I've already touched on this particular parliamentary manoeuvre in the United States Senate in my last opinion piece, but I think it's important to revisit it.  I think it's particularly important this week, because the President will lay out the path Democrats will take on health-care, which by all accounts is the only way a unified bill will make it to the President's desk for signing.

The Republicans began the assault on reconciliation shortly before the health-care summit last Thursday, but kicked it into high gear during and after the meeting.  Senator John McCain said that it would be catastrophic for the Democrats to use the 51 vote reconciliation process, instead of the usual number of 60 votes needed for cloture, prior to an up or down majority vote.  Senator Lamar Alexander called the use of reconciliation a Kamikaze attack by the Democrats which would cost them control of Congress in November.

Now, before I lay my own judgment down on reconciliation, I'll explain a bit about the process.  As has been said before, it allows a deadlocked Senate to pass legislation relating to budgetary matters, and budgetary matters only.  However, there is a Parliamentarian who advises on what parts of a given set of legislation pertains to the budget and can be passed under reconciliation.  That is a lot of power for one appointed public servant, but that's the way it works, and what's even more interesting is that previous administrations have replaced the Parliamentarian with someone who makes decisions a little more to the liking of the party in power.  The other important rule which governs the process, is that the Vice President can technically ignore the advice the Parliamentarian makes regarding what can pass under reconciliation.  Mr. Biden could approve anything at all to go through the process because the Vice President is the President of the Senate, but prominent Democratic Senators have insisted that anything going through reconciliation must be related to the budget.

Republicans say that Democrats can't change health-care through reconciliation because it's too large, and affects too much.  That being said, the House and the Senate already passed their health-care bills, so they only need to pass a 'fix' in the Senate through reconciliation, to remove all the items that were unpopular like the Cornhusker kickback, the Louisiana kickback, and the Florida exemption, and not re-pass the entire bill.  The House would also have to pass the exact same bill as the Senate would end up with after the 'fix' passes, if it passes.

We know that reconciliation has been used for huge bills before, and at lest 21 times since 1981, the majority of which was done under Republicans.  Just one example was under Bush 43, when the Republican led Congress passed Medicare Part D, which was essentially a $7 trillion prescription drug benefits Medicare expansion that wasn't paid for.  Interestingly, John McCain introduced a bill today that would prevent the Senate from passing anything relating to Medicare under reconciliation because it's too large and important, even though his party voted for Medicare expansion under reconciliation.

Why would he do this you may ask?

He voted against the Medicare Part D expansion, but not based on his opposition to reconciliation, so the real answer is, politics.

Anyway, when I look at the evidence and see that reconciliation has been used before, mostly by a Republican controlled Congress, and the fact that it was indeed used for health-care, it's obvious that there's nothing wrong with using reconciliation.  The end?

UPDATE: I completely forgot to post this clip here from the Daily Rundown this morning in which the hosts interview a former Senate Parliamentarian.  Watch it below:

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