I’m not complaining but having the Democrats in the majority is ‘hard work’. Now it’s all about understanding congressional procedure, which can be arcane and, frankly, boring. I don’t remember whether Schoolhouse Rock explained about conference committees, but I didn’t really know too much about them until the Democrats came to power.
Essentially, a conference committee is necessary to reconcile any differences between House and Senate versions of a bill. In January the Senate passed a lobbying and ethics bill, 96-2. The House passed theirs in May, 382-37. Each bill has its own amendments, and they must be brought into harmony. Once there is ONE bill, it goes back to the House and Senate and they have to pass it again.
The problem for the ethics bill is that Republicans in the Senate have been holding up the conference, making it impossible to reconcile the two bills. But there appears to be a way around this.
Congressional leaders have hatched a plan to bypass a traditional conference committee in an effort to force final passage of a long-stalled lobbying and ethics bill.
Under a scheme being discussed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, each chamber will pass identical lobbying bills so there would be no need for a conference committee to work out the differences. This move, known as “ping-pong” strategy because the bill quickly bounces from one chamber to another, could represent the breakthrough Democrats are hoping for but it risks further alienating Republicans who are frustrated by how the new majority is handling congressional procedure.
This is a bill that was supported by every senator save Orrin Hatch and Tom Coburn (and Brownback, who didn’t vote). And, yet, the GOP doesn’t want it passed into law. Look at the whining from Republicans.
They need to be careful about that kind of process,” said Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss. “Do they really want to start doing conferences this way?”
House Republicans, who have little power to block procedural maneuvers by the majority, say they will try to rally GOP members to oppose Pelosi’s effort to make quick work of another lobbying bill.
“This is the same kind of partisanship, go-it-alone strategy that they’ve employed all year,” Boehner said. “Why should we be closed out of this process?”
So, who’s obstructing?
