Civics question on the health care bill

I'm not trying to pick a political argument, but just trying to brush up on my civics knowledge. My question is, how did the health care bill get signed into law without the Senate having a chance to filibuster? What I think happened is the Democrats in the House voted on the old Senate version that passed 60-40 while Ted Kennedy was still alive. With the Senate now 59-41 (corrected), they knew that nothing else would pass, so had to take the old Senate version or nothing.

They also approved a "reconsiliation bill," with their suggested changes, but the Senate is under no obligation to agree to them. The House has no bargaining power over the Senate in this situation, so I don't see why the Senate would agree to the changes.

Do I have this right?

That confused me a little, too. I don't think what you are suggesting is what happened, though. There was a vote to restrict debate time (or end filibustering) that needed 60 votes. I think it is special to the situation and, yeah, it had to do with one of the amendments. The details allude me, though, and I can't find just a straightforward answer to it online.

To put in my 2 cents as an independent (and a little more politically), I think the Republicans are going about this the wrong way and, while they think the mob of teabaggers who don't know anything about anything are going to grow into some sort of majority force, all they're really doing is forcing the swing vote far, far away with their nonsense. In every other regard they are being petty and shamelessly disrespectful, too. I don't think they will notice how bad they lost until November, when their GOP takeover doesn't happen. Unfortunately, I also am sure rates are going to go up in the short run, the insurance companies are going to do everything they can to help Republicans, and a lot of people aren't going to notice that obvious connection.

Quote: FootofGod

That confused me a little, too. I don't think what you are suggesting is what happened, though. There was a vote to restrict debate time (or end filibustering) that needed 60 votes. I think it is special to the situation and, yeah, it had to do with one of the amendments. The details allude me, though, and I can't find just a straightforward answer to it online.

I heard something about that the vote to end the filibuster. However, if they can do that, why doesn't it happen every time a vote is between 40-60 and 49-51? For example, why didn't they do that to shut up Strom Thurmond when he spoke for 24 straight hours? I thought it was a fundamental tacit of US government that it isn't supposed to change easily, but you're supposed to need a supermajority in the Senate.

You are correct that the bill that was passed this week was passed by the Senate while Ted Kennedy was alive.
I assume it's just a typo that you say the Senate is now 61-49 rather than 59-41.

Regarding reconciliation, it's important to understand that the need for a 60-vote majority to end a filibuster is not a constitutional requirement, it is merely a rule of the Senate (which has the power to set its own parliamentary rules). There is apparently a rule allowing what is called a reconciliation bill to be passed without the possibility of a filibuster, so only a simple majority is needed in the Senate. The defining characteristic of such a bill is that it is budgetary in nature, changing spending or revenues. For example, the proposed reconciliation bill fiddles with the fines for not buying insurance and with the subsidies for lower-income people, both of which are clearly allowed under the rule.
Thus, there is a strong possibility the House's changes will be adopted.

Yup, 59-41, that is embarrassing.

You seem to be the right person to ask, thanks. If I may ask a follow-up question, is there any statute of limitations on a bill? For example, if the Senate is 60-40, but likely to lose the super-majority due to a death or an election, couldn't they pass lots of legislation they liked while they still can, and let the House take their sweet time with it.

I think the primary reason why no one has really tried to change the filibuster rule to eliminate the supermajority requirement is that each party knows that they will benefit from it from time to time when they are in the minority. Generally, whenever this comes up, the party in the minority calls eliminating the supermajority requirement the "nuclear option" and the majority party (but below 60 senators) calls it the "constitutional option." You can look back to the fight over confirming judges appointed by Bush when Republicans had somewhere between 51 and 59 senators, and see people on both sides making the exact opposite argument from what they are saying now.

Quote: Wizard

You seem to be the right person to ask, thanks. If I may ask a follow-up question, is there any statute of limitations on a bill? For example, if the Senate is 60-40, but likely to lose the super-majority due to a death or an election, couldn't they pass lots of legislation they liked while they still can, and let the House take their sweet time with it.

I'm only guessing, but I suspect that a bill passed by one house would only remain valid for the "Congress" that passed it (i.e., we are currently in the 111th Congress, as we get a new Congress for each term of the House.)

