As the never-ending health care reform saga lingers on, the issue of reconciliation has taken a front seat in the controversy. As you may or may not have gathered by now, “reconciliation” is a parliamentary procedure in the Senate that is essentially an end-run by the majority around the threat of a filibuster by the minority. In plain terms, it’s a simple majority of 51 votes (as opposed to the traditional 60 vote super-majority) being needed to pass legislation. The Democrats in the majority are currently considering using reconciliation to pass health care.
There’s a lot of levels to this, a lot to digest. First, let’s consider the arguments from both sides of the aisle.
The Republicans position is that reconciliation was intended to only be used in budgetary matters, and in fact the “Byrd amendment” confirms this and prohibits it’s use in non-budget items.
The Democrats position is that reconciliation is not rare, and has been used primarily in the past by Republicans. And the few times it was used for non-budget matters, Republicans were at the helm.
Both positions are factually correct. The Republicans are wrong for using it in the past the way they did – they broke the “rule” first. Democrats are wrong for using that precedent to their advantage, essentially saying that two wrongs make a right.
So both sides are both right and wrong. Unless the Supreme Court intervenes (and I would challenge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to file to do so if need be), the decision comes down to the Senate’s Parliamentarian, who’s “ruling” is non-binding and can be over-ridden by the President of the Senate; i.e. the Vice President of the United States. So we all know how that would go.
Since what actually will happen has nothing do with what is right or wrong, let’s think about the pros and cons of reconciliation in and of itself.
Pros: The original intention of reconciliation was to help legislators be more financially responsible with regards to budgetary matters.
This procedure was originally designed as a deficit-reduction tool, to force committees to produce spending cuts or tax increases called for in the budget resolution.
So even if there are some sticky details, the process can provide the final push-through on things everyone (at least in the majority) generally agrees about. So instead of legislative gridlock, reconciliation could allow a budget not only to pass, but be more fiscally sound as well. Congress saving time and money…woohoo! Who woulda thunk it?
Cons: It takes away the one protection the minority party has: the filibuster. In the big picture, this is antithetical to some of the most sacred American ideals.
The rights and protection of the “minority” (in terms of the group that holds the less popular position in a debated issue) was always a primary principle of the Founding Fathers. They were, of course, fearful of the “tyranny of the majority” – the idea that the resulting power of those in the majority could be just as oppressive to those in the minority as that of a King (kinda the whole point of the Revolution, right?). In fact, the US Senate itself is a testament to this: it’s very structure limits the power and influence of larger states over smaller ones. This was confirmed by Alexis de Tocqueville, who saw the majority’s tyranny over political minorities as “a constant threat” to American democracy.
Because we need to remember: a real, pure democracy is one person, one vote; and the majority rules. We don’t have that. We have a very advanced derivative of that: a constitutional, representative republic, that can accurately be short-handed to “American democracy” (as in, the version of democracy that we came up with and use). The Senate rules are the premier embodiment of this when passing legislation – if the majority simply rules there, then it could be argued that “American democracy” ceases to exist.
So in short: reconciliation is at best a well-intentioned legislative manuever to save time and potentially be financially responsible, and at worst is a bastardized perversion of our essential founding principles. Even taking recent precedent into account, which side would you want to be on?
Note: to be clear, a 51 vote “simple majority” is all that is required to pass a bill in the Senate. However, the 60 vote “supermajority” has been used frequently in the recent past as the standard threshold, since that is what is required for cloture (which ends debate and prevents a potential filibuster). The need for cluture due to the threat of filibuster has admittedly been used way too often (the filibuster rightly should only be used in extraordinary circumstances). However, in the case of healthcare reform, with so much at stake (17% of the economy, controversial sweeping social change), the protection of the minority via the filibuster option is arguably quite appropriate.
Posted by Chris James 
The Enlightened Pig 