UPDATE: News today at Hot Air via Townhall: Dem sources: Senate “fix” for ObamaCare could add another $300 billion to price tag; Update: Dems ready for reconciliation, says Kyl

Here is something most people don’t know: Senators already expressed their opinion that reconciliation should not be used to pass ObamaCare last year. Here is what most don’t know about the budget conference report for fiscal year ‘09:

Dem leaders are looking into reconciliation, a parliamentary maneuver only requiring 51 votes, to shovel pieces of an unpopular healthcare bill through the Senate. The Senate rejected this approach to pass healthcare legislation last year TWICE (unanimously in one case and by a 79-14 margin in the second case). While provisions to require 60-votes should have been included in the Budget Conference Report that came out of the House and Senate conference on each chamber’s respective Budget Resolutions, they were not. The question is why, while the answer points to yet another duplicitous backroom decision that ignores not only the will of the entire Senate, but in today’s environment also ignores the will of the American people writ large by the voters of Massachusetts on a bill that 2/3 of the country does not want.

For a description of the United States budget process see here.

The United States House Committee on the Budget and the United States Senate Committee on the Budget are responsible for drafting budget resolutions. Following the traditional calendar, by early April both committees finalize their drafts and submit it to their respective floors for consideration and adoption.

A budget resolution, which is one form of a concurrent resolution, binds Congress, but is not a law, and so does not require the President’s signature. The budget resolution serves as a blueprint for the actual appropriation process, and provides Congress with some control over the appropriations process. No new spending authority, however, is provided until appropriation bills are enacted.

Once both houses pass the resolution, selected Representatives and Senators negotiate a conference report to reconcile differences between the House and the Senate versions. The conference report, in order to become binding, must be approved by both the House and Senate.

The federal government’s fiscal year currently begins on October 1st and ends on September 30th of the next calendar year.

So the United States House Committee on the Budget and the United States Senate Committee on the Budget each create a Budget Resolution for amending and voting by the respective chambers. This is followed by a selection of conferees by each chamber who will then meet to hash out a single Budget Conference Report that each chamber will subsequently vote on.

Dr. Hunter, former policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and President and CEO of the Social Security Institute writes the following:

The only way to defeat Reconciliation is to be prepared at a moment’s notice to pivot from a localized strategy precisely tailored to threaten targeted Democrats’ weak spots to a national campaign aimed not at the substance of ObamaCare so much as the fairness and political prudence of jamming something as enormous and contentious as healthcare reform down the throats of the American people with fewer than a majority of sitting Senators voting in favor of it. The strategy to defeat Reconciliation must be aimed at the Democratic Party as a whole questioning its judgment, prudence, fairness and wisdom. The task at this point will be to characterize Reconciliation as political thuggery, totally unacceptable in the American democratic process; to raise such national outrage at the strong-arm tactics of Reconciliation that Democrats understand the American People will not tolerate it and will throw them out of office at the first opportunity.

Here is a suggested framework on which to build a strategy against Reconciliation:

Senator Reid threatens to tie dissenting Senators’ hands behind their backs with procedural restrictions on amendments, gag them with strict limits on debate and pummel the long tradition of minority rights in the U.S. Senate by ramming ObamaCare through the Senate with a bare majority or even with fewer than a minimum 51 votes of sitting Senators, if necessary, by having Vice President Biden break a 50-50 tie.

The parliamentary maneuver Senator Reid would use to pass ObamaCare by less than a majority vote of sitting Senators is known as “Reconciliation.” Reconciliation is an extraordinary budgetary procedure designed specifically to ensure passage of an annual budget and avoid a stalemate leading to a complete shutdown of the federal government. Reconciliation was not designed and never intended to circumvent regular order in the Senate to ram through controversial and far-reaching legislation such as healthcare “reform.”

Democratic Senator Robert C. Byrd, one of the authors of the Reconciliation procedure and foremost authority on the history of Senate rules and procedure describes what happens under Reconciliation this way:

“Under reconciliation’s gag rule there are twenty hours of debate or less if time is yielded back, and little or no opportunity to amend.”

