So Tonal Crow, in case you come back, here’s what looks to be the plan:

As soon as Thursday or Friday, the House would pass the health care bill approved by the Senate in December. The House would immediately approve a package of changes in a separate bill, using a procedure known as budget reconciliation, to avoid the threat of a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
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Mr. Obama would sign the Senate health care bill, making it the law of the land. The budget reconciliation bill would go to the Senate, where Republicans intend to offer dozens of amendments and points of order in an effort to alter or stop it. Assuming they are able to fend off the Republican blocking efforts, Democrats could pass the reconciliation package with a simple majority vote, amending the health bill in a way that makes it acceptable to Democrats in the House and the Senate and to Mr. Obama. The president would then sign the reconciliation bill, completing the process.

Dang it all to heck. It was Sec. 9605, Gov. C. I meant to cite. Too fancy for my own good.

Yes, it is an interesting conversation.

No, it’s not clear to me what the actual rules paraphrased in the Senate glossary might be. It would be interesting to have a look, along with any advisory opinions etc. out there. But I don’t see how any of it would rise to the level of a constitutional question…unless somebody waay oversteps their power.

Actually, although the term “enacted” can be used loosely in talking about the legislative process, a statute does not become law in California until (usually) signed by the Governor and then chaptered by the Secretary of State (although its effective date is often later). When the courts talk about the “later enacted statute” prevailing* that is what they mean. So in that sense it would be the same as the scenario we are discussing…again, if federal law is analagous.

(You will see plenty of cases where the Governor signs bills in a particular order so that one will or will not “chapter out” the other, for instance. Sometimes it is quite a little ballet.)

I understand your point about conditioning the effectiveness of one bill upon the passage of another, but it’s more than that when one bill purports to amend provisions already amending existing law; in that case it is not just the condition of passage of the first bill, but the timing of the effect of both bills. The only example I can think of in California law would be when, for instance, Bill A, which amends Sec. 123 of the Government Code is chaptered in June but (as a nonurgency bill) doesn’t take effect until the next January 1. In the meantime the Legislature wants to make other changes to Sec. 123 of the Government Code and writes up Bill B. They can either ignore Bill A (which hostile legislators do) and let Bill B “chapter out” Bill A when it is chaptered in September and takes effect in January, or they can pick up the substance of Bill A and combine it with the substance of Bill B, in which case it wouldn’t matter if Bill B chapters Bill A out.

And if Bill A takes effect immediately (which I think is the case with federal laws?), then Bill B amends Sec. 123 as Bill A has amended it; they are then simply working off the last amended form of Sec. 123.

It may be that little if any of this translates to federal procedure. I’d like to think that the reconciliation bill could prospectively amend the provisions proposed by the Senate bill, with a contingency effective date, but they may have a strict requirement that the introduced bill show only changes to existing law.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
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(Asterisk goes here) Actually, it’s the higher numbered chapter that prevails. That usually means it was signed later. (See, for example, Sec. 9505, Gov. C.)

Jim: What did you expect? “Welcome, sonny”? “Make yourself at home”? “Marry my daughter”? You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.

I hope Quaker is happy, even if the quote isn’t a dick joke.

I agree that the definitions of “reconciliation bill” and especially “reconciliation instruction” at http://www.senate.gov/referenc.....uction.htm (“...legislation changing existing law…”) seem to hold that reconciliation can be used only to change a provision that is law at that time, not a provision that may become law later. However, I don’t know how closely those definitions hew to the rules they purport to explain, nor what other loopholes might exist in those rules, substantive or procedural.

That said, I think that the reconciliation scenario is distinguishable from the scenario covered by the California rule. Neither bill will be “enacted” until Obama signs it. If he receives the reconciliation bill first, he can pocket it for 10 days (excepting Sundays), Art.I s.7 cl.2, while waiting for the House to pass the Senate bill. He can then sign the Senate bill first, thus enacting it such that the reconciliation bill, when signed, will amend then-existing law.

On the treaty issue, I don’t think that passing a treaty that conditions its own delivery—and thus its effectiveness—upon a Presidential certification, is much different from passing a bill that conditions its effectiveness upon the passage of a different bill. It’s true that the treaty’s effectiveness is conditional upon an event whose occurrence the legislature has no direct power to affect, while the bill’s effectiveness is contingent upon an act that’s within the legislature’s power. I don’t see why that should make a difference.

