Rep. Tom Price (R-GA-06) decided to try to get in on the Jeff Flake (R-AZ-06) strategy today, trying to shoehorn Republican protest over, well, a little bit of everything, I guess, into a resolution he styled a question of the privileges of the House.

His complaint, essentially, was that despite a long list of newspaper snippets saying that Democrats from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi and beyond had said they were for fiscal responsibility and government transparency, Price was dissatisfied with their records on that score, and so therefore the House Rules Committee should report only open rules for appropriations bills from now on.

It's a nice sentiment, but it's not a question of the privileges of the House. It's only barely a coherent complaint document, really. You can take a look at the text, below the fold.

Here's Price's argument for it:

Madam Speaker, questions of privileges of the House come to the floor by virtue of Rule IX of the Rules of the House of Representatives which states in part, "questions of privilege shall be, first, those affecting the rights of the House collectively, its safety, dignity and the integrity of its proceedings." Integrity of its proceedings, Madam Speaker. The Commerce-Science-Justice appropriations bill that was outlined in the resolution that has just been read, clearly the actions taken by the Democrats in charge clearly have disenfranchised every single member of this House, limiting their ability to effectively represent their constituents. Madam Speaker, these actions, these actions by the Democrats in charge have violated, I believe, and I believe that the members of the House would concur, violated the integrity of our proceedings and, therefore, I believe this resolution constitutes a privileged resolution.

And the chair's ruling, rejecting it as a privileged question:

In evaluating the resolution offered by the gentleman from Georgia under the standards of rule IX, the chair is mindful of the principle that a question of the privileges of the House may not be invoked to prescribe a special order of business for the House. Prior rulings of the chair in that regard are annotated in section 706 of the House Rules and Manual. The resolution offered by the gentleman from Georgia proposes a special order of business by directing the Committee on Rules to report a certain kind of resolution. And for that reason does not present a question of the privileges of the House.

Interesting. That's a pretty expansive reading by Price of the "integrity of its proceedings." The rule for the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill may have been obnoxious, but there was nothing about its adoption that itself violated the Rules of the House. That's the key, I think.

Sort of an interesting complaint from the party that says investigating the politicization of the Department of Justice, torture, illegal wiretapping, etc. would all be "criminalizing policy differences." But I don't expect any of them to acknowledge that.

So, can you actually stop the serial employment of motions to adjourn by a protesting minority to disrupt House floor proceedings?

Not really.

The motion to adjourn enjoys the highest privilege afforded in the House. The only restriction on making such a motion repeatedly is that some business must have intervened since the last such motion. So they can call for one every couple of minutes, so long as some debate has taken place.

There is some precedent for the chair ruling on a point of order declaring the repeated use of the motion dilatory, but there will probably have to be considerably more abuse before they're ready to go that route.

Republicans are angry again over restrictive rules for consideration of appropriations bills, this time the Homeland Security spending measure.

They're disrupting proceedings on the House floor by repeatedly making motions to adjourn that they themselves are voting against, but they're just doing it to protest the decision to rein in amendments and generally make life miserable.

[UPDATE: More specifically, they are protesting today's rule for the Homeland Security bill because it blocks the GOP from re-staging last Thursday's farce, in which they called for votes to separate votes in the House on every amendment adopted in the Committee of the Whole, and then called for votes to reconsider each of those votes. Today's rule would combine all amendments adopted in the Committee of the Whole into one package, and permit one vote on adopting them en bloc in the House, and one vote to reconsider.]

This is one of those procedural arguments where it's hard to get the nuance past the obvious physical manifestation of time-wasting votes. The Republicans would like you to know that the appropriations bills would move much, much faster if the Democrats just let them offer unlimited numbers of amendments on each one of them, because... uh, well... this is what they're saying here... if they were allowed to offer unlimited numbers of amendments, they wouldn't feel the need to actually, you know, offer them. They just want the opportunity to do it.

Which, of course, is why they offered 100+ on the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill the other day.

