Democrats Should Just Say No To Budget Filibusters

[depakid]

After we get through this season of passing necessary emergency legislation (in order to yank the American economy back from the cliff Bush led us to), Congress is going to have to turn its attention to the federal budget. They didn't pass one last year, and this year's budget is right around the corner as well. But a little-known rule in the Senate may dramatically change the balance of power between the parties during this process. It's called "reconciliation," and it's a magic bullet to slay Republican opposition to passing a budget with President Obama's priorities and agenda intact.

Because (are you sitting down?) budgetary bills that go through the reconciliation process cannot be filibustered in the Senate.

Which means both Obama and the Democrats in Congress may be able to totally ignore the congressional Republicans of both houses -- since these Republicans will be utterly powerless and utterly irrelevant to the discussion. The ramifications are enormous.

The process itself is part of the arcane set of rules the Senate runs by. From Wikipedia, here's a quick overview:

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. Because reconciliation limits debate and amendment, the process empowers the majority party.

Until 1996, reconciliation was limited to deficit reduction, but in 1996 the Senate adopted a precedent to apply reconciliation to any legislation affecting the budget, even legislation that would worsen the deficit. Under the administration of President George W. Bush, Congress has used reconciliation to enact three major tax cuts. Senate Republicans have repeatedly, though unsuccessfully, tried to use reconciliation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

It's a bit tricky, and there are a lot of i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed to qualify (including something known as the Byrd Rule), but this looks like a good way to get a budget passed without having to worry about getting 60 votes for it in the Senate.

<snip>

One possible flaw in this scenario, however, is that it requires Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to show some backbone. This may be beyond his abilities, from what we've seen so far. Reid would have to play some serious hardball by denying Republicans the chance to filibuster, and while I remain ever-hopeful that Reid will eventually stand up for his party, it is a weak link in the scheme, I have to admit.

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/democrats-should-just-say_b_168073.html

[DJ13]

1. it requires Harry Reid to show some backbone

So much for THAT idea.........

[depakid]

2. The only way to get family planning funding through

which one suspects Reid isn't personally all that interested in, even though the majority of Democrats (and rational Americans) are.

[backscatter712]

3. The key, I think, is to make Harry Reid more afraid of Obama than he is of the Rethugs.

Page Rahm Emanuel, and remind him to bring a dead fish...

[monmouth]

4. Leave the fish, bring the cannolis...n/t

[endarkenment]

5. 'bone' and 'reid'?

there is no evidence for any such thing.