Quick Fact: Washington Times falsely declared reconciliation and self-executing rule "rare procedural tools"

Washington Times: Democrats "to pursue rare procedural tools to pass" health care reform

From the March 17 Washington Times article, titled, "'Self-executing rule' decried as a 'trick'":

House Democrats Tuesday defended the idea of tying together the Senate health care overhaul bill and a companion bill of repairs that could spare members from having to vote outright for the Senate's tax on high-cost insurance plans and other contentious provisions.

[...]

Although specific plans to tie the bills together - using a procedure known as the "self-executing rule" - haven't been announced, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a discussion with bloggers Monday that she liked the idea "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

Republicans called the potential use of the procedure another trick to circumvent the public and protect House Democrats at the ballot box in November.

[...]

But the election of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown gave Republicans enough votes to filibuster a conference report, the traditional way the two chambers repair differences between their respective bills. That led Democrats to pursue rare procedural tools to pass President Obama's top legislative agenda item, requiring the House to pass the Senate bill and both chambers to pass a bill that repairs it.

FACT: Reconciliation is not "rare" and was used by GOP to pass Bush tax cuts, welfare reform

Congressional Research Service reported that Congress used reconciliation process to pass 21 bills between 1980 and 2007. An August 10, 2005, Congressional Research Service (CRS) report lists 19 bills Congress passed that were enacted through reconciliation from FY 1981 to FY 2005 -- 16 of which became law and three of which were vetoed by President Clinton. A separate March 2008 CRS report lists an additional three reconciliation bills passed by Congress since 2005.

GOP used reconciliation to pass Bush's tax cuts. Republicans used the reconciliation process to pass Bush's 2001 tax cut, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001; Bush's 2003 tax cuts, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003; and Bush's 2005 tax cuts, the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 2001 tax cuts would "reduce projected total surpluses by approximately $1.35 trillion over the 2001-2011 period"; that the 2003 tax cuts would "reduce projected total surpluses by approximately $1.35 trillion over the 2001-2011 period"; and that the 2005 tax cuts would "reduce federal revenues ... by $69.1 billion over the 2006-2015 period."

Republicans repeatedly voted to use reconciliation to pass components of welfare reform. Congress employed the reconciliation process to pass welfare reform in 1996 as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Senate Republicans previously included welfare reform provisions in the Balanced Budget Act of 1995, which Clinton vetoed. As CRS reports, 46 provisions of the bill were deemed extraneous by the Senate's presiding officer. Fifty-three Republicans voted in favor of a motion to waive the point of order, but the motion -- which requires 60 votes -- failed on a 53-46 vote.

FACT: Congress previously used reconciliation to pass major changes to health care law

Reconciliation has repeatedly been used to reform health care. On February 24, NPR noted that many "major changes to health care laws" passed via reconciliation. Additionally, during a February 24 broadcast of NPR's Morning Edition, correspondent Julie Rovner quoted George Washington University health policy professor Sara Rosenbaum saying: "In fact, the way in which virtually all of health reform, with very, very limited exceptions, has happened over the past 30 years has been the reconciliation process."

Congress used reconciliation to pass Medicare Advantage. As part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, enacted through the reconciliation process, Congress -- which was controlled by the Republicans at the time -- created the "Medicare+Choice Program," currently known as Medicare Advantage or Medicare Part C. The program allows seniors to enroll in HMO-type plans rather than the traditional Medicare fee-for-service plan.

Congress used reconciliation to pass COBRA. As stated on the Department of Labor website, as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, Congress gave "workers and their families who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods of time under certain circumstances."

Congress used reconciliation to pass Patient Self-Determination Act. As part of the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1990, Congress passed the Patient Self-Determination Act, which requires hospitals, nursing homes, HMOs, and other organizations that participate in Medicare or Medicaid to provide information about advance directives and patients' decision-making rights.

Republicans repeatedly attempted to use reconciliation to pass increase in Medicare eligibility age. The version of the Balanced Budget Act of 1995 introduced by then-Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) using the reconciliation procedure contained a section providing for raising the Medicare eligibility age. As the CRS reported, the provision was stricken from the bill during floor consideration on the basis of a point of order that the provision was "extraneous" to matters appropriate to reconciliation.

The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 -- also introduced through the reconciliation procedure -- also included a provision to raise the eligibility age. Fifty Republicans voted in favor of waiving a point of order against the provision that it was extraneous, allowing the provision to remain in the bill. The final version of the bill signed by Clinton did not contain this provision.

FACT: Republicans "set record" in use of "self-executing rule"

Wolfensberger: Republicans "set new records" for using self-executing rule. Don Wolfensberger, former chief of staff for the House Rules Committee under Republican leadership, stated in a 2006 Roll Call column that the Republican Party "set new records" for its use of the self-executing rule in the years following Gingrich's ascension as Speaker:

Self-executing rules began innocently enough in the 1970s as a way of making technical corrections to bills. But, as the House became more partisan in the 1980s, the majority leadership was empowered by its caucus to take all necessary steps to pass the party's bills. This included a Rules Committee that was used more creatively to devise procedures to all but guarantee policy success. The self-executing rule was one such device to make substantive changes in legislation while ensuring majority passage.

When Republicans were in the minority, they railed against self-executing rules as being anti-deliberative because they undermined and perverted the work of committees and also prevented the House from having a separate debate and vote on the majority's preferred changes. From the 95th to 98th Congresses (1977-84), there were only eight self-executing rules making up just 1 percent of the 857 total rules granted. However, in Speaker Tip O'Neill's (D-Mass.) final term in the 99th Congress, there were 20 self-executing rules (12 percent). In Rep. Jim Wright's (D-Texas) only full term as Speaker, in the 100th Congress, there were 18 self-executing rules (17 percent). They reached a high point of 30 under Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.) during the final Democratic Congress, the 103rd, for 22 percent of all rules.

When Republicans took power in 1995, they soon lost their aversion to self-executing rules and proceeded to set new records under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). There were 38 and 52 self-executing rules in the 104th and 105th Congresses (1995-1998), making up 25 percent and 35 percent of all rules, respectively. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) there were 40, 42 and 30 self-executing rules in the 106th, 107th and 108th Congresses (22 percent, 37 percent and 22 percent, respectively). Thus far in the 109th Congress, self-executing rules make up about 16 percent of all rules.

On April 26 [2006], the Rules Committee served up the mother of all self-executing rules for the lobby/ethics reform bill. The committee hit the trifecta with not one, not two, but three self-executing provisions in the same special rule.