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One slice of the Baucus profile that I particularly want to highlight is the bit dealing with the Budget Reconciliation Process. Budget Reconciliation is basically a congressional process for evading the filibuster. Because budgets need to be passed, and because the filibuster makes major legislation hard to pass, a procedure was constructed wherein debate over budget-related laws can be limited to 24 hours, and passage requires merely a simple majority. In 1994, the Clintons wanted to use reconciliation to pass health care, but Robert Byrd, the Senate's hallowed parliamentarian, said no. Clinton has said that his worst mistake in health care was not fully appreciating the blow his strategy had been dealt. But Byrd is older now, and less powerful. Some say he regrets blocking the use of reconciliation. Meanwhile, one of the major players whose support you'll need for reconciliation (along with Kent Conrad, who runs the Senate Budget Committee), is Baucus. So I asked him about it:
Later in the conversation, I mention to Baucus that some health reformers believe that the only way Democrats will ever pass health reform is to wall the process off from minority obstruction -- in particular, from the filibuster. The way to do that would be to invoke the budget-reconciliation process, which allows legislation dealing primarily with the health of the federal coffers to be fast-tracked through 20 hours of debate and passed with a simple majority. The Clintons hoped to do this in 1994 but were blocked by Sen. Robert Byrd, the self-appointed guardian of the process. Bill Clinton has said that his gravest error in that battle was not recognizing what a blow he'd been dealt when he was denied access to reconciliation.But there's fair evidence that Byrd couldn't stop reconciliation now. Moreover, Congress in the Bush years normalized the procedure, using it for everything from tax cuts to drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. But reconciliation remains an aggressive tool for something as controversial as health-care reform. (It's also an uncertain one: Republican opponents could use the rule that bears Byrd's name to mount a parliamentary challenge.) So I ask Baucus whether he could imagine running health care through the budget-reconciliation process. "Yes, I can," he says without hesitation. "The goal here is to get results. And not just results for the sake of results but principled results. And that means working with the other side where you get principled results and means maybe going to reconciliation to get principled results."That's important stuff, particularly given that Democrats did not reach 60 seats in the Senate on Tuesday. Signaling an openness to reconciliation is also an implicit threat to Republicans: If they obstruct, their votes might not be needed, and so their priorities might be trashed. If they're constructive, then the process will follow a normal legislative path and there will be room for their input.
