A matter of process

Despite some confusing statements this weekend by politicians and journalists
alike (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the Senate would have to act
first, while House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the House is
required to act first), the plan, according to those behind those closed
doors, is as follows:
 
1) The House passes the Senate bill and sends it to the White House for the
president to sign into law. Only law is reconciled under this process, not
legislation.
 
2) The Senate and House agree to a package of “fixes” to the Senate
bill everybody hates. The “Cornhusker kickback” Medicaid carve-out
for Nebraska gets stripped and several other spending and cutting measures are
changed.
 
3) The House takes up the package, since it also must start in the House.
 
4) A reconciliation package passed by the House can make it to the Senate,
where Republicans will blow the process up by forcing Democrats to takes votes
on non-germane amendments about closing Guantanamo Bay, ACORN,
abortion, immigration or any other controversial topic designed to
produce campaign commercials for this fall’s midterm elections. There will
also be plenty of healthcare-related votes on things like the public option,
expanded subsidies and other provisions that liberals support and
would ostensibly feel inclined to vote for even though they
never made it into the bill.  
 
5) What the conclusion is will be anyone’s guess.
 
The Senate Democrats think they can get 50 votes for this process; prospects
appear more bleak on the House side, where Pelosi will have to convince
people who voted against the initial bill to have an epiphany and now support
it.
 
Republicans will make an enormous deal about this process they know
so well and have used so many times during Republican control of the
Congress, most notably more than $1 trillion in tax cuts
during President George W. Bush’s administration. Reconciliation has
also been used to pass many significant healthcare bills, including
COBRA, the Children’s Health Insurance
Program, adding significant changes to Medicare and Medicaid and
even passing welfare reform.
 
But those were different times. Clearly.
 

WILL RECONCILIATION COST DEMOCRATS THE HOUSE, AS THE GOP WARNS? Ask A.B. returns Tuesday, March 2. Please join my weekly
video Q&A by sending your questions and comments to askab@digital-staging.thehill.com. Thank you.