Reconciliation (United States Congress)

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Reconciliation is a legislative process of the United States Senate intended to allow consideration of a contentious budget bill without the threat of filibuster. Introduced in 1974, reconciliation streamlines the debate and amendment process. Reconciliation also exists in the United States House of Representatives, but because the House regularly passes rules that constrain debate and amendment, the process has had a less significant impact on that body.

A reconciliation instruction (Budget Reconciliation) is a provision in a budget resolution directing one or more committees to submit legislation changing existing law in order to bring spending, revenues, or the debt-limit into conformity with the budget resolution. The instructions specify the committees to which they apply, indicate the appropriate dollar changes to be achieved, and usually provide a deadline by which the legislation is to be reported or submitted.[1]

A reconciliation bill is one containing changes in law recommended pursuant to reconciliation instructions in a budget resolution. If the instructions pertain to only one committee in a chamber, that committee reports the reconciliation bill. If the instructions pertain to more than one committee, the House Budget Committee reports an omnibus reconciliation bill, but it may not make substantive changes in the recommendations of the other committees.[2]

Contents

[edit] Legislative history

Reconciliation came from the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. Reconciliation developed into a prominent procedure for implementing the policy decisions and assumptions embraced in a budget resolution, in a way that was unforeseen when the Budget Act was written.[citation needed] Under the original design of the Budget Act, reconciliation had a fairly narrow purpose. It was expected to be used together with the second resolution adopted in the fall, and was to apply to a single fiscal year and be directed primarily at spending and revenue legislation acted on between the adoption of the first and second budget resolutions.[citation needed]

[edit] Historical use

Although reconciliation was originally understood to be for the purpose of improving the government's fiscal position (reducing deficits or increasing surpluses), the language of the 1974 act referred only to "changes" in revenue and spending amounts; not specifically to increases or decreases. Former Parliamentarian of the Senate Robert Dove has stated that reconciliation

was never used for that purpose. But in 1975, just a year after it had passed, a very canny Senate committee chairman -- Russell Long of Louisiana -- came in to the Parliamentarian's Office, and he kept having trouble with his tax bills because of the Senate rules. People were offering amendments to them that he didn't like. They were debating them at length, and he didn't like that. And he saw in the Budget Act a way of getting around those pesky little problems. And he convinced the Parliamentarian at the time -- I was the assistant -- that the very first use of reconciliation should be to protect his tax cut bill. [3]

Congress has used the procedure to enact far-reaching omnibus budget bills, first in 1981.  Since 1980, 17 of 23 reconciliation bills have been signed into law by Republican presidents (a Republican has been president for 20 of the last 29 years). Since 1980, reconciliation has been used nine times when Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate, six times when Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate, one time when the Democrats controlled the Senate and the Republicans the House, and seven times when the Republicans controlled the Senate and the Democrats controlled the House. Reconciliation has been used at least once nominally for a non-budgetary purpose (for example, see the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, when a Republican was president and the Democrats controlled Congress). The 1986 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) contained some health care provisions.

The Byrd Rule (as described below) was adopted in 1985 and amended in 1990. Its main effect has been to prohibit the use of reconciliation for provisions that would increase the deficit beyond 10 years after the reconciliation measure.

Congress used reconciliation to enact President Bill Clinton's 1993 (fiscal year 1994) budget. (See Pub.L. 103-66, 107 Stat. 312.) Clinton wanted to use reconciliation to pass his 1993 health care plan, but Senator Robert Byrd insisted that the health care plan was out of bounds for a process that is theoretically about budgets. 

In 1999, the Senate for the first time used reconciliation to pass legislation that would increase deficits: the Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act 1999. This act was passed when the Government was expected to run large surpluses: it was subsequently vetoed by President Clinton. A similar situation happened in 2000, when the Senate again used reconciliation to pass the Marriage Tax Relief Reconciliation Act 2000, which was also vetoed by Clinton. At the time the use of the reconciliation procedure to pass such bills was controversial.[4]

During the administration of President George W. Bush, Congress used reconciliation to enact three major tax cuts, each of which was predicted by the Congressional Budget Office to substantially increase federal deficits.[5] These tax cuts were set to lapse after 10 years to satisfy the Byrd Rule.

Efforts to use reconciliation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling failed.

[edit] Process

To trigger the reconciliation process, Congress passes a concurrent resolution on the budget instructing one or more committees to report changes in law affecting the budget by a certain date. If the budget instructs more than one committee, then those committees send their recommendations to the Budget Committee of their House, and the Budget Committee packages the recommendations into a single omnibus bill. In the Senate, the reconciliation bill then gets only 20 hours of debate, and amendments are limited.

[edit] Byrd Rule

Further information: Sunset provision: The Budget Act and the Byrd Rule

Reconciliation generally involves legislation that changes the budget deficit (or conceivably, the surplus). The "Byrd Rule" (2 U.S.C. § 644, named after Democratic Senator Robert Byrd) was adopted in 1985 and amended in 1990 to outline which provisions reconciliation can and cannot be used for. The Byrd Rule defines a provision to be "extraneous" (and therefore ineligible for reconciliation) in six cases:

  1. if it does not produce a change in outlays or revenues;
  2. if it produces an outlay increase or revenue decrease when the instructed committee is not in compliance with its instructions;
  3. if it is outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;
  4. if it produces a change in outlays or revenues which is merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision;
  5. if it would increase the deficit for a fiscal year beyond those covered by the reconciliation measure, though the provisions in question may receive an exception if they in total in a Title of the measure net to a reduction in the deficit; and
  6. if it recommends changes in Social Security.

Any senator may raise a procedural objection to a provision believed to be extraneous, which will then be ruled on by the Presiding Officer, customarily on the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian. A vote of 60 senators is required to overturn the ruling. The Presiding Officer need not necessarily follow the advice of the Parliamentarian, and the Parliamentarian can be replaced by the Senate Majority Leader.[6]. However, this hasn't been done since 1975.[7]

[edit] Examples

Reconciliation bills have included:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Text document with red question mark.svg
 This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (October 2009)
  1. ^ This paragraph contains text from U.S. Senate: Reference Home > Glossary > Reconciliation instruction, a public domain work of the United States Government.
  2. ^ This paragraph contains text from U.S. Senate: Reference Home > Glossary > Reconciliation bill, a public domain work of the United States Government.
  3. ^ Robert Dove at American Enterprise Institute discussion on "Use of Senate Filibuster" http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/220941 at approximately 0:50:00 to 0:52:20
  4. ^ Keith (2005), pp. 17-18
  5. ^ The 2001 tax cuts were predicted to reduce surpluses by $1.35 trillion between 2001 and 2011. The 2003 cuts were predicted to increase deficits by $349.7 billion between 2003 and 2013. The 2006 tax cuts were predicted to increase deficits by $70 billion between 2006 and 2010.
  6. ^ "Firing Or Ignoring The Parliamentarian – It’s Called Leadership". http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/02/19/firing-or-ignoring-the-parliamentarian-it%E2%80%99s-called-leadership/. 
  7. ^ According to Robert Dove, chief Senate Parliamentarian for 12 years; Healthcare reform and reconciliation a bad mix, ex-parliamentarian says, http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/81273-healthcare-reform-and-reconciliation-a-bad-mix-ex-parliamentarian-says 

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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