate bill the House passed first, making it law, then he signs the reconciliation bill, amending the law he just signed.
I do see a few problems with it, not least the "what could go wrong with such a simple plan?" problem.
But worse, an amending bill usually amends existing law by referencing that law. "An act to Amend 15 U.S.C. ยง xxxx(y)(i) by striking the provision in it's entirety and substutiting therefore the following." The reconciliation thing can't work that way. That means there'll be a novel legal irregularity which is the formula for a generation's worth of constituional challenges from everyone from the "respectable" right people like Starr and Olsen to the fringe conspiracists militia nutbags.
If our Supreme Court wasn't in the hands of extremist activists, I wouldn't worry about that as much.
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mrut
February 25, 2010 1:59 PM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
Interesting. So a reconciliation bill would have to say "No special Medicaid deals for Nebraska shall be observed" (in legalese), as if a special deal for Nebraska were completely theoretical? I can see how that might open doors for weird, unanticipated legislation.
I think maybe the Senate will have 50+ senators go on the record promising reconciliation that has already been worked out (maybe in some letter). Then the House can pass the Senate bill and the Senate will reconcile it. But the senators will have to be pledged publicly in some iron-clad way so that they can't back out. This is the problem.
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mrut
February 25, 2010 2:00 PM in reply to mrut
I meant "unanticipated litigation."
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leoklein
February 25, 2010 10:22 AM
Sounds like they're making up rules as they go along.
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dogjudge
February 25, 2010 10:29 AM
Time for Reid to GO!
He has allowed the Republicans to completely stop ANY legislation from getting through the Senate.
Does anyone truly think that the Senate Republicans (and the challengers) won't use this against the Democrats in the upcoming elections? "Do nothing Congress".
I am a lifelong Democrat. I want to throw up right now. Reid would let the Republicans threaten to filibuster changing the color of the toilet paper in the Senate bathrooms.
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mrut
February 25, 2010 2:06 PM in reply to dogjudge
You need to take a break from watching what's going on. I say that sincerely, not as a shot at you. I take a break every now and again, and three days later, when I start following politics again, I find that the disaster that was imminent hasn't yet happened.
There is a downside to being able to follow politics as closely as we can now. In what other age did people care so passionately (or even know about) the outcomes of subcommittee meetings or statements at subcommittee meetings? Yet, I feel like I've attended several of them in the past year during this HCR struggle.
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mophan
February 25, 2010 10:43 AM
Obviously, the Senate should go first. They are the ones they continue to move the goal post.
With that said -- I don't care who goes first. Stop acting like children and get it done already. "You go first, no you go first," is just plain stupid and a perfect example why Congress' approval ratings are in the tank.
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jsdc007
February 25, 2010 10:51 AM
So after 13 months of airing their dirty laundry in public, cursing at each other, and generally acting like a bunch of spoiled brats, they're about to repeat that performance.
Yeah, that's a surefire winner at the polls.
Seriously, the only reason we even bother to vote for these twits is because the alternative (the GOP) is just so ghoulishly bigoted.
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Sailormarlowe
February 25, 2010 11:04 AM
Democrat "health-care reform" is analyzed & exposed as a sham & debacle in Gov. Sarah Palin's Facebook post, 2/25/10.
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Ann Arbor
February 25, 2010 11:08 AM in reply to Sailormarlowe
Is that the same Sarah Palin whose granddaughter gets government-funded health care?
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CareyInLA
February 25, 2010 12:18 PM in reply to Sailormarlowe
I believe you must mean:
"...is analyzed & exposed IN THE sham & debacle OF Gov. Sarah Palin's Facebook post, 2/25/10."
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Cal Gal
February 25, 2010 2:27 PM in reply to Sailormarlowe
LOL. Good snark.
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jeffgee
February 25, 2010 3:00 PM in reply to Sailormarlowe
Really. We should all believe everything on $arah's Facebook page because she's smarter than all of the perfessers combined. No studying necessary when yer gut does the thinking. She gets her wisdom directly from "god" and don't anybody question it.
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slb
February 25, 2010 4:38 PM in reply to jeffgee
Hmmm, when your colon is doing the thinking, you know what that says about what makes up your brains...
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littlenomad
February 25, 2010 11:06 AM
Lucy is going to snatch the football again if you fools won't hurry up and kick it.
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mass_murdock
February 25, 2010 11:07 AM
I have an uneducated (dumb) question. If the house were to pass the senate bill as Rockefeller suggests, why would there need to be any reconciliation? Wouldn't they just be finished with the whole mess finally?