I think the bill expires when Congress adjourns. There is something I remember called a "pocket veto" that lets the President hold a bill at the end of a session...once the session expires, the bill does also. This keeps the bill from a vote to override the veto. That being the case, I am assuming that all bills "die" at that point and have to go through the process again in the next Congress. I am going to keep looking for the answer...

The current issue is a bit scary in process. A bill was passed and signed into law by our President. It is 100% the law of the land at this point. What if the reconciliation bill never passes? We now have a law that has things in it that everyone was promised would be taken out. The bottom line is that they never really have to be taken out at this point--if the Senate decided to vote "no" on reconciliation or the House failed to approve any changes to it, the country would have the law exactly as is.

I am not debating the issues of the bill--we may have many opinions on that here--but I am debating the process. I don't trust politicians as far as I can throw them so the process makes me wonder WHEN someone withe the power to do the above (at this point, the opposition does not have the votes to do much...people from the other party would have to join them to have any real impact on the vote tally) will take advantage of the process and make laws that are not easily undone. Sure, they might lose the election...but what if they had a full two years to do what they wanted?

Quote: RonC

I am not debating the issues of the bill--we may have many opinions on that here--

I agree, too much contention would make me abandon this thread.

I will say that the question that the Wizard asked and the response given constitutes some insight I have gotten no where else! Thanks!

If this is good or bad for the country ultimately remains to be seen, I think very few see this as well written, with many important things unaddressed. Nonetheless I would agree with those that point out that the U.S. being quite alone amongst developed countries in having the system we had, a system that is clearly broken, meant something had to be done. But I get the impression the critical issues are still out there to be fixed. And I think that it is not "the rich" that are going to be paying for this, but that the middle class will be the ones to ultimately get clobbered.

One interesting part for me lies in whether or not this turns out to be good for the Democrats. I think they are banking on the boost from creating an entitlement that everyone seems to agree will never now go away; however, the beneficiaries so far seem to be people who don't really vote. And the real voters have plenty of angry folk amongst their numbers.

Quote: odiousgambit

I think very few see this as well written, with many important things unaddressed.

The writing thing bothers me a lot. The issue is whether or not they (as a group) even know what they passed into law. The Speaker said it needed to become law so that we could find out what was in it. I don't view it as our Congress' job to send us a Cracker Jack box and let us hope the surprise is good. It is their job to write laws that are constitutional, are clear in both intent and content, and seek to better our country. I would be equally unhappy about process had this been done by the opposite party....I hate how some things are done in DC.

I think every law should be subjected to vigorous scrutiny by the folks writing it. Just like they prepare people to go before hearings, I think they should "prepare" the bill to be law. Attack each point within the law to make sure they are compatible with existing law (updating or changing it correctly, if that is the case), meet the constitutional requirements, have correct implementation guidelines, and generally just meet the smell test. It appears there was a lot of effort in passing this law and not as much on making sure all parts of it worked with the other parts.

As an example, we heard it said that pre-existing conditions would be covered from day 1 or at least this year. They are actually not fully covered until 2014. Now you come to the question "Did the President purposefully mislead the people of the United States by stating coverage starts this year?"...as much as I may oppose the bill--I don't think so. I just think it is another of many coming cases of lack of due diligence by our elected officials. Now they will scramble to fix this issue because their intention may well have been to cover them immediately but their lack of proper review allowed a law to be signed that does not do that.

This morning I hate U.S. politics ... just hate it. Even a good strong cup of coffee isn't enough to make it better.

--Dorothy

Quote: Wizard

I'm not trying to pick a political argument, but just trying to brush up on my civics knowledge. My question is, how did the health care bill get signed into law without the Senate having a chance to filibuster? What I think happened is the Democrats in the House voted on the old Senate version that passed 60-40 while Ted Kennedy was still alive. With the Senate now 59-41 (corrected), they knew that nothing else would pass, so had to take the old Senate version or nothing.

They also approved a "reconsiliation bill," with their suggested changes, but the Senate is under no obligation to agree to them. The House has no bargaining power over the Senate in this situation, so I don't see why the Senate would agree to the changes.

Do I have this right?