This is political thuggery—political assault and battery upon the American People pure and simple. Senator Byrd best expresses why using Reconciliation to jam ObamaCare down America’s throat degrades the U.S. Senate and violates the spirit of our system of checks and balances:

“Using reconciliation to ram through complicated, far-reaching legislation is an abuse of the budget process…With critical matters such as a massive revamping of our health care system which will impact the lives of every citizen of our great land, the Senate has a duty to debate and amend and explain in the full light of day, however long that may take, what it is we propose, and why we propose it…We must not run roughshod over minority views. A minority can be right…Ramrodding and railroading have no place when it comes to such matters as our people’s healthcare.”

That is why Senator Byrd says, “I cannot, and I will not, vote to authorize the use of the reconciliation process to expedite passage of health care reform legislation.”

What Majority Leader Reid is hiding from the American public is the fact that a huge bipartisan majority of Senators agreed with Senator Byrd, when they were writing this year’s budget resolution back in April, that Reconciliation should not be used to railroad ObamaCare through the Senate.

During deliberations on the Senate Budget Resolution earlier this year, Senator Jim DeMint introduced a point-of-order amendment that would require a 60-vote majority to pass “any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report that eliminates the ability of Americans to keep their health plan or their choice of doctor (as determined by the Congressional Budget Office).” The Senate approved the DeMint Amendment unanimously.

Subsequently, before the Senate Budget Resolution went to a Conference Committee where differences with the House Budget Resolution were to be worked out, DeMint offered a motion to instruct the Senate Conferees not only to insist on retaining the 60-vote provision in the final Conference Report but also to widen the scope of the provision to cover any provision and so forth that decreases the number of Americans enrolled in private health insurance while increasing the number enrolled in government-managed, rationed health care. The DeMint motion to instruct conferees to insist on the 60-vote requirement for healthcare passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 79 to 14.

As a matter of congressional comity, the House ordinarily would have been expected to accede to the Senate provision since it affected Senate rules that applied only to the Senate. But mysteriously the 60-vote rule was stripped from the resolution in the dead of night, behind closed doors and out of sight of the rest of the Senate and the American People. Remarkably, Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Kent Conrad, must have fallen asleep during the Conference Committee meeting because he allowed the Demint 60-vote requirement to be removed from the Budget Resolution in Conference.

Now, Senator Reid stands on the flimsy excuse that the DeMint amendments are irrelevant because they were not in the final Budget Resolution Conference Report. But make no mistake, the 60-vote requirement—which was TWICE voted for by huge, bipartisan majorities in the Senate and did not affect the House—wasn’t in the final Budget Resolution Conference Report ONLY because Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad thumbed his nose at three fourths of his colleagues and took it upon himself contrary to the will of the Senate to unceremoniously strip their 60-vote rule out of the Conference Report.

With one-sixth of the U.S. economy at stake, the Senate should insist upon abiding by its own rule, which it TWICE adopted by overwhelming bipartisan votes. Why would Senator Reid insist upon using a provision the Senate TWICE agreed should NOT be used on healthcare because they knew it wouldn’t be right to pass a bill that divides the nation into feuding factions by a slim 50 votes?

Harry Reid’s argument that he is justified in jamming ObamaCare down America’s throat because there is no rule against it—actually because one rogue Senator took it upon himself to reverse the will and judgment of the entire Senate and eliminate a rule Senators thought was right and appropriate—is the pure sophistry of a tyrant.

The question is, what justifies the Senate in violating its own cherished norms and traditions? Why does Senator Reid refuse to abide by the 60-vote rule on healthcare the Senate TWICE voted to impose on itself by huge bipartisan majorities? Why does Senator Reid ignore the authoritative judgment of fellow Democrat Robert Byrd that it would be wrong, wrong, wrong to steamroller ObamaCare through the Senate under Reconciliation?

