Long, but worth it...
What happened on the war supplementalby David Waldman
Sat Jul 03, 2010 at 08:03:51 AM PDT
I think there's a good deal of confusion about what happened with the purposely complex rule used to "pass" the latest emergency supplemental in the House Thursday evening. And like I said, the complexity was intentional, so it's impossible to blame anybody for not parsing it correctly. In fact, given the effects that procedure can have on substantive outcomes, it's not even a given that there's a "correct" way to parse it.
So despite the fact that I'm starting with David Dayen's piece at Firedoglake, and will likely look at some of the positions taken by David Swanson as well, I really don't want this to be any kind of a "call out" story.
Let's break it down.
To begin with, this is undoubtedly correct:
The House wanted to pass war funding, and a substantial amount of members wanted to tack on some social spending. Antiwar progressives didn’t want to vote for both the social spending and the war money together. Others wanted their own vote to end the war or institute a timeline. And then there was the matter of the budget resolution, and this bill offered an inviting way to shoehorn that in.
This, however, is not:
It turns out the House took up five different votes. The first was a vote on the rule, which ended up being self-executing. In other words, the House voted to set the terms for debate on the bill, and never had to vote on the underlying bill. Inside the rule, the bill was "deemed" passed after the rule passed. That was a heavy lift, with opposition from Blue Dogs opposed to the social spending and progressives opposed to the war. It squeaked by, 215-210, with 38 Democrats voting no.
What's wrong?
The House did take five votes. The first was on the rule. But it's not the case that the entire rule was a self-executing measure. If it had been, the other four votes would have been not only unnecessary, but would have had no effect. Not only that, but there would have been no parliamentary vehicle under which they could have been addressed, the bill having been dispensed with.
Is it true that the House never had to take a vote on the underlying bill once the rule passed? Yes. How can that be if the rule wasn't self-executing? Because "the underlying bill" wasn't on the floor. What was on the floor was a motion to agree to Senate amendments to the bill with additional amendments.
Remember that the supplemental, H.R. 4899, was passed first (without war funding) back in March, and sent to the Senate for its consideration. The Senate amended the bill, adding the war funds, and passed their version in late May. The two versions being in disagreement and the Senate insisting on its amendment, a conference was requested. The House, however, declined to take up the question of convening a conference and instead opted to further amend the bill.
Having decided not to pursue a conference at this point, the House had the options of either: 1) refusing to take further action on the bill; 2) taking a vote on agreeing to the Senate amendment without further amendment, and letting the bill sink or swim on its merits as then written by the Senate, or; 3) agreeing to the Senate amendment with a further amendment of its own, sending the bill back for another round on the other side of the Capitol. In scenario 1, of course, the House does nothing, and no bill is passed. In scenarios 2 and 3, the House acts, but the question is on a motion to agree to the Senate amendment, and not on the bill itself. Accepting the Senate amendment without further amendment has the effect of putting the two houses in agreement, which for constitutional purposes means it's ready to be enrolled and sent to the President for signature. But further amending it keeps the houses in disagreement. But in none of the above scenarios is there required a vote on "final passage" of the bill in the way there was during its initial consideration in the House. And that's not because of any self-executing provisions of the rule, but because there's a motion under consideration and not a bill.
...
<snip>
More:
http://www.congressmatters.com/storyonly/2010/7/3/2373/-What-happened-on-the-war-supplemental:kick:
:hi:
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