You basically have it correct. Normally the House and Senate act seperately on similar bills. The House almost always passes more bills than the Senate and the House bills are almost always more pleasing to the party in power. In the Senate you need 60 votes to end debate and vote. Way, way back you needed 67 but debate had to actually be debate. In other words, you had to talk. Now here is where it gets interesting. Any senator of the 67 could talk but had to keep talking. No breaks and no stopping to think of what you would say. Not that it had to be germane to the debate, but you had to talk and no repeating yourself. A senator could read "War and Peace" as long as they could talk and, well, avoid a bathroom break. NEver saw the movie but I think this was part of "Mr Smith Goes to Washington."

By the 1980s this was a memory. In the 1960s the threshold was reduced to 60 votes and no "true filibuster" but every now and then one party will make the other talk and literally "bring in the cots" to sleep on. The key is the filibuster is *supposed* to slow things down, like all Senate rules. The Founding Fathers wanted the HoR to be the engine and the Senate the brakes so radicals can't pass just everything but neither can they stop everything.

When both Houses have passed bills they go to conference and they make them one bill. Then they are redebated and the same votes to close debate since it is a "new" issue (bill) to debate.

In the Health Care Bill what happened is one party actually locked another out of the debate (no kidding, they locked the GOP out of their offices when they wrote it!) since the other party didn't have the votes to keep the debate up. On 12/24/09 the bill passed the Seante with the expectation of a conference committee sometime after the new year and also expecting the same ability to close debate because, who thought a GOP candidate would win in MA?!

When Scott Brown did win, the Democrat Party had a big problem. No final bill would get to a vote in the Senate. So the HoR had to swallow the Senate Bill and vote on it as if they had simply given up all of their points in committee. Then Obama signed it into law. Now there is a process called "reconciliation" that is supposed to be only for "minor" matters, but they are using it to get around the cloture issue. Almost as if you were in a local civic orginization and debated and passed a budget of $10,000 for a picnic but forgot you needed $50 for something so you have a "mini" vote to appropriate those funds.

Reconciliation was not meant for major policy issues, just budget issues.

You are right,though. The Senate is under no obligation to do anything at this point.

On your other issue, at the end of a Congressional Session, ALL bills not passed are dead and the next session starts with a clean slate, all issues must be rebrought to the floor. This is not to say an unfinished bill will not be reintroduced word for word, but it must be voted on all over from square one.

Up here in Canada, where we have a parliamentary system, bills are created and passed (or failed) with majority on a single vote. The huge difference between bills is that we don't have a bunch of riders and non-meaningful attachments to the bill. If we have a crime bill, it's about crime... no tossing in $50 million for a road in Saskatchewan. So it makes our legislation alot shorter and easier to understand.

I actually tried to read through the health care bill a few weeks ago to figure out what was in it. What a mess.

Oh, and our Senate is essentially a bunch of appointees by the government with indefinite terms who rubber stamps the laws, 99% of the time... an absolute waste of our tax dollars, IMO. Our Senate does not initiate bills.

Quote: boymimbo

Up here in Canada, where we have a parliamentary system, bills are created and passed (or failed) with majority on a single vote. The huge difference between bills is that we don't have a bunch of riders and non-meaningful attachments to the bill. If we have a crime bill, it's about crime... no tossing in $50 million for a road in Saskatchewan. So it makes our legislation alot shorter and easier to understand.

I actually tried to read through the health care bill a few weeks ago to figure out what was in it. What a mess.

Oh, and our Senate is essentially a bunch of appointees by the government with indefinite terms who rubber stamps the laws, 99% of the time... an absolute waste of our tax dollars, IMO. Our Senate does not initiate bills.

The USA Senate was once appointed. That led to Senators being "owned" by people. I think it was changed between 1910 and 1920.

It would be great if they didn't have all the riders. It would be even better if instead of feeling they need to keep making new laws every session they would rather pass a budget and go over old laws that could be repealed or cleaned up, then spend the rest of the time helping their constituents.

The USA is now almost an "effective" Parlimentary system in the Legislative Branch. Few in either party cross over. And Obamacare is the first bill I ever remember passing despite bipartisian opposition.

You tried to read it? I can read about a page of that stuff. It can put amphetimine freaks to sleep.