Wonk 101: Ringling Bros. Ain’t Got Nothing on This Circus

In our last installment, we introduced you to the bill drafting process, and some basics on committee action. This post will cover more of the committee process and floor action, including why your congressperson pouts like a two-year-old when the words “closed rule” are thrown around.

After a bill is introduced, numbered, and assigned to committee, the process generally goes subcommittee hearing--->subcommittee markup & vote--->full committee hearing--->full committee markup & vote. This is called “normal order.” It might also be called relatively-rare-order since there are places where this process goes off the rails, both for good and for ill.

In general, a bill gets at least one hearing and one markup before it hits the floor of either the House or the Senate. However, to expedite proceedings committees sometime hold joint hearings. Or, if the bill went down to narrow defeat in the previous Congress or was vetoed, sometimes it is simply re-voted in committee or the committees are bypassed altogether. For a longer discussion, see my post on Rep. John Culberson’s knicker-twisting reaction to moving the State Children’s Health Insurance Program reauthorization bill outside of normal order.

The Money: Generally two kinds of legislation moves through Congress: appropriations and everything else. Authorizing (or reauthorizing) legislation is what creates federal statutes. It says that HHS will do (or not do) this, or promulgate that set of regulations. The bill also sets a maximum dollar amount that may be spent to carry out a specified program(s) each fiscal year. Please note the word maximum – the number is a ceiling and it is entirely possible that the program will receive less or even nothing at all. In general, federal programs expire after some time period (five or ten years being quite common). This automatic expiration requires Congress to reauthorize programs periodically.

The 12 appropriations bills actually fund the authorized programs. They are behemoth bills, generally running several-hundreds pages. They fund both mandatory (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) and discretionary (everything else) spending. They are supposed to be complete by October 1 each year. The last time that happened was...never during my seven-year tenure inside the beltway. In order to keep the government chugging – which includes things like seniors receiving Social Security checks and horrible socialized medicine like Medicare  – Congress either passes a continuing resolution, which buys ‘em more time, rolls a couple of the bills together (a “minibus”), or rolls lots of the bills together (an “omnibus”).

An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse: Authorizing and appropriating legislation come with committee reports. These hefty reports – sometimes longer than the bill – detail, among other things, the wishes of the committee with jurisdiction over the program or the wishes of the folks holding the purse strings.

The committee report might ask an agency for a detailed report, a strategic plan, or to spend money on X before Y. The report is not legally binding. But you can probably imagine what happens when agencies or the White House ignore Congress. Usually there is a 2d chance. But after that, things can get...testy.

An example? Well, in 2006 the Senate Appropriations Committee was “extremely displeased” with the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Apparently ONDCP was unresponsive and “numerous follow up communications” were required. In light of their poor performance, the committee reduced ONDCP appropriations from $26.539 million to $11.5 million (p. 189).

And that, ladies and gents, is about the best example of what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you.

La La La, I Can’t Hear You: After all the wrangling and report-writing, the bill is ready to go to the floor.

Or, actually, before the bill goes to the floor the House Rules Committee issues a, um, rule, to govern debate on the floor. You can see a rule – this one for the bill to authorize the Department of Defense – right here.

The rule essentially says there will be X amount of time to debate the bill (usually one to two hours, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans), that only certain proposed amendments may be offered (“made in order”), and allows for a motion to recommit, which would either kill the bill outright or send the bill back to committee to be reconsidered.

“OK,” you say, “what’s the deal? Rules sound not-too-terrible.” On the contrary, they are apparently so terrible that Rep. David Drier (R-CA) “wonder[ed] if there isn’t more freedom on the streets of Tehran right now than we are seeing here.” Because losing out on a vote is just like being shot in street and left to die (warning: graphic content in the preceding link).

Yes, it is true that both parties have abused their majority by issuing closed rules, both on the floor and in committee. In 2003, Democrats were shut out of the debate on Medicare Part D (prescription drug benefit); it only passed after a 3-hour vote, the longest window in American history. The Republicans were shut out of conference negotiations on the stimulus package.

I would prefer a reasoned approach to amendments. But it isn’t always possible. In June, the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies appropriations bill hit the House floor. The original rule called for all amendments to be filed by a certain deadline; the Republicans filed 102, an enormous number that guaranteed a weeks-long debate as each amendment gets debated for at least five minutes, followed by a five- or 15-minute voting period.

So, the Dems went back to Rules, got a new rule that limited the number of amendments to 33 and re-started debate. In retaliation, the Republicans required a recorded vote on each and every amendment, then a motion to reconsider the vote (where members can change their vote). When the motion to reconsider failed by voice vote (simple yea or nay), they asked for a recorded vote on the vote voice.

The result? The House broke its one-day record, taking 53 recorded votes and using EIGHT PLUS HOURS of floor time to pass the bill.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil (Unless You’re Jeff Flake): Returning to something I wrote earlier about authorization and appropriations... The (breakable) rules say that unauthorized programs ought not to be funded via the appropriations process. Sounds reasonable, right? If something expires, then no funding.

Except that doesn’t happen.

There are hundreds of programs that are unauthorized. Some need some attention right now (e.g., the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act, P.L. 107-188) and some can wait (e.g., the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, P.L. 108-200). Some are quite large and well known – the No Child Left Behind Act, P.L. 107-110, expired at the end of FY2008.

Mostly, unauthorized appropriations keep rolling along. However they can be defunded by a point of order if the underlying rule (see above) doesn’t explicitly prohibit it. Basically, a member would go to the floor and reserve a point of order against a section or paragraph and have the funding stricken from the bill.

Except that doesn’t happen.

Mostly, members don’t want to go around challenging funding for this or that. Every project is located in somebody’s state or home district and is someone’s baby. If you kill their baby, they’re likely to try to kill off something in your state or district.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is a notable exception. He has made it his personal mission to eliminate earmarks. His efforts have yielded some earmark reform; members put their names of earmarks and each member’s earmarks must be listed on his/her website.

Earmarks, those much-maligned funding lines, are similar. I know the media would have you believe that earmarks are just waste! They are evil incarnate! They are the reason the country is so in debt!

Except that isn’t true. Earmarks are about one percent of overall spending (still a big number; and it was Sen. Dirksen who famously intoned, “A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.”). Earmarks fund things like a bus improvements in Baltimore or a women’s shelter in Minneapolis. Yes, they also fund some eye-roll inducing things like grape genetics or pig odor research. 

On With the Show: After the rule is issued and floor debate begins, each party gives a designated member control of the circus debate. That member then yields time, in minute increments, to members of their party to speak on behalf of, or against, the legislation. At the conclusion of the debate, they vote.  Recorded votes are electronic – a member goes to a voting station and inserts an electronic card, then checks the vote board to make sure the vote is correct. If the member forgets his or her voting card, s/he can get one (green or red) from the clerk.

Up Next: A Camel is a Horse Designed By (Conference) Committee.

Photo Credit: Cobalt123 on Flickr. Creative Commons License.