Reconciliation - Do Both Houses Vote Again
A re-create of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act conference report sits at the U.Due south. Capitol on Dec. 18, 2017. The legislation was passed using the budget reconciliation procedure. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
A re-create of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act briefing report sits at the U.South. Capitol on December. 18, 2017. The legislation was passed using the budget reconciliation process.
Bit Somodevilla/Getty Images
This story is part of "The Basics" from The NPR Politics Podcast, where we regularly explain a central idea behind the news nosotros talk about on our show. Subscribe to The NPR Politics Podcast here.
Democratic lawmakers appear close to finalizing a trillion-plus dollar economical programme that, if passed, would make sizable federal investments in healthcare, immigration and climate change programs.
Unlike the infrastructure deal that passed the Senate with the back up of 19 Republicans, this program is almost sure to pass without any Republican support.
That is despite the fact that Democrats take just fifty votes in the Senate, too small a majority to overcome the 60-vote threshold that has get all merely required to accelerate legislation through the bedroom.
To overcome that hurdle, they program to use an arcane procedure known as upkeep reconciliation. Information technology allows them to skirt Republican opposition and approve a bill with a unproblematic majority vote — with Vice President Harris there to suspension the tie.
But the reconciliation process is complicated — and it has taken months to hammer out a deal that meets its complex requirements and has the support of every Senate Democrat.
What is budget reconciliation?
For a pecker to become police, it of course needs to pass both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate.
In general, in the House of Representatives, a bill passes when at least 218 members support it — half of the 435 full representatives, plus 1. If there are vacancies or absences, a bill passes if it gets support from a majority of the members who vote.
In the Senate, though, things are more complicated: Long-standing rules require that most legislation should be supported past more than half of senators, at least 60 out of 100.
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Because information technology is uncommon for 1 political party to win 60 seats or more, senators often need to choose between:
- not acting when the 2 parties disagree or
- writing a beak that both parties can back up.
Sometimes, though, the party in power tin can use special rules to laissez passer a small number of budget bills in the Senate each term with just 50 votes. That is reconciliation. (In a Senate divided 50-50 between the parties, the vice president breaks the tie.)
As you might guess, budget reconciliation was meant to assistance Congress pass budget bills. Now, though, information technology is used to pass all sorts of things.
Democrats used reconciliation to laissez passer some health intendance changes in 2010, and Republicans used it to pass taxation cuts in 2017, too as in their failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act during Donald Trump'due south presidency. Information technology was also used to pass a COVID-xix relief package early in Biden's assistants.
Why doesn't Congress employ budget reconciliation to pass every bill?
It makes sense to enquire why a party with a bulk in the Senate, merely fewer than 60 members full, wouldn't utilise this special tool to pass every piece of legislation that it hopes to.
But upkeep reconciliation isn't as simple as just adding policies to a pecker and putting it upward for a vote. Reconciliation can usually exist used just once each year. There are besides special rules for what counts as a upkeep item and what doesn't.
What are the rules for what can exist passed with budget reconciliation?
The process is gear up by a budget rule, known equally the "Byrd rule," that's named for its principal author, old Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West.Va.
The rule says that reconciliation tin exist used only for things that change spending (the money the federal government pays out) or revenue (the money the federal government takes in).
The list of Byrd-rule breakers includes measures:
- with no budgetary bear on
- outside the jurisdiction of the committee that wrote them
- with minimal or "incidental" budgetary impact
- that increase deficits outside a window of time specified in the budget resolution
- that would change Social Security
- that would cost the federal government money (increase the "deficit") after 10 years.
If that sounds complicated to y'all, information technology is! And senators oftentimes have provisions that they care nigh stripped from the pecker for breaking 1 or more than of the rules.
Who decides whether a budget bill follows the rules?
That'south the parliamentarian, a nonpartisan referee for the Senate whose task is to be an expert on the trunk's rules. The current parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, was appointed by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in 2012.
What is a "vote-a-rama"?
Budget bills come with a special voting bonanza called a "vote-a-rama" that kicks off when debate on the neb has ended.
Senators can offer countless amendments without any further fence. In that location are no limits on how many amendments each person tin offer and no limits on how many each party can offering.
The voting on the amendments just goes on and on until senators run out of amendments — or the energy to keep voting — and reach a unanimous agreement to stop. Vote-a-ramas accept been known to go on for hours, sometimes offset in the morning and going all nighttime long.
The vote-a-rama is also a time when senators will try to undo parts of the budget resolution through amendments and an objection known as a budget point of club.
What happens when a budget reconciliation nib passes?
At present, things become a lot more straightforward. Once both the Business firm and Senate pass the final package — one that meets all the budgetary requirements and satisfies but enough lawmakers — information technology heads to the president's desk for a signature.
Once the president signs information technology, expect to see a lot of fanfare. Budget reconciliation bills are often used to address things that are really important to the party in power, like health intendance under President Barack Obama and tax cuts nether Trump.
That could mean an event at the White House, lots of news conferences and speeches and a ton of news coverage. And, of form: All the provisions in the law take effect.
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Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/14/1026519470/what-is-budget-reconciliation-3-5-trillion
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