If Senator Kent Conrad had performed his duties correctly, then reconciliation would not even be on the table. An point-of-order amendment allows a Senator to raise a point-of-order objection and require adherence to the 60-vote requirement. Remember, this passed unanimously. The instruction-to-conferees amendment which passed 79-14 is supposed to require the Senate conferees insist the 60-vote rule be included in the final Budget Conference Report. Yet it was not.

This is not and never will be a parliamentary argument. However, from a PR perspective, the Democrats can be forced into a defensive posture and answer to the American public why – why do they feel the rest of us must follow rules while they can just chose to ignore them at a whim? It is this elitist “rules for thee but not for me” attitude that turns most of us off to Washington to begin with. The spirit of the 60-vote rule and minority rights they voted on in 2009 will not just disappear next year. The 2010 Budget Resolution from the Senate must contain the point-of-order amendment and the motion to instruct the Senate conferees that were stripped out the final Budget Conference report in 2009, effectively neutering the will the Senate. To allow this to continue in order to pass extremely unpopular legislation would be just one other example of elitists making up the rules and using disingenuous tactics to secure their ability to trample the will of the governed. We must insist they follow their own rules now as well as later in the next fiscal year. Just because somebody conveniently forgot to insist on the will of the Senate during conference with the House is no excuse not to adhere to self-imposed rules. Now is the time to display qualities of discipline and character – especially now. No more games, not more hiding, and no more dishonesty.

The American people have spoken. They are sick and tired of backroom deals, late night votes, broken promises of transparency, and now to top it all off the Democrats in the Senate are talking about using a procedure they agreed would not be used while allowing that will to be usurped by a committee chairman asleep at the wheel.

Fairness, abiding by the rules. Wake up Senator Reid – Americans hate backroom deals – they feed into the narrative of sneaky, shadowy, elitist weasels that is costing your party dearly and will continue to do so. The fact remains that it was the will of the Senate that reconciliation be taken off the table for this fiscal year and subsequently that will was ignored in conference. However, ignoring the will of a legislative body in a conference report does not nullify that will. A declaration cannot be summarily dismissed because somebody or some group decided not to champion a resolution even when instructed by a vote of 79-14 in the to do so. The Democrats, who have been backroom dealing and skulking in the shadows since this thing began, are about to ignore their own will if they follow through with reconciliation.

One is only as good as their word. Any Democratic Senator who now attempts to use this procedural trickery may be called a great asset by their progressive allies – maybe – but the rest of America will make it clear they were off by two letters and make their will known at the ballot box.

To pass healthcare legislation via this procedural bypass of minority rights, therefore impacting over 1/6 of our economy, would be the very definition of duplicity. It would be the very definition of audacity.

Related:

Breaking: Lincoln will oppose reconciliation

ObamaCare: Night of the Living Dead Bill

Reconciliation flip-flopper of the morning

Oh my: GOP ready to boycott ObamaCare summit?

I have very advanced heart disease and I am the surprised owner of 25 stents. Many know my political blog, but not my heart disease blog. The current political fight does take a toll on one’s health. It is stressful dealing with idiots running the country and finding yourself in the middle of a fight for your life. It is also exhilarating. That said, I often feel the need to refuel and remind myself of why I am fighting.

As I state in My Story on my heart disease blog, I am a proud member of Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church.

I consider the pastor, Larry Coulter, an influential, inspiring and entertaining speaker. His presence can lift even the lowest of spirits and his sense of humor hints at the possibility that had he not chosen being a pastor, he could have ranked among the best of comedians. He does not wear his politics on his sleeve, so I certainly do not speak for Pastor Coulter, nor do I know if he agrees with most, any, or all of what I write. However, each of us is called in his or her own way and his sermons always appear to be directed like a laser at you, this listener, and nobody else. It’s uncanny.

