The recent history of reconciliation

NPR's Julie Rovner has a fantastic article explaining that the reconciliation process has actually been used for almost all major pieces of health-care legislation passed over the past 20 years. COBRA -- which stands for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, but has come to mean the much-beloved program that lets you keep your health insurance when you lose your job -- was done in reconciliation. The Children's Health Insurance Program was done in reconciliation. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which is the legislation that tells hospitals that take Medicare and Medicaid that they have to at least screen any patient who enters the emergency room, regardless of insurance status, was done through reconciliation. Welfare reform, which disentangled Medicaid from welfare, was done in reconciliation.

Need I go on?

Elsewhere, political scientist Joshua Tucker found a Congressional Research Service report (pdf) listing every time reconciliation was used between 1981 and 2005, and he built a rough model testing which party used the process more frequently. During that period, there were 19 reconciliation bills, 11 of which were signed by Republican presidents, five of which were signed by Democratic presidents, three of which were vetoed by Democratic presidents, and none of which were vetoed by Republican presidents. "By my admittedly simple classification scheme," Tucker concludes, "this would suggest that 14 of the 19 times reconciliation was used between FY1981 - FY2005, it was used to advance Republican interests."

The real story lurking in these arguments is that reconciliation has become the normal process for many of the most important bills in recent years. The Bush tax cuts went through reconciliation. Welfare reform went through reconciliation. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 went through reconciliation. We've never really discussed the fact that we have a majority-rules process tucked inside the supermajority Senate (in part because the realization that we have a supermajority Senate is relatively recent), but it's been key to getting anything done for at least 20 years now, and it will be an even more constant presence in the next 20 years.

Update: Tim Noah has more on the specific case of welfare reform.

Photo credit: Evan Vucci/AP.