I certainly see nothing in the Constitution that seems to prohibit Congress from doing this. And it’s a potential useful legislative tool, which should put it within the “penumbra and emanations” of Art.I s.5 cl.2 (“Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings….”).

‘Course, I haven’t researched this in any depth. There could definitely be contrary caselaw that I haven’t found.

Frankly, I don’t think Corker should bring his sexual arousal into this discussion. And I really don’t care whether it’s little or not – it shouldn’t matter.

I bet he gets a great reception when it goes up.

cain

Possibly you are thinking of cases where a court must construe conflicting language between two different statutes, not bills.

Uhm, I meant:

“conflicting language between two different provisions, not a single provision affected by two separate statutes”

I knew I’d have to edit.

Possibly you are thinking of cases where a court must construe conflicting language between two different statutes, not bills. Under California law at least, the order is clear: when two bills purport to amend the same statute, for instance, the last enacted bill will prevail. (In addition, a bill must amend the last amended form of a statute.)

However, we don’t even have to get to that point in the analysis, because it looks like the definition of a reconciliation bill is a bill that changes law. In other words, it is a bill, not an amendment to a bill.

The treaty cases you are referring to had to with the conditioning of the effectiveness of a bill on the occurrence of an outside event, which is a different matter than enacting legislation amending nonexistent legislation.

Of course many bills (at least in California) contain language conditioning their effectiveness or implementation on another bill taking effect, but with a few technical exceptions, it is rare for such a bill to purport to amend the language of another bill, especially when it is the first bill that is amending existing law. In fact, I’m hard pressed to think of any examples, given the strict rules in California on how bills are to be drafted.

Again using the California example, you are more likely to see Bill 2 pick up all the language of Bill 1 with the changes it wants to make. I doubt reconcilliation is the sort of process that would permit such substantive language.

And again extrapolating from California law, it would be interesting to know if reconcilliation language could simply be given a later effective date or be put on Obama’s desk after the original bill. Given the rule that it must change existing law, it could be problematic.

Or…maybe a bill adding provisions, not amending the original bill’s provisions? Too substantive again?

All this is stream-of-consciousness here. I’m sure I’ll think of all the different ways I could have fixed it after the edit time passes.

Even if it is true, whatever. Fire the parliamentarian- not like it will be unprecedented to do that. Or have Biden over rule him. Or find another way. Who cares, really? The Republicans have proven definitively that the only reason the rules exist is to provide cover for when these guys don’t want to do something.

Does this mean we stop bitching when the Republicans do it again and apologize to Tom DeLay and Bill Frist for bitching when they did it before?

...oh! and we also reserve the right to bitch when the Republicans do it in the future.

reconciliation bill – A bill containing changes in law recommended pursuant to reconciliation instructions in a budget resolution. If the instructions pertain to only one committee in a chamber, that committee reports the reconciliation bill. If the instructions pertain to more than one committee, the Budget Committee reports an omnibus reconciliation bill, but it may not make substantive changes in the recommendations of the other committees.

If the Democrats want to pass HCR, with the majorities they have, they will find a way. If they start whining about the Parliamentarian, it means they don’t want to pass the bill.

God damn f*cking right. This “it’s against the rules” bullshit is transparent garbage. When the Repubs ran things, they didn’t give a sh*t about the rules. If a rule got in their way, they nuked it. Rules? Didn’t stop ‘em from torture. Parliamentarians? Didn’t stop ‘em from starting an illegal aggressive war in Iraq.

If we’re going to get hardcore, here’s an idea: howzabout Barack Obama adds a buncha signing statements to the HCR bill after it passes? Obama adds a signing statement requiring a massive public option…Obama adds another signing statement stripping out the Stupak amendment…Obama adds yet another signing statement shutting down the doctor-hospital-insurer-medical devicemake collusive cartels and making nondisclosure agreements to keep prices secret illegal and a federal felony requiring the death penalty.

Why, come to think of it, Obama could add all kinds of signing statements after the HCR bill passes. This could get fun. The sociopathic lawless Repubs came up with the concept of signing statements to run roughshod over the law…now let’s see how they like it when it gets rammed down their throats by a Demo.