Reconciliation (United States Congress)
Reconciliation is a legislative procedure in the United States Congress that facilitates the passage of certain bills, primarily budget-related legislation, with only a simple majority in the Senate. Established by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, this process allows Congress to avoid the threat of a filibuster, which typically requires a supermajority of sixty votes for a bill to advance. Reconciliation is especially useful in a closely divided Senate, enabling the passage of critical economic bills without the need for bipartisan support. It can be applied to legislation that modifies federal spending, taxes, or the debt limit, but it is not designed for discretionary spending, which follows a different appropriations process.
The reconciliation process begins when both chambers of Congress pass a budget bill that includes specific instructions for committees to develop related legislation. This often results in larger omnibus bills that fulfill the established budgetary goals. Historically, reconciliation has been used to enact over twenty significant pieces of legislation, with notable examples including the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which focused on reducing drug costs and promoting clean energy. The Byrd Rule, established in 1990, further governs the reconciliation process, ensuring that any provisions included must be relevant to the budgetary goals set forth. Overall, reconciliation serves as a crucial mechanism for enabling legislative action in a potentially gridlocked political environment.
Reconciliation (United States Congress)
Reconciliation is a procedure used by the US Congress to pass legislation. It was first created through the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. Reconciliation allows certain bills to be passed by Congress with only a simple majority in the Senate, rather than the sixty votes usually required, avoiding the threat of filibuster on particularly important types of legislation. It is primarily utilized for budget bills, but may also be utilized for legislation modifying taxes, the debt limit, or spending. Reconciliation procedures are not used for discretionary spending.
Reconciliation is an important tool for the Senate to avoid gridlock. If the Senate is narrowly split and both parties refuse to compromise, it allows the Senate to continue to perform vital functions such as passing budgets. Without this process, the threat of filibuster could stop many economic bills from passing. Reconciliation procedures have been used to enact more than twenty bills. Four others passed but were vetoed by the president.
Background
Congress is the legislative body of the US federal government and comprises two chambers—the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state can send two senators to the Senate, granting each state equal representation. Each state can also send a number of representatives to the House of Representatives proportional to the state’s population. This gives states with larger populations a greater presence in the House of Representatives.
For a bill to become a law, it must be passed by both chambers of Congress. Chambers vote on a bill, and if it receives a majority of votes in the House, it passes in that chamber. In the Senate, rules permit members to extend debate and engage in various tactics to prevent or delay a vote, but in most cases, if it goes to the floor, a simple majority is all that is needed to pass the bill.
If passed by both chambers, the bill is presented to the president. If the president chooses to sign the bill, it immediately becomes law. However, if the president vetoes the bill, it is returned to Congress. Congress must then pass the bill with a supermajority for it to become law.
To tackle specific tasks, Congress organizes itself into committees. On these committees, senators and representatives work to accomplish specific tasks or pass legislation related to specific issues. They may hold hearings to gather information from experts or request information from important executive agencies. For example, the Senate and the House have budget committees responsible for drafting Congress’s annual budget plan.
The Senate has maintained a tradition of uninterrupted debate, meaning debate continues until a firm resolution is reached. For this reason, senators sometimes intentionally prolong debate or discussions about a bill to prevent it from coming to a vote. This tactic is called a filibuster. To limit the use of the filibuster, the Senate permits a vote by two-thirds of the Senate to limit debate to an additional thirty hours. This process is called cloture.
In the past, senators were required to continue talking to maintain a filibuster. However, in the modern era, senators can often stop the progress of a bill by signaling that they intend to filibuster. For this reason, a supermajority of sixty votes is often required to pass a bill.
Overview
Reconciliation is a process by which the Senate may pass a bill without a supermajority and the potential for a filibuster. It was intended to help a narrowly divided Congress pass a budget—a necessary duty assigned to Congress. Because the House of Representatives has no filibuster rule, meaning no supermajority is needed to pass bills, no reconciliation procedure is required in the House of Representatives.
The reconciliation process was created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. The reconciliation process begins when a budget bill is successfully passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate. If the bill gets fewer than sixty votes in the Senate, the opposing party may threaten to filibuster the bill.
When the House and the Senate pass budget bills, they include reconciliation instructions. This process means that congressional committees must approve bills that meet the spending requirements outlined in the bills approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives. These bills are compiled into much larger bills, commonly called omnibus bills. The Senate and the House of Representatives then amend the bills, eventually reaching an agreement on a final budget proposal.
Reconciliation stops one party from filibustering a budget bill. It may be used on any legislation that changes the federal debt limit, alters federal spending, or alters federal revenues. It has been used to address mandatory spending, such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. However, reconciliation may not be used to address discretionary spending. This spending is typically controlled through the appropriations process. Though using reconciliation to alter such spending is not illegal, restrictions on the reconciliation process make altering discretionary spending impractical.
Notably, reconciliation legislation goes through the normal committee process, and most committees can meet the reconciliation directives specified in the bill. Reconciliation directives give committees numerical values to meet but do not specify what changes a committee should make to meet that numerical value. If a committee fails to meet the reconciliation directives, they may offer amendments before sending the bill to a full Senate vote.
The Democratic Party won fifty seats in the 2020 election cycle. This gave Democrats a narrow majority in the Senate, as Vice President Kamala Harris could cast the tiebreaking vote. This gave the Democrats the ability to pass legislation, but not the ability to avoid a filibuster. In April 2021, the Senate parliamentarian, who advises Senate leadership on precedents and interpretation of rules, agreed that under Section 304 of the Congressional Budget Act, Democrats may repeatedly revise the budget resolution in a single fiscal year, increasing the legislative power associated with the procedure.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) was passed as a budget reconciliation bill after 16 hours of debate. The bill is a revision of President Biden's Build Back Better Act intended to reduce prescription drug costs, promote clean, domestic energy, and reduce federal debt. Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate voted for the bill, but all Republicans opposed it.
Bibliography
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