He is joined by a wonderful group of people, including Associate Pastor Mike Killeen and Associate Pastor Britta Dukes. All are blessed with the ability to make one laugh, cry, and hang on their every word. I often go back and listen to Pastor Coulter’s sermons if I am feeling down and need a lift. For those so inclined, I find this type of therapy to be extremely beneficial and I highly recommend it. Being inspired is an integral part for anyone living with heart disease, recovering from treatment or in most of your cases, just dealing with fighting for liberty and freedom and worrying what the future has in store for you, your parents, children and grandchildren.

Listen to some of Larry’s sermons here. Archived sermons can be found here. In 2008, I was particularly impressed by the “Vine Ripened” series that occurred during the period of August 31st through November 3rd. I don’t see a donate button on the site, but if you find the sermons to be as fulfilling as I have, if you wish you can contact Larry or any of the staff and ask how you can contribute. Although I am a member, this is not a donation drive. If you like the sermons and wish to contribute, then please do so. If you don’t wish to contribute, that is absolutely fine and I still hope you will take the time to listen to the sermons. I believe Larry to be one of America’s undiscovered treasures and hope you will agree.

Update: Why this is reaching a critical moment: Howard Dean, DFA, Launch Campaign Encouraging 51-Vote Health Care Bill. If we ignore the following, we do so at our country’s peril. This strategy will work.

Keep the following in mind as you read this post: FORCE THE DEMOCRATS TO DEFEND IGNORING A RULE THEY AGREED TO. THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO GROUND TO STAND ON. You will see this again below.

In this post, I argue how the coup de grace is nigh for ObamaCare. I also point to this post that details Senator Jim DeMint’s amendments how they can be used to kill reconciliation. From the second post:

During deliberations on the Senate Budget Resolution earlier this year, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) introduced a point-of-order amendment that would require a 60-vote majority to pass “any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report that eliminates the ability of Americans to keep their health plan or their choice of doctor (as determined by the Congressional Budget Office).” The Senate approved the DeMint Amendment unanimously.

Subsequently, before the Senate Budget Resolution went to a Conference Committee where differences with the House Budget Resolution were to be worked out, DeMint offered a motion to instruct the Conferees not only to insist on retaining the 60-vote provision in the final Conference Report but also to widen the scope of the provision to cover any provision and so forth that decreases the number of Americans enrolled in private health insurance while increasing the number enrolled in government-managed, rationed health care. The Demint motion to instruct passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 79 to 14.

As a matter of congressional comity, the House ordinarily would have been expected to accede to the Senate provision since it affected Senate rules that applied only to the Senate. Remarkably, Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Kent Conrad, allowed the Demint 60-vote requirement to be removed from the Budget Resolution in Conference.

One comment on first post linked above comes from jfxgillis:

G.J.:

To take them in reverse order, the motion to instruct simply isn’t operative anymore. The instruction was not in the Budget Conference Report but it passed anyway.

The other amendment appears to rely on a CBO finding that hasn’t happened yet on a bill that hasn’t had a floor vote yet.

The amendments only passed in the first place because they don’t matter.

Once again it is up to the grassroots to get involved and put serious pressure on the Senate concerning these amendments and make known our expectation that these amendments be adhered to because of the promise by unanimous vote in one case and a vote of 79-14 in the second. If we shame enough Democrats the possibility increases that votes will be lacking in the Senate even for Reconciliation. It is up to the us to pressure Republicans to make this an issue. Republicans, as we all know too well, are prone to rolling over and need prodding on a regular basis. To borrow a Texas phrase, it’s like herding cattle.

The amendments passed. Therefore, if the Senators wish to be seen as men and women of character, they should follow the rules they set out for themselves. No more rules for thee (you and me) but not for me (the elitist politicians). No more spineless non-responses and no more pompous attitudes. If the 9/12 DC march taught Republicans and Democrats anything, it is the grassroots is real, we are big, and we will vote.

