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The Philadelphia Inquirer: The Elephant in the Room: High hurdles for health bill

03/10/10

Democrats will have to overcome a number of parliamentary and political pitfalls. By Rick Santorum I am all for Senate Democrats' engaging in reconciliation on health care. Merriam-Webster offers two definitions of reconciliation. The first defines it as the act of restoring friendship or harmony; making something consistent; accepting something that is unpleasant; or checking something for accuracy. Can you imagine Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) reaching out in friendship and harmony on a consistent basis, after accepting the (for him) unpleasant fact that the public doesn't like the health-care bill, and resolving to accurately portray its impact on America? I can't, but I would be all for it! Now for the Senate definition of reconciliation. The Senate has been called the world's greatest deliberative body partly because, until 1917, any senator could indefinitely delay action on a bill. Then, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson successfully lobbied the Senate to pass a rule allowing two-thirds of the members present to end debate and bring a matter to a vote. In 1975, the post-Watergate Senate, which had 60 Democrats, amended this "cloture" rule to make it easier to end debate. The new version required only three-fifths of the senators, or 60, to end debate. However, before that change, Congress had passed the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, which gave the Senate a more powerful tool to pass budget-related bills. This procedure, known as reconciliation, limits debate and therefore requires only a simple majority of 51 votes to pass a bill in the Senate. A great defender of Senate tradition, Sen. Robert Byrd (D., W. Va.), insisted on stringent rules limiting reconciliation's application to deficit reduction. The "Byrd rule" requires every section of a reconciliation bill to have a significant budgetary impact. If it doesn't, a senator can move to strike that section from the bill. Historically, the Senate parliamentarian has ruled on such questions. But the rules say the president of the Senate - the vice president - has the final call. Last week, President Obama demanded a simple majority vote on his health-care bill. This has led to great confusion as to how it would be accomplished. One thing is clear, though: The Byrd rule makes it impossible to pass a complex 2,000-page bill via reconciliation. So Reid has proposed a Vegas two-step. Step One: The House passes the Senate bill as is. Step Two: The House and then the Senate pass a reconciliation bill that "fixes" the problems House Democrats have with the Senate bill. The House passed a similar health bill with two votes more than the 218 needed last fall. Rep. Eric Massa (D., N.Y.), a no vote then, has said he was forced to resign this week amid sexual harassment allegations. Combined with other vacancies in the House, that lowered the number needed for passage to 216, which happens to be exactly the number of last fall's supporters of the bill still sitting in the House. But hold on. A number of these supporters, including 11 pro-life Democrats, have said they will not vote for the Senate bill if their concerns are not addressed. There are three obstacles to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's getting those votes. First, before the Senate bill can be fixed via reconciliation, it must be passed. So Pelosi (D., Calif.) has to persuade these Democrats to enact a very unpopular Senate health-care bill, with the promise of passing a reconciliation bill that fixes their concerns after the fact. Second, while many of the concerns can be fixed with a subsequent reconciliation bill, a modification of abortion provisions would violate the Byrd rule and could be struck, unless Vice President Biden flagrantly breaks the rules and finds otherwise. Third, while the reconciliation bill should be able to pass in the House, Senate passage is less certain. The reconciliation process limits debate, but it doesn't limit amendments. There's a possibility of an unprecedented filibuster through endless amendments of the bill. This all could come down to a contest between the Republicans' determination to tie up the Senate and Biden's willingness to abuse the rules and shut off amendments. Despite all the attention being paid to the Senate, Obama's biggest challenge will be the first one: getting the House to pass a deeply flawed Senate bill. By the way, Merriam-Webster's second definition of reconciliation is the Roman Catholic sacrament of reconciliation, or confession. That's where you confess wrongdoing, ask for forgiveness, and start anew with a clean slate. Works for me.

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