Well, not exactly. That happened, they explained, because although there were allowed to offer an unlimited number, they were forced to pre-print them in the Congressional Record before offering them. Pre-printing, of course, is tyranny if you're in the minority and want to offer amendments, but democracy if you're in the minority and protesting the fast-tracking of legislation.

UPDATE 2: Rep. David Dreier (R-CA-26), ranking Member of the Rules Committee, also points out that the rule for today's bill permits the chair to impose a two-minute voting time limit, something occasionally agreed to by unanimous consent, but never before imposed by the chair.

Reminder:

You can almost assuredly get yourself a good look at a hot partisan fight today that's also likely to be a lesson in parliamentary tactics and procedure if you tune in to the Energy & Commerce Committee's 1 p.m. EST markup of H.R. 2454, the "American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009."

Why?

Think Progress knows:

[Ranking Republican Joe] Barton [R-TX-06]  and his fellow Republicans have released a list of 450 poison-pill amendments that aim to make the debate over energy reform about the costs of change or attacks on supporters of reform, instead of the risks of inaction.

Should make prime live-blogging material for anyone interested. And here's a thread to do it with.

Video? Oh yeah! C-SPAN3, streaming here. Or via the committee, streaming here.

Starting now.

By all reports, the budget conferees are ready to move forward next week with an agreement on a budget resolution that will contain reconciliation instructions, but with an extended time frame for the relevant committees to report their legislation back -- namely, October 15.

That's a little bit unusual, since the normal practice is to have those bills reported back much sooner, like June 15th, but this is apparently meant to be a concession to the negotiating process. The hope (and that's all it is) is that with the backup of being able to use reconciliation (and thereby bypass the filibuster) in October, the Republicans will be motivated to come to a compromise on health care before then that they can move under regular order without resort to the expedited procedures under reconciliation. It's also unusual because October 15th is past the date of the start of fiscal year 2010.

Stepping back for just a moment, for those not quite up to speed on reconciliation procedure (and that would include everyone in the world), the inclusion of reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution is just the first step in this process. What they're doing here is including in the budget some diretions to the committees with jurisdiction over the health care reform issue (probably Ways & Means and Energy & Commerce in the House, and Finance and HELP in the Senate) that they must report back legislation by October 15th that implements whatever these reforms are going to be, and that the budget scoring for their solutions also must meet the targets being set in the budget resolution. In other words, the budget committees are instructing these other committees to get back to them with health care reform proposals that match the numbers the budgeters are setting aside for them to work with. When they do that, the budget committee will package up any tax changes made by Ways & Means/Finance, and any policy changes made by Energy & Commerce/HELP into a single bill (though they can split it up if they want to), and those bills can come to the floor under expedited procedures, meaning no filibusters. That will be the point at which any such reforms would actually become law, if passed. In October.

We don't know what, exactly, the health care policy changes are going to be. So we don't yet know how much we do or don't like this. Nor do we yet know what the committees are going to do when it comes to finding ways to pay for the policy changes they're being instructed to come up with. All we'll know from this budget resolution is how much money they have to play with and the last date on which they can reveal their final product.

That will be in the product of the budget resolution conference committee, said to be ready to come to the floor next week, and perhaps be voted on as soon as Tuesday in the House, and Wednesday in the Senate.

Republicans, of course, are outraged that something might be permitted to pass with the support of a mere 58% of the Senate, and are threatening to shut down the Senate in response, according to Roll Call ($) (and everyone else who knows anything about the way Republicans work):

Senior Republican Senate aides say it is too early to discuss retaliation for something that might not occur; they prefer to focus instead on trying to shape a bill that they can embrace.

But other key Republican Senators were candid that reconciliation, while difficult for them to stop, would prompt them to try to trip up Democratic priorities — large and small.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was a member of the 2005 bipartisan "Gang of 14" that negotiated a deal on President George W. Bush’s stalled judicial nominees, said he would be willing to tap into the Senate’s parliamentary arsenal to block the majority from pursuing its agenda.

