While all eyes were on the House of Representatives this weekend, those Members of Congress that relied on the success of the two-bill strategy process to get health care passed, should really be concerned about the Senate. You see, now that the Speaker achieved the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill Sunday, this bill goes directly to the president, to become the law of the land. The second bill, the reconciliation/correction bill, now goes over to the Senate. The Senate is where the facts and history will show that a legislative train wreck could easily occur.
Having spent 26 years working on the U.S. Senate floor, I assisted in the Senate consideration of 19 of the total 22 reconciliation bills that have ever passed the Senate. The process is sloppy at best and the word predictability is never used when Capitol Hill veterans discuss reconciliation bills of the past. After researching all of the past reconciliation bills that were considered by the Senate, the facts looks like this.
The Senate has passed 22 reconciliation bills over the past 30 years and all of these bills have had Senate amendments or changes made while pending in the Senate.
During the Senate consideration of these reconciliation bills, 95 points of order were raised on various provisions contained in these bills. When a point of order is raised, if 60 Senators do not vote to waive the budget, the results are a change in the bill. The procedures in the Senate require that the offending language automatically drop out of the legislation. All but 19 of these points of order resulted in changes made in the bills. This 80 percent success rate in changing bills is hard to ignore. These numbers do not even address the hundreds of amendments that have been considered, and adopted, when the Senate debated these reconciliation bills in the past.
Another fact that makes the idea of the Senate passing the reconciliation/correction bill without changes seem dim at best, is the fact that Sen. McConnell has a letter signed by all 41of the Senate GOP membership saying they will not vote to waive any budget violations. Remember, those 95 points of order referenced above, all of them needed a minimum of 60 votes to save the offending language from being dropped out of the bill. 80% of the time, the Senate failed to reach this 60-vote margin. If the provisions are not saved by at least 60 Senators, the offending language gets dropped out of the bill. That is a Senate change. That creates further action by the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, the Senate Health care bill is the law of the land.
Remember those hundreds of amendments referenced above? Almost all of these come at the end of the debate, in an event dubbed the vote-a-rama. If any one of these amendments are adopted, that is a Senate change. That creates further action by the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, the Senate health care bill is the law of the land.
It is not logical to think that 30 years of Senate history won’t result in a change in the upcoming health care reconciliation/correction bill, just because the Speaker says there will be no further changes to the bill. Meanwhile, the president can stay out of this bicameral battle; after all, the Senate health care bill is the law of the land.
Elizabeth Letchworth is the owner-Founder of GradeGov.com, four times elected United States Senate Secretary for the Majority/Minority, U. S. Senate-retired, and presently senior legislative advisor at Covington & Burling, LLC.