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Ann Arbor
February 25, 2010 11:10 AM in reply to mass_murdock
They need reconciliation so they can modify the Senate bill -- to get rid of the Nebraska deal, add rate regulation on insurers, push back the excise tax on Cadillac plans, etc.
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mans_best_friend
February 25, 2010 11:11 AM in reply to mass_murdock
The House could just pass the Senate bill, but the Senate bill has significant problems that nobody wants. The solution is to pass an amendment through both houses. The amendment would be filibustered by the R's, so they have to use budget reconciliation rules to pass that.
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
February 25, 2010 11:11 AM
Technically, the House does have to go first, in the sense that the House has to pass a budget resolution of some kind that the Senate can dump all of this stuff into. It has to be a bill about the budget to qualify for reconciliation and constitutionally, that means it has to start in the House.
But my understanding is that there is no technical requirement that vehicle bill the House sends over doesn't have to have any of the substantive provisions they want the Senate to pass pre-loaded into it.
But my favorite part was Conrad's "I don't know the answer to that question." Two interpretations: a) "Damn! Why didn't I think of that? I need to look into that, 'cause it might just work." b) "Curses! He's found the glaring flaw in my argument I was acutely aware of but hoped no one would notice!"
With Conrad, I'm guessing it was "b."
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GTFOOH
February 25, 2010 11:24 AM
Another sign that Republicans won't be the death of the Obama administration. Democrats will!
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Lycurgus
February 25, 2010 11:33 AM
No problem Kent. You don't have to be Chair.
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oleeb
February 25, 2010 11:50 AM
Conrad is demonstrating that he is willing to do anything to kill healthcare reform legislation and Harry Reid is once again demonstrating his breathtaking weakness as Majority Leader. Conrad should have already been informed that he is to keep his obstructionist mouth shut on these matters, but of course Reid won't take control of the process because, much like our President in the larger scheme of things, he is too weak to do so.
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Cool Blue Reason
February 25, 2010 12:09 PM
If these clowns screw this up and drop the ball on healthcare (completely and finally), there will be no redeeming them.
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Rich in NJ
February 25, 2010 12:15 PM
Remove Conrad as chairman. Problem solved.
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
February 25, 2010 12:54 PM in reply to Rich in NJ
Great. Thanks for that advice. Any idea how to make that actually happen? Any ideas, I mean, that don't wrongly assume that Harry Reid and/or Obama have the power to just snap their fingers and, poof, he's out?
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Rich in NJ
February 25, 2010 1:04 PM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
The Republicans don't brook this kind of public dissent because their leadership imposes discipline.
You're welcome, btw. Glad to help.
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philogratis
February 25, 2010 1:36 PM in reply to Rich in NJ
Nope Republican Senators murdered Bush over Social Security Reform and Immigration Reform, when they were in charge.
The reason is that the party in power fights among themselves because they run policy. It is much easier to unite against something than for something (see Jane Hamshire and Grover Norquist).
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Rich in NJ
February 25, 2010 1:51 PM in reply to philogratis
You are confusing widespread disagreement with the that of one (or maybe a few) senators clashing with the consensus position of their caucus.
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Kevin Sutton
February 25, 2010 1:54 PM in reply to philogratis
The GOP does generally have far more discipline than the Democratic party.
Demanding that chairs are determined by the caucus, or can be removed by the party --instead of the present seniority system, (That the GOP doesn't use BTW) would be a start.
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loudprogressive
February 25, 2010 2:22 PM in reply to Rich in NJ
Can we remove Reid too? Please?? And also strip Baucus and Lieberman of their chairmanships.
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Rich in NJ
February 25, 2010 2:29 PM in reply to loudprogressive
I think the voters will remove Reid.
If control of the senate is within one seat after the elections, you know Lieberman will switch.
Until then, change the caucus rules, as Kevin Sutton pointed out.
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tommyo
February 25, 2010 1:18 PM
Another Western welfare Senator trying to be a majority of one.
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loudprogressive
February 25, 2010 2:19 PM
The rethugs are corporatist pigs with a fetish for taking a dump on the common man, and the Dems are corporatist pigs with a fetish for using the "threat" of reforms to blackmail corporations & industries into giving them money. Time to start base-building for a third party, or at the very least park your votes on a third party 'til some actual progressive Dems candidates come up.
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Cal Gal
February 25, 2010 2:33 PM in reply to loudprogressive
Good luck with that. Do you think our Corporatist Overlords would EVER let a true "independent" get elected dog catcher?
This is the US of A, and money talks. Independence walks.
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