What could they do? Well, they could block votes on administration appointments -- though they're doing that already, in many cases. They could object to all unanimous consent requests. That'd be a pain in the ass. They could insist that all bills be read aloud on the floor, every time. Also annoying, but at least they could stop complaining that nobody ever read them, and I guess it would mean you could yell at any Republican who didn't sit through it, and then later complained about not reading it. They could stop providing working quorums at committee meetings, and call for continuous quorum calls on the floor. All of which would indeed have the effect of grinding Senate work to a near standstill. If anyone noticed, that is, given the fact that Crossword Tommy Coburn (R-OK) already pretty much objects to everything, and forces cloture motions to be filed daily.

At least that would remove the "political oxygen" argument everyone's always worried about. With so many policy options forced off the table due to the shutdown, what could Senators do with their time but investigate the Bush "administration" assaults on the Constitution and the drip, drip, drip of revelations concerning torture?

Remember when we discussed what Members should do if they find themselves lost on the floor, or in need of a time out when someone makes a unanimous consent request? We talked about (and illustrated) how Members can get a brief pause in the proceedings without ruining anything by reserving the right to object to such a request.

Well, here's how not to do it, illustrated by Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV-03), who is asking unanimous consent to withdraw her amendment to H.R. 1106 (the mortgage relief bill) and  Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV-02), who had hoped to claim the time in opposition to the amendment in order to give Republicans a shot at some more time to speak.

But unanimous consent is asked and received before Moore realizes what's happening, and her opportunity to claim the time available on the amendment is destroyed once the amendment is withdrawn.

Barney Frank (D-MA-04), who obviously knows his way around on the floor better than almost anyone, digs her out of the jam, but lives to regret it:

Titus (D-NV): I want to thank Chairman Frank for working on this amendment. I appreciate that offer of assistance. I think we can improve the amendment. I think it's very important that we have an aggressive borrower outreach program so people who are in trouble can find out about the help that is available to them and find that out before it's too late. So I would ask unanimous consent that the amendment be withdrawn.
THE CHAIR: Without objection, the amendment is withdrawn.
Capito (R-WV): I have time remaining, is that correct? I reserve the right to object.
THE CHAIR: The gentlelady can object before the amendment was withdrawn but the amendment has been withdrawn.
Frank, B. (D-MA): Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry. Is it in order to ask unanimous consent that she be allowed the remaining time as if it had not been withdrawn?
THE CHAIR: Yes it is.
Frank, B. (D-MA): Then I would ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from West Virginia can include her remarks as if the amendment was not withdrawn?
THE CHAIR: Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized.
Capito (R-WV):I thank the Chairman. I thank you for the unanimous consent. I yield what time I have remaining to the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Burton.
Frank, B. (D-MA): Oh, I didn't know that!
Burton, D. (R-IN): You know, one of the things that concerns me is that we spent trillions of dollars...

In addition to all the contortions we're going through to get the still-not-available stimulus conference report to the floor today, we're also seeing a rule to waive the normal rules against considering suspension bills on a Thursday. Rule XV normally limits consideration of suspensions to Monday through Wednesday:

Suspensions

1. (a) A rule may not be suspended except by a vote of two-thirds of the Members voting, a quorum being present. The Speaker may not entertain a motion that the House suspend the rules except on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays and during the last six days of a session of Congress.

So we have to waive the rules in order to consider the bills we're using to eat up the clock while work continues on the behind-the-scenes work on the stimulus.

The small-R rule in question: H. Res. 157:

RESOLUTION

           Resolved, That it shall be in order at any time through the legislative day of February 13, 2009, for the Speaker to entertain motions that the House suspend the rules. The Speaker or her designee shall consult with the Minority Leader or his designee on the designation of any matter for consideration pursuant to this section.

