I'm going to take a small snippet of a WaPo article and put it under the Congress Matters microscope:
Democratic leaders huddled Tuesday night in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office for the first of what will probably be many strategy sessions, as Congress tries to complete the year-long health-care reform debate before the Easter recess begins March 26.
Participants said that once the Congressional Budget Office delivers a final cost estimate on the fixes bill, possibly this week, Democratic leaders would begin lining up House and Senate votes.
Wait, wait, wait!
The CBO could be delivering a final cost estimate on the fixes bill as soon as this week?
But, but, but... Kent Conrad said the House had to pass the Senate bill before the CBO could even consider the fixes bill!
Conrad also explained in new detail why he believes that the House must pass the Senate bill first, a view that has been denounced by some critics who want the Senate to pass its fix before the House acts.
Conrad said that under Congressional rules, for a reconciliation fix to be "scored," it’s not necessary that it become law, but it is necessary for it to have passed both houses of Congress before getting fixed. "For the scoring to change it has to have passed Congress, and that means both houses," he said.
"The only thing that works here is the House has to pass the Senate bill," Conrad continued. "Then the House can initiate a reconciliation measure that would deal with a limited number of issues that score for budget purposes." After that, the Senate would pass the same reconciliation fix, Conrad explained, because even on the fix itself the House must go first because the lower chamber must initiate "revenue bills."
And yet here we are, with the Senate bill still unpassed by the House, and with no plans to pass it this week, but still the CBO score for the fixes is due any day now.
How did that work, Senator Conrad? Why would you tell the media in such rigid terms that the order you described was "the only thing that works," when just days later everyone would be able to see for themselves that it... wasn't the only thing that worked?
With that in mind, I have to ask, are you the source for the assertion in the WaPo article immediately preceding the cite I began with?
But reconciliation rules seem to indicate that the House will have to pass the Senate bill first. Depending on how the Senate parliamentarian rules, Obama may even have to sign the legislation into law before the Senate can consider the House fixes.
Because I don't think that's right, either, and neither does former Senate parliamentarian Bob Dove.
So if you're the source for that, should we take it with a grain of salt, given what you said about CBO scoring that also turned out to be a wee bit more spin and wishful thinking than rules-based reality?
This process is confusing enough without being misled by the people we're trusting to get this done. If it's open to question, then say it's open to question. The current Senate parliamentarian may well rule just like Conrad thinks he will, but since he's shielded from the media (as I suppose he should be), you'll never really know whether his positions are being fairly represented by the Senators who take it upon themselves to assure you that "the only thing that works" is the way they tell you.
The Republican approach to the parliamentary maneuvering is to represent its complexity as reason in itself not to use it. Democrats shouldn't contribute to this by making ironclad pronouncements about how things really work if they're not yet sure that's how they do really work.