"},"parts":[{"template":{"target":{"wt":"efn","href":"./Template:Efn"},"params":{"1":{"wt":"Republican [[Scott Brown (politician)|Scott Brown]] won a [[2010 United States Senate special election in Massachusetts|special election]] held to fill the vacancy caused by Kennedy's death."}},"i":0}}]}"> [d] Following the loss of the Democratic super-majority in the Senate, House Democrats agreed to pass the Senate bill, while Senate Democrats agreed to use the reconciliation process to pass a second bill that would make various adjustments to the first bill.[30] The original Senate bill was passed by the House and signed into law by President Obama as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Subsequently, the House and Senate used reconciliation to pass the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which contained several alterations to the ACA.[29] In 2016, Republicans passed a reconciliation bill to repeal parts of the ACA, but it was vetoed by President Obama.[31][32]
Donald Trump
After gaining control of Congress and the presidency in the 2016 elections, Republicans sought to partially repeal the ACA and pass a major tax cut bill in the 115th United States Congress. As the party lacked a 60-vote super-majority in the Senate, they sought to implement both policies through separate reconciliation bills, with the healthcare bill passed using the reconciliation process for fiscal year 2017 and the tax cut bill passed using the reconciliation process for fiscal year 2018.[33] Republicans were unable to pass their healthcare bill, the American Health Care Act of 2017, because three Senate Republicans and all Senate Democrats voted against it, preventing the bill from gaining majority support in the Senate.[34] With the defeat of their healthcare bill, congressional Republicans changed their focus to a separate reconciliation bill that would cut taxes.[35] Both houses of Congress passed a tax cut bill in late 2017, though the Byrd Rule required the stripping of some provisions deemed extraneous.[36] After both houses of Congress passed an identical tax cut bill, President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 into law in December 2017.[37] Because of Byrd Rule restrictions, the individual tax cuts contained in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 will expire in 2026 barring further legislative action.[38]
In April 2021, the Senate Parliamentarian—an in-house rules expert—determined that the Senate can pass two budget reconciliation bills in 2021: one focused on fiscal year 2021 and one focused on fiscal year 2022. In addition, the Senate can pass additional budget reconciliation bills by describing them as a revised budget resolution that contains budget reconciliation instructions.[44] However, the Parliamentarian later clarified that the “auto-discharge” rule that allows a budget resolution to bypass a Budget Committee vote and be brought directly to the Senate floor does not apply to a revised budget resolution.[45] As a result of this ruling, a revised budget resolution would need to be approved by a majority vote of the Budget Committee before proceeding to the Senate floor, or deadlocked with a tied vote and then brought to the Senate floor via a motion to discharge. In a 50-50 Senate where committees are evenly divided between parties, this has the functional effect of requiring at least one member of the minority party on the Budget Committee to be present in order to provide a quorum for a vote. Considering the partisan nature of reconciliation legislation, it is highly unlikely that a member of the minority party will cooperate with the majority by providing a quorum on the Committee, thus practically limiting the majority of a 50-50 tied Senate to one reconciliation bill per fiscal year.
List of reconciliation bills
The following bills have been enacted into law using reconciliation:[46]
↑ The "Vote-a-Rama" does not conflict with the twenty hour limit on debate over reconciliation bills because that limit applies only to debate, and not to the process of voting on amendments.[9]
↑ Currently, the Byrd Rule prevents an increase in the deficit beyond a ten-year "budget window." Some members of Congress have proposed extending the budget window to 20 or more years.[12]
Reynolds, Molly E. (2017). Exceptions to the Rule: The Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the U.S. Senate. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN978-0815729969.
Reynolds, Molly E. (2017). Exceptions to the Rule: The Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the U.S. Senate. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN978-0815729969.
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