         Sec. 2. The matter after the resolved clause of House Resolution 10 is amended to read as follows: ``That unless otherwise ordered, before Monday, May 18, 2009, the hour of daily meeting of the House shall be 2 p.m. on Mondays; noon on Tuesdays; 10 a.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, and 9 a.m. on all other days of the week; and from Monday, May 18, 2009, until the end of the first session, the hour of daily meeting of the House shall be noon on Mondays; 10 a.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; and 9 a.m. on all other days of the week.''.

The Republicans will oppose the rule, as they almost always do, though today's excuses are that they oppose it because it clears the way for time-wasting bills when there's serious work to do. Of course, they're doing the little things they're doing while doing the off-stage prep work necessary to actually bring the work they say we should be doing to the floor. The other complaint is that the rule doesn't specifically limit the suspensions that will be permitted, leaving the door open for moving any number of suspensions. But really, if they bring more suspensions and you don't like them, vote against them. In theory, nothing should be easier to kill than a suspension, since you need a 2/3 vote to pass them.

Section 2 of the rule does make a substantive change in procedure, though. It permits the House to convene earlier on Fridays and Saturdays (when necessary) so that work can wrap up earlier on those days and Members can get back to their districts sooner.

The vote on H. Res. 157 is being postponed while the Congress holds a memorial ceremony marking the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. You can see that on C-SPAN2. Alternatively, you now get to see the TV coverage of yesterday's non-conference conference on the stimulus on C-SPAN.

I don't know who it is yet, but that person should call me and we should hang out.

Look at the entry from Friday night on the Senate schedule page:

Convenes: 10:00am
Resume consideration of HR1, the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

This evening the Senate withdrew the Inouye-Baucus Substitute amendment #98 and agreed to the following path forward to complete action on the bill:

When the Senate convenes on Saturday, February 7 (12:00 o’clock), the Collins-Nelson (NE) amendment will be called up with the reading of the amendment waived. Cloture will then be filed and the mandatory quorum will be waived.

No further amendments or motions are in order for the duration of consideration of H.R.1. The time from 12:00 o’clock until 3:00pm on Saturday, February 7 will be equally divided and controlled between the two Leaders or their designees, for debate only with no amendments or motions in order.

When the Senate convenes on Monday, February 9, the time from 1:00pm until 5:30pm will be equally divided and controlled between the two Leaders or their designees. At 5:30pm the Senate will proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Reid for Collins-Nelson (NE), et al amendment.

If cloture is invoked on the amendment, then the post-cloture time will run during any recess or adjournment of the Senate on Monday. All post-cloture time will be considered expired at 12:00 o’clock on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, February 10, after the Senate convenes, the time until 12:00 o’clock will be equally divided and controlled between the two Leaders or their designees.

Further, if a Budget Act point of order is raised against the amendment, then a motion to waive the applicable point of order will be considered made. If the waiver is successful, the amendment will be agreed to.

If no point of order is raised against the amendment, the adoption of the amendment would be subject to a 60-vote threshold. The Senate would then vote on passage of the bill.

The Senate will then request a conference and the Chair will be authorized to appoint conferees.

What does that all mean? It means that there will be a cloture vote on the Collins-Nelson (NE) amendment at 5:30pm Monday, February 9. On Tuesday at 12:00 o’clock, the Senate will vote in relation to the Collins-Nelson (NE) Substitute amendment with a 60-vote threshold. If the amendment is agreed to, the Senate would proceed to passage of the bill.

"What does that all mean?"

That's actually on the Senate calendar page.

Think about that. Since when do they care whether the people reading that page understand fully for themselves what's going to happen?

Actually, I shouldn't say that. I have no idea whether that's something very new or not. I've been watching that page for a couple months now, and it seems new to me, but maybe it's very old and I just haven't had the opportunity to see it yet.

But whether it's new or old, it's clearly evidence that they know people are watching, and that they're watching because they want to understand. It's really something special, I think, that they're acknowledging that and trying to help out.

Gold star for you, unknown person!

