The Ends Do Not Justify the Means
This week, we may see the U.S. Senate, under the leadership of Sen. Harry Reid (D – NV), set a precedent that will have profound reverberations well beyond the health care debate. Senators would be well advised to proceed with extreme caution.
To many, discussing parliamentary procedures is a cure for insomnia. But all of us should get a good dose of caffeine and pay attention to what the Senate Democrats are attempting to do. In order to progress on passing a Health Care bill, the Senate is moving to use a procedural tactic called “Reconciliation”. To fully appreciate what this means, we need to really understand some basics of the Legislative Branch of our government; a little Civics 101.
The Founding Fathers designed the Legislative Branch of our government for balance between the passion of the people and the deliberative nature of the statesmen. To accomplish this balance, they divided the Legislative Branch of government into two Chambers – the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Members of the House of Representatives serve a two year term by design. The intent was to keep the representative as close to the passion of the people as possible. Given a term of two years, as soon as a representative begins their term, they also begin a re-election campaign. So, by nature, the House of Representative is more in touch with the people of the districts they represent; in theory at least.
The Senate, on the other hand, is designed to be a more deliberative group. Senators are elected every six years. Therefore, they are not always in “campaign mode”. Senators represent their entire state and therefore are somewhat insulated from district-level politics. By design, the U.S. Senate is where cooler heads are supposed to prevail.
In order for a bill to become law, it must be passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate by simple majority votes. Since the Senate has 100 members, a vote of 51 senators is all that is needed for a bill to pass the Senate. So, what is all this talk about needing 60 votes to pass the Health Care Reform legislation in the Senate? The answer lies not in the vote to pass, but the votes needed to bring debate of the legislation to a close so that the Senate can vote on it.
In the Senate, there is no limit on how long a bill can be debated before there is a vote. Refusing to end debate to allow a vote is known as a filibuster. You may recall Jimmy Stewart in the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”. The climax of that movie is Stewart successfully “filibustering” a piece of legislation by talking for hours and hours on end. The filibuster is an important piece of parliamentary procedure – especially for the minority party in the Senate.
The rules governing the filibuster have evolved over the years. Today, Senate Rule 22 governs the procedure. For reasons of Senate decorum, senators are no longer routinely required to physically filibuster (talk a bill to death). Instead, there is a vote to close debate, called a cloture vote, which requires a vote of 60 senators. Simply failing to get enough votes for cloture is in effect a filibuster because the bill cannot be voted on. The Senate Majority Leader may require a physical filibuster – but that would be highly unusual as it has physical ramifications everyone. A senator’s physical presence is required during a filibuster. In the past, sleeping cots where brought in to prepare the senate for a filibuster. Senators have been known to wear diapers so they could relieve themselves while filibustering. So, for reasons of decorum, the cloture vote now replaces the filibuster.
What does this have to do with the Health Care Reform legislation currently under consideration in the Senate? Well, it’s pretty simple really. Even though the Democrats have a majority of seats in the Senate – they do not have necessary 60 votes for cloture. So, a filibuster (lack of cloture) is very likely for the Health Care Reform legislation currently under consideration.
To circumvent the filibuster, Sen. Reid may opt to use another procedure called reconciliation. In 1974, Congress passed the Congressional Budget Act. According to the glossary on the U.S. Senate website, “reconciliation process - A process established in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 by which Congress changes existing laws to conform tax and spending levels to the levels set in a budget resolution.” [1]
This was done because as government grew, the budget legislation needed to fund the government became more and more complex. Differences between legislation passed in the House and the Senate required multiple iterations to resolve – hence the term “reconciliation bill”. Passages of reconciled bills were getting bogged down in legislative procedural processes. Of course, some senators were taking full advantage of the filibuster rules by forcing cloture votes on every budget reconciliation bill. The result was government services went unfunded and had to be temporarily shut down as the legislators wheeled and dealed to get budgets passed – it was a real mess.
The Congressional Budget Act effectively put constraints on the filibuster, but the constraints were limited to reconciliation bills only – bills that modified laws with respect to tax and spending levels in the budget resolution. Simply put, it’s a very narrow gate for specific legislation intended to limit the abuse of the filibuster on matters that could disrupt the day-to-day operations of the U.S. Government. This is done by allowing a simple majority (51 votes) to end debate instead of the usual super majority (60 votes).
So here is what Sen. Reid is going to try and do. There is currently a bill in reconciliation that qualifies for a simple majority cloture vote. This bill has to do with that part of the T.A.R.P. legislation that will allow the Federal Government to limit the pay of executives that accepted T.A.R.P. funds (economic bailout funds) at the beginning of this year. There were differences in the House and Senate versions of the legislation that had to be worked out. The senate is now getting ready to vote on the reconciled bill – perhaps as soon as this week.
What Reid is about to do is this. He will “attach” the current Health Care legislation being worked on in the Senate to this un-related budget bill as an “amendment” – kind of like the way a parasite (a tic) attaches itself to a dog. By itself, the Health Care bill does not have enough votes for a super-majority cloture vote. But attached as an amendment to a reconciliation bill, there are enough votes for a simple-majority cloture vote. By doing this, Reid is using a highly questionable procedural maneuver to not only circumvent Senate Rules and long standing Senate traditions, he is in fact circumventing the will of the people. Regardless of where you stand on the health care debate, this blatant disregard for and manipulation of the law and procedures should offend and anger you.
This kind of maneuver demonstrates so much of what is wrong with our legislative branch. Attaching full pieces of legislation – especially legislation that is as complex and far reaching as health care reform – as amendment to some unrelated bill solely to circumvent the will of the people is reprehensible.
Genial brief and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you seeking your information.
Glad you found this helpful… what are you studying in college?