The Senate insiders have tried all along to dismiss the DeMint provisions on technical grounds by ignoring the facts that got us to the current situation. The grassroots must be ruthless and relentless in pushing the Republicans to do the right thing. It is all about constructing the right narrative. If we start listening to excuses from insiders, our movement will be hijacked by the establishment (beltway insiders, including politicians of both parties), which is exactly what they will try to do. But hijacking the movement is less about elbowing for who gets credit than about herding us so we don’t rock the boat and make life uncomfortable for them. What they fail to realize is they are the cattle and we are the cowboys. We herd them, not the other way around.

First, by any stretch of the imagination any bill currently under consideration by the Senate satisfies the conditions set down in the original DeMint Amendment that passed by unanimous consent. I would love to debate anyone arguing otherwise.

We can argue all day whether or not CBO would rule otherwise but that gives up the fight before it even begins. The CBO doesn’t have to rule on anything since the provision has been stripped. I suspect my detractors response above has been talking to a Republican insider or is getting his information from one second or third hand.

Of course CBO hasn’t yet ruled whether or not a bill satisfies the DeMint conditions, because it is not law yet. But the pertinent point is that the DeMint Amendment is not law precisely because it was dropped unceremoniously in conference contrary to the will of the Senate as evidenced by a huge bipartisan majority (79 votes). How did that happen? The Senate Budget Committee Chairman who voted for the measure twice on the floor of the Senate and was under instructions from his Senate colleagues to insist on the Senate provision in conference turned his head.

The reader may be asking why Senator DeMint is not pushing this issue hard – after all they are his amendments. The answer is obvious – he knows his cowardly Republican colleagues won’t stand up and fight and he doesn’t think the grass roots can be mobilized by this kind of procedural argument, which seems to be confirmed by my detractor above. If we allow ourselves to get intimidated by the technical details and try to explain and discuss them so we pass the test as Senate parliamentarians, we will lose the American public. The parliamentarian test is another favorite technique used to keep strategy control firmly within the hands of the insiders. That is why we have to construct the narrative and control it from the outside rather than allowing the insiders to set the terms of the debate.

Republicans always allow themselves to be cowed. They know that as politicians they are a dreadful lot, their political skills leaving much to be desired. They reveal this inferiority complex by this kind of timid, overly cautious behavior. Well, sometimes cattle need prodding. We need to take up the issue and insist on it. We must put ourselves in the drivers seats. The Senate Republicans are our passengers, our guests, and it is we who must take them along for a ride – not the other way around. Then let the Democrats stand on technicalities after placed on the defensive. The American public will see right through them.

This is a very simple story. The Senate made a rule and then broke other rules in the dead of night to throw it in the garbage. This is the same way these jokers have destroyed the Constitution. The Senate passed a rule committing itself not to consider under Reconciliation any healthcare reform bill that satisfied certain conditions. It left it to CBO to determine whether the bill would satisfy those conditions but it is self evident that any bill currently under consideration does satisfy them. The Senate then instructed its conferees to insist on retaining that amendment in conference. The Senate Budget Committee Chairman betrayed his colleagues and acted contrary to their instructions. We know for a fact that it was he because the House conferees had no political purchase on the provision. It could only be stripped out with Conrad’s acquiescence.

Now someone wants to turn around and argue that the DeMint amendment doesn’t apply because it is no longer in the Budget Resolution and, oh by the way even if it were still in the Budget Resolution it wouldn’t make any difference anyway because CBO would not certify any current bill under consideration as satisfying the conditions established by the amendment. Of course the DeMint amendment doesn’t apply, but they had to cheat to strip it so that it wouldn’t apply — we should not allow ourselves to be conned into defending status quo rules when other rules and long tradition of the Senate had to be broken to get us to this status quo – this is so Republican. Instead, we should be arguing that the Senate should abide by the rule it adopted for itself anyway because it should still be in the resolution and would be in the resolution if the Democrats hadn’t played games and the Republicans hadn’t slept through them.

As for CBO, we must simply assert that the only way CBO could possibly not certify a bill as satisfying the conditions of the amendment is if they were being manipulated by the Democrats.

