5 thoughts on “Hey- rogue staffer! Are you out there?”

1. Would that be a 60 votes required in the Senate, or regular old majority rules?

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2. but it’s not difficult. There are two choices for proceeding from here. One, the House re-passes HCR. If it’s absolutely word for word identical to the Senate, we’re done, and Obama signs it. If it contains changes, the Senate then reconsiders, rinse, repeat, but ANY vote the Senate takes would have to be preceded by cloture (60 votes). That’s called “ping-pong,” and is generally the faster way to finalize a bill. But it’s only faster if it can be finished in one or two “pings,” and if the two chambers know from the beginning where they’re going. Most people in the know would say this would only make sense if the House intended to simply pass the Senate bill, which seems unlikely.

   The second option is to appoint a “conference committee,” but conference committees’ real influence tends to be inversely proportional to the importance of the bill. The more important, the more the real negotiations happen outside the committee, between the staffs and principals of the chambers’ leaderships. The committee will consist of the chairmen of the five committees that passed the original bills, and that’s probably it. In this case it may not even meet except for ceremonial purposes. There will be no Republicans. Leadership staffs have been negotiating differences for weeks already now, along with the White House staff. They’re probably down to one or two major ones (abortion, dates of implementation, maybe medicare buy-in but I doubt it). With direction from the President, they’ll nail down those disagreements quickly and both chambers will pass identical versions in January. Again, the Senate would need 60 votes to proceed to final passage (not for final passage itself). Only budget bills (like reconciliation) are privileged and exempt from cloture.

   Important notes: Despite what progressives are saying, the public option is dead for now (although could easily be added later via reconciliation … and I believe if the
   
   Dems don’t lose big or gain in 2010 they will add in 2011). It will NOT be part of the conference, nor will Medicare buy-in. Nelson and Lieberman have just been too clear about their feelings on those items. Abortion will be the toughest nut to crack.  

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   1. assuming you are right, which bill will the conference start with – the House bill or the Senate Bill?

      What can they do?
      
      Forget the realistic political considerations – technically could they produce a bill that resembles neither?  For example, could they just write a one liner that says something like all American citizens are eligible to opt in to  Medicare coverage in exchange for premium payment set according to the ….blah glah blah

      Clearly, we don’t have the votes to pass that- but could the Conference do it?

      Which five committee Chairs?

      Leadership staffs have been negotiating differences for weeks already now, along with the White House staff
      

      Do you have a source for that?
      

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      1. Since the Senate bill is not actually an amended version of the HCR bill passed in the House but a gutted and amended version of a previously passed unrelated bill, we’ll have to see what the leadership decides.  

         The most likely conference scenario as I understand it is that the literal bill being considered in conference will be the Senate bill after it has been amended by the House as that is the most efficient procedural route to trigger a conference.  It will be understood by the negotiating parties that both bills will be under consideration and need to be reconciled in some way.  The conference committee can theoretically change anything they want, but jerking around both houses of congress is bad form. The makeup of the committee isn’t as important since the horse trading will be going on for final passage in either house with the recalcitrant votes that have been in the spotlight throughout the process.  If, for example, there’s a miraculous return of the public option, you will no doubt being seeing new air force bases in Nebraska, Connecticut, and Arkansas.

         My guess is that there won’t be many structural changes at all since the votes on the senate side are much harder to whip.  On the other hand, since every representative will be looking for a personal win to trumpet for next November the dollar amounts will probably move around a great deal in some pretty specific ways that will just show up as noise in the overall bill.
         

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      2. What the staffs (leadership and committee) have been up to for the last few weeks is cataloging the differences between the two bills. Since they are on the same subject and generally have the same form (based on the exchange concept) the list won’t be impossibly long. These senior staff members, who in some cases have been around as long as their bosses, whittle the list down to the real political disagreements, and that’s where the principals step in.

         Yes, they can, and often do, insert language into a conference report that neither chamber passed. It’s not considered bad form really. Often this “new language” is just a giveaway (nice way of saying a bribe) to recalcitrant members, sometimes as part of a deal involving completely different legislation. Inserting such goodies into a conference report is actually easier and smoother than doing it right off the bat in the original bill.

         But in this case, with stakes so high, the chances of that happening are slim. House leadership will make some demands, which Reid will take to his caucus and some subset of them will be deemed acceptable. The House will have its fig leaf, and the deal will be done. I suspect the big, public disagreements will be settled in the Senate’s direction (so Joe and Ben and Blanche can claim victory), while a lot of the little ones, some of which are hugely significant, will go the House’s way.

         The five chairmen are: Waxman (House Energy), Rangel (House Ways and Means), Miller (House Education and Labor), Baucus (Senate Finance), and Dodd (Senate HELP). Rep Dingell (who’s been working on this since the Jurassic Age) and Sen Kirk (standing in for Teddy) might be invited as well. It’s mostly symbolic.

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