WEEK OF DECEMBER 28, 2009 – JANUARY 1, 2010
Let the sausage making begin! With the House and Senate health care bills on the books, the early part of 2010 is set to be the stage for the ever messy process of merging two bills into a single product. Key committee and leadership staff cut their holiday breaks short last week to return to Washington to begin working through the two bills, and Democratic leaders are slated to return this week to begin negotiations. The House and Senate bills differ significantly on a number of fronts, including the public option and employer mandate. However, given the very fragile 60-vote compromise in the upper chamber, the final bill is expected to more closely resemble the Senate-passed bill.
Who is up for a game of congressional ping pong? Typically, when the House and Senate pass different variations of a bill, they establish a formal conference committee composed of committee leadership from both parties to negotiate a compromise bill or “conference report”. When agreement is reached on the conference report, the House and Senate then each separately vote on the final legislation. The conference process is riddled with timely procedural gambits in each chamber, so much so that Democratic Leadership is expected to forego the formal conference committee process and instead engage in a quicker game of congressional ping pong between the House and Senate. Congressional ping pong is a fairly short game that only entails a serve and a return. As soon as House and Senate Democratic Leadership come to an agreement on a compromise bill, they will likely send the bill to the House (“ping”) for a simple majority vote and then the Senate (“pong”) where Democratic Leadership will once again need 60 votes to fend off a filibuster from Republicans. Pending passage of both chambers, the bill will be sent to the President for his signature and then become law.
A February bill signing forecast. While Democratic Leadership has expressed hope of passing health care reform prior to the State of the Union address in late January, that timeline is very likely to slip into February. The House is scheduled to reconvene next Tuesday, January 12th, and the Senate is slated to return on the following Tuesday, January 19th. Even if a deal was reached over the next two weeks, the Senate would be hard pressed to jump over the time consuming filibuster hurdles prior to February.
Mike Wojcik 