Fiasco envelops farm bill

A clerical error caused widespread confusion on Capitol Hill Thursday, stealing the spotlight from Democrats hoping to tout the second veto override of President Bush’s reign.

Democrats in the House and Senate won enough votes to override Bush’s veto, but one of the farm bill’s 15 titles was omitted from the official “parchment” copy sent to the White House.

{mosads}Democratic leaders said the veto and the subsequent override by both chambers are still valid, and that most provisions of the bill are now law. They also noted that Bush mentioned the missing section — Title III on trade — in his veto message, suggesting he intended to veto that part of the bill.

The White House on Thursday repeated its opposition to the bill and chided Congress for its mistake.

“They've proved that they can even screw up spending the taxpayers' money unwisely,” quipped White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

But fellow White House spokesman Scott Stanzel added, “We view it as law.”

House Democrats on Thursday quickly passed a second, full version of the 1,768-page bill on the House floor, again by a veto-proof 306-110 count. The Senate, however, did not take up the House-passed bill. Instead, it simply completed the override.

Senators indicated all that needs to be done is to pass the missing title, but House plans to vote on a stand-alone bill containing that language were scuttled after angry Republican leaders lined up against it.

House Republican leaders, including those who supported the bill, complained that the measure is more vulnerable to lawsuits because of the error unless a whole new version is devised. They also complained that Democrats were not aboveboard in how they handled it.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio), the only House GOP leader to vote against the override, introduced a privileged resolution demanding an ethics investigation and formally admonishing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

Democrats blocked Boehner from speaking on the resolution with an immediate motion to table that passed 220-188. Democrats dismissed the accusations as an effort to turn a simple mistake into something sinister.

Ironically, the tables were reversed when a similar problem occurred during Republican rule of the House.

In 2005, an undetected clerical error led the House and Senate to approve slightly different versions of the Deficit Reduction Act. Bush signed the Senate-passed language into law.

House Democrats at the time argued the entire bill was unconstitutional and Pelosi, then the minority leader, demanded that the House vote again on the same bill.  Republicans refused, brushing off the 2005 typo as a non-issue.

That led several Democrats to file lawsuits seeking to overturn the law. Judges ruled that what Congress certifies as the legitimate document is the legitimate document.

The House parliamentarian is now using that same 1892 Supreme Court precedent, now accepted by Democratic leaders, to say that the farm bill is law.

“Fourteen of 15 titles in this farm bill are now law,” said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Of that remaining title, he said, “We’ll deal with that at some other point. It shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the panel, was less sanguine, reflecting the concerns of his party over the omission.

“Over the next few days, hopefully, the waters will smooth out,” Chambliss said. “We may have to take up the whole bill.”

The episode opened a window onto the little-known world of what happens with a bill after it gets passed but before it gets to the White House, and how traditions established in the 1800s have passed into the digital generation.

BlackBerry-wielding lawmakers, reporters and staffers more accustomed to discussions of fundraising and infighting found themselves parsing the meaning of the “trail of the parchment.”

Pelosi told reporters she takes responsibility for the problem. But in a letter to House leaders, House Clerk Lorraine Miller said the problem stemmed from a process adopted 10 years ago, when Republicans were in charge. In order to save money, the official “parchment” copy was not proofread. Miller said that process is being changed.

But she also said “leadership and the committee” called the enrolling staff to hurry the process along. That point was raised in Boehner’s call for an ethics investigation.

The dispute did yield a few light moments, such as when Pelosi was asked at her weekly news conference how she reacted when she heard about the error.

“Uncustomarily,” she said, pausing for a few long moments and searching for the right word. “Crude.”

Pressed by eager reporters in the hallway afterward, staff explained that she spelled out “C-R-A-P.” Pelosi then walked out, and confirmed that, yes, indeed, that’s what she said.

“That’s how I was raised,” she explained.
    
Jeffrey Young contributed to this article.