The Hill:

A group of more than 50 House Democrats has penned a letter to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) imploring him to "restore this institution" and see that the House returns to a "regular order" process of legislating.

The letter, signed by a large number of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the centrist New Democratic Coalition, has not yet been sent. Members are still gathering signatures in an effort to send the strongest signal possible to all top House Democrats that the caucus is up in arms over the top-down method of legislating employed by Democrats since late last year.

Hoyer, and not Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was chosen as the recipient not because he is viewed as the prime enemy, but "because this group has no better friend in this fight" than the majority leader — who is widely respected across the ideological spectrum for his adherence to rules and procedures — an aide said.

Interesting. Being a process fan, I'm sympathetic, for the moment. But I'd feel better if it wasn't just Blue Dogs and New Dems writing.

And others, including Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), said their frustration over how the bill was hastily put together almost led them to vote against it, as well.

Ah, OK. That helps.

So what does the leadership have to say for itself on the matter? Well, it's the extraordinary circumstances. The need for sudden action on gigantic bailout bills that had to be passed while an insane president still roosted in the White House, and then the need for a gigantic stimulus bill to be passed while a new president settled in. The normal, lengthy, and rather leaky committee process wasn't well suited to the task, and the Democratic leadership took the risk of irritating Members who wanted a hand in the process (or a finger in the pie, if you prefer that formulation) in exchange for expediency and tactical advantage.

That brings me to this bit:

Democratic leaders also have promised — both to their members in private and in public — to return to regular order as soon as the emergency economic stimulus bill was completed.

Now at least 50 Democrats are calling the Speaker’s hand.

That bugs me a little. They're really not "calling the Speaker's hand." They're very purposefully writing to Hoyer and not to Pelosi. That makes a certain amount of sense, for the reasons they gave, but that doesn't make me any more comfortable about it, and certainly doesn't justify saying they're boldly "calling the Speaker's hand." I understand the attraction of talking to a friend who's got the ear of the Speaker, but come on. If you've got a gripe with the Speaker, tell the Speaker. The "calling the Speaker's hand," language, of course, may not be their own, but rather the reporter's. Wherever it came from, it's a little less than appropriate. Not a big deal, just not appropriate to the act.

Now here's the flowery part that drew a chuckle from me:

"Under one-party Republican rule, this noble institution, to which we are all democratically elected, deteriorated," they wrote. "We lost sight of our shared values and common goals, because in many cases, the Congress wasn’t operating as it should. Without regular order governing our daily function, Members often had little opportunity to work together in a bipartisan basis, to find our common purpose.

I laughed, because this noble institution, to which they were all democratically elected, deteriorated plenty under both parties, though not in the way they're thinking. I'm drawing together widely disparate threads of thought here, but when I hear talk about losing sight of shared values and common goals because Congress wasn't operating as it should, I think of the collapse of Congressional oversight, and eight years of constant retreat from checking and balancing the executive branch, in which surrender some of the authors of this letter were more than merely complicit.

The signatories no doubt have a point, and a very good one at that. But my sympathies are tempered. I'm sure the last six months have seen them grow impatient, but I've been waiting in that line a lot longer.

Not the most straightforward work on the floor this morning, but all is proceeding nearly as planned, and the ability of Republicans to derail proceedings is extremely limited.

But there was some deviation from the ordinary today that might have caused some minor confusion, and I might as well see if I can straighten that out.

Let me start by reminding everybody of the feature on the web site of the Clerk of the House, which can keep you up to date in near real time on what's happening on the House floor. You'll find it at:

clerk.house.gov/floorsummary/floor.html

Here's what it says, currently (the page is updated as conditions change, obviously):

   H. Res. 92:
      providing for further consideration of the bill ( H.R. 1) making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes

   11:15 A.M. -
      DEBATE - The House proceeded with one hour of debate on H. Res. 92.

   11:10 A.M. -
      Considered as privileged matter.

   11:05 A.M. -
      On question of consideration of resolution Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: 240 - 174 (Roll no. 39).

