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No wonder Obama wanted deadlines for health care bill
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President Barack Obama made it clear during the onset of the health care debate that he wanted deadlines for health care legislation. "Nothing gets done in Washington without deadlines", he said. Apparently he is right. Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican from Georgia, yesterday promised that there would be a protracted debate over health care legislation, unlike the relatively quick House vote last weekend.
Part of the reason for delay and particularly for the time differences in getting legislation to the floors of the House and Senate has to do with the characteristics, roles, and rules of each chamber.
In his text, We the People: An Introduction to American Politics, Theodore J. Lowi points out that the House and the Senate play different roles in the legislative process. In essence, the Senate is the more deliberative body. The House is the more centralized and organized of the two. Part of the reason for the differences in characteristics are due to the rules. House rules give more power to the House leadership i.e. speaker of the House and the various committees. The smaller Senate gives its leadership relatively little power.
For example, the House uses four calendars ( Union, House, Private, Discharge) while the Senate only uses two calendars (Legislative and Executive). When making scheduling decisions, Speaker of the House, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, consults with majority party leaders and a few select Representatives while the Senate majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, will confer with minority leaders and interested Senators. Because of Mrs. Pelosi's position as both leader of the majority party and the House's presiding officer, she has greater authority in governing floor proceedings as opposed to Mr. Reid. Mrs. Pelosi can restrict debate time while the Senate, given its deliberative nature, does not.
Scheduling actions for the entire House to consider is Mrs. Pelosi's perogative. In the Senate, although Mr. Reid has the authority to raise measures for consideration on the Senate floor, most measures are raised by unanimous consent of the Senate. This is the result of consultations with individual Senators. One senator or a group of senators can place a hold on bringing measures to the floor.
I would suspect that Republican senators will avoid the "Party of No" designation long enough to consent to the health care bill coming to the Senate floor. Once debate begins, however, the GOP will probably take advantage of the filibuster, a tactic used by senators to prevent action on a bill. Unlike the House, which adjourns each day and sets time limits on debates by special rule, the Senate merely takes a time out during the day or a recess. This allows a group of senators to come back and speak about a bill and quite frankly almost anything else that floats their boat, until a filibuster is ended by cloture, a vote of three-fifths of the Senate to end debate.
The GOP has already signaled that the health care bill is dead on arrival and there are moderate and conservative Democratic senators who may have reservations about a public option and the overall cost of the legislation which will make getting a bill to Mr. Obama's desk by year's end pretty tough. C-Span should be busy.
