Looking For Reconciliation (how it works and why it's a good idea)

[babylonsister]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/192346

Looking For Reconciliation
Eleanor Clift

Since senate Democrats will be able to push through health-care reform without them, Republicans should try participating in the legislation instead of just obstructing.
Apr 3, 2009


Democrats are determined to get health-care reform through Congress. If that means using a parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation, which allows the party in power to roll over the minority, Republicans will cry foul, but will anybody care about their hurt feelings? Nobody outside of Washington has any idea what reconciliation means in parliamentary terms, and not many Beltway insiders can fully explain it either, except to say it's a nifty way to get around the rules requiring a 60-vote supermajority on certain types of legislation, a system that allows 41 Republicans to block just about anything President Obama and the Democrats propose.

Republicans threaten to stall the Senate calendar with their own legislative high jinks if the Democrats pull out reconciliation. Democrats believe a record of accomplishment will trump the GOP's complaints about process when the two parties are put to the test in the midterm congressional elections. "If we're running ads in November 2010 about health care for 11 million children and the Republicans are running ads about Robert's Rules of Order, I think we're going to get some pickups," says Jon Vogel, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

snip//

Here's how reconciliation works: it's part of the budget process and it's really just an instruction to the relevant congressional committees to report legislation back to the Budget Committee that reconciles policy goals with budget outlays. The House version of the budget resolution reported out this week includes a provision for reconciliation on health care; the Senate version has none. The two bills go to conference to iron out the differences, and reconciliation will be retained in the final product. It's the club in the closet that, used or unused, significantly boosts the odds of success on health care.

Republicans are framing it as something way out of the mainstream, a liberal putsch brought off by the equivalent of a Chicago don. "They steamroller those who disagree with them, then, I guess in Chicago, they coat them in cement and drop them in the river," Republican Sen. Kit Bond told NPR. Hypocrisy is everyday fare in Washington, but Bond and others could use a refresher course on how often reconciliation has been used for major pieces of legislation. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, also known as welfare reform, passed under reconciliation rules with a Republican Congress and a Democratic president. The Bush tax cuts were done under reconciliation, as was the Reagan tax cut in 1980.

Democrats don't really want to pass a major restructuring of the U.S. health system with 51 votes. But they've come to the conclusion that the only way to get Republicans into serious negotiations is if they think a bill will pass without them. Then maybe they'll get onboard and even shape it in some way, and help bring along moderate Democrats who have a hard time with sweeping reform. Sixteen strong in the Senate and led by Indiana's Evan Bayh, these self-described centrists could become Obama's nightmare.

They're very much in the game, in contrast to a Republican Party that has imploded to its conservative base. The alternative GOP budget unveiled this week repeals the $787 billion stimulus bill and puts a freeze on spending. It has more tax cuts for the wealthy and for business, and seeks to privatize Medicare for people under 55, echoes of President Bush's failed Social Security privatization. There's no danger any of it will pass; the greater danger is what it says about a party weakened through two successive election losses, devoid of new ideas and incapable of being a partner in meaningful legislation.

[pinto]

1. reconciliation is how COBRA got passed.

good article. :thumbsup:

[OHdem10]

2. Excellent points and I agree wholeheartedly.

We must all keep in mind that the the GOP on the "Hill"
are for the most part much more arch conservative than their
constituents. The American People will be with the Democrats
if they work to bring them along.