The Republicans have the rules and the politics on their side, and they have simply been unwilling to pick up the ball and run with it just as they were unwilling to fight ObamaCare and RHINOCare until we made it impossible for them not to. We have to stick the ball in their hands and push them out front so either they run with it or get crushed. We have to re-focus the debate on fairness, abiding by the rules. Oddly enough, Robert C. Byrd provides us the best arguments for not passing healthcare reform under Reconciliation. Just ask yourself this: If the situation were reversed, would the Democrats be wringing their hands and being so fastidious? One guess, and my bet is you will get it right. Why, because if you are reading this chances are you are smarter than most politicians. I know you, not personally, but I have met hundreds like you and color me impressed. For any mindless ObamaBots who are reading this, the answer is – of course not.

The establishment knows how to play the game and that is why they take us to the cleaners on a regular basis – in the past. Now its our turn. Spin cycle anyone?

It’s up to us, the grassroots. We can’t go all wobbly on America now.

The argument that the Senate would have rejected the entire conference report if it really wanted the amendment in is weak. First, it all happened so fast I am sure only a couple of Democrats realized it was gone. The Republicans voted against the Resolution anyway. This was a set up and we are falling into the trap they set. Finally, we have to make it clear that this was not a provision in dispute between the House and Senate, which would have given the “it-passed-anyway-without-it” argument more saliency; this was a provision the House didn’t care about and the Senate was on record by huge bipartisan majorities in favor of twice.

The American people will want to know why was it stripped to begin with? More importantly, why wouldn’t the Senate abide by its own rule? The House has no say in it. FORCE THE DEMOCRATS TO DEFEND IGNORING A RULE THEY AGREED TO. THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO GROUND TO STAND ON.

So how do you put the pressure on Republicans to make this an issue and subsequently push enough Democrats away from Reconciliation because the political stakes are too high? Copy this link (http://tinyurl.com/m6ywb7) and sent it out to everyone you know. Send it to the Tea Parties, make it viral, and continue to take back this country. Or feel free to use this material as you wish. Copy it, paste it, put it on your own blog. A good friend once told me of a quote by President Ronald Reagan.

There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.

Amen. I am not looking for recognition, instead I am looking for the day to arrive when I turn on my computer, go to my favorite blog or internet news site and read: Healthcare Reform Dies.

Can you imagine? This is a group effort, it is a grassroots effort. None of this would be possible without millions of disillusioned citizens taking their grievances to the government, or putting in their time going to rally’s, protests, marches, writing on blogs, and organizing local tea party chapters. This is truly an amazing time in the history of this country.

We did it on 9/12, we can do it again.

Kill ObamaCare. Hit the reset switch. Then we can do it right. Simple free-market solutions exist which can drive down costs without liberty destroying legislation that favors big government and/or big business and without the budget busting price tag attached to all these proposals. I live in Texas and the benefits of tort reform by itself are quantifiable and beneficial to both patients and doctors.

Update: Reader SteveL in the comments asks the question why only a few are taking up this issue? The answer lies in the post above – it is how the establishment has gamed the system. I reply that I have contacted major bloggers on the issue and have yet to hear back from them. Nobody is interested. However, should ObamaCare pass and later analysis indicates the above approach would have killed it, then at least I was on the right side of history. I have contacted some Tea Party groups, including the national chapter. It has only been a couple of days for the later, so I am still holding out hope.

In other news and opinion:

Does Anybody Actually Like the Baucus Health Care Bill?

Doctors Threaten to Go Galt if ObamaCare Passes

ACORN’s Comprehensive Ho-migration Reform

The Useful Idiots Are After Rush Limbaugh Now

President Obama: Back to Square One on Health Care

ObamaCare: Who loves the Baucus bill?

Coward-in-Chief

Gallup: Obama under 50% on Afghanistan, economy, health care, deficit

Obama’s solution on illegals and health care? Amnesty; Update: Video added

Rasmussen: ObamaCare hits highest disapproval rate yet

A few more myths from the White House