   10:22 A.M. -
      POINT OF ORDER - Mr. Stearns raised a point of order against the provisions of H.Res. 92 because it violates the Congressional Budget Act. The Chair announced that the disposition of the point of order would be resolved by the question of consideration of H.Res. 92. The House proceeded with 20 minutes of debate on the point of order at the end of which the Chair will put the question on consideration.

   10:18 A.M. -
      By direction of the Committee on Rules, Ms. Slaughter called up H.Res. 92 and asked for its immediate consideration.

These things are to be read from the bottom up. It's added to chronologically as things happen, but updates go on top.

So here's what it means:

At 10:18, Louise Slaughter (D-NY-28), the Chairperson of the Rules Committee, brought the rule (H. Res. 92) governing debate of the amendment portion of the stimulus package (H.R. 1) to the floor.

The Republicans objected by raising a point of order because the underlying bill (H.R. 1) violates PAYGO rules. That's true, but the rule under which the amendments to H.R. 1 will be debated (that is, H. Res. 92) itself contains a waiver of PAYGO. So essentially, the vote on whether or not to adopt H. Res. 92 would settle the point of order. So they went forward with the vote on whether or not to move to consideration of the rule in order to settle that point of order, and the adoption of that motion allowed them to do that.

Now they're in debate on adoption of H. Res. 92 itself. If it passes, they move on to consideration of the amendments to H.R. 1. And did you all see those amendments? If not, you'll find them listed here, and I'll go back and add links to PDF files of the text of each of them if you want to read the actual language.

Up next, one more hour of general debate, then onto the amendments.

One annoying note: Just heard a caller to C-SPAN complain in her thick twang about the money that "as she understands it" is in the bill for ACORN. Not surprisingly, she doesn't understand it at all. Now another one, claiming that ACORN "stole the election."

UPDATE: OK, not "up next." Next is actually a vote on suspending the rules and passing the digital TV transition delay bill that came over from the Senate. Probably after that, though.

UPDATE 2: JasonCGW corrects the record (we think) on the point of order from this morning. It was unfunded mandates, not PAYGO.

UPDATE 3: The first four amendments have passed on voice vote, including the Nadler amendment that Chris Bowers was promoting. Congrats all around! They must be feeling good over at Open Left.

Here's one for the freshmen -- though they'll almost never get a real chance to use it themselves.

If you find yourself lost in events on the floor, or at a loss for what exactly is going on when someone is asking for unanimous consent to do something, there's always one set play option available to you as a "time out" during which you can get your bearings: Reserve the right to object to the unanimous consent request.

In the video above, Democratic Caucus chair John Larson (D-CT-01) is looking for unanimous consent in dealing with a little committee housekeeping, specifically the assignment of Members to a few committees where there are still vacancies. It's a routine piece of business that will generally have been cleared by the leadership on both sides. Larson's looking for unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of his resolution -- that is, listing all the committees to which people are being named, and each of the names going onto each of those committees -- just to save time. Then he wanted to move on to a voice vote (or unanimous consent) for the adoption of the resolution. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05) is unsure, though, of whether Larson's resolution names Members to just the Agriculture Committee, as she might have been expecting (for whatever reason), or whether there's more to it. Nothing serious. She just wanted to know what exactly was going on.

So when Larson sought unanimous consent for dispensing with the reading of the resolution, she didn't just object, which would have instantly dispensed with his request and forced a reading, but rather reserved the right to object. That held up proceedings just long enough for her to be able to ask (through the Speaker -- Members are not supposed to direct comments directly to one another, generally) what exactly was in the resolution. Once Larson has satisfied Foxx as to what's in the resolution, she withdraws her reservation, the unanimous consent request is once again addressed, and since no objection is made, the reading is dispensed with.

Nothing substantive here. Just good "time out" techniques for Members who want to be careful that they're not getting steamrollered on something.

Easy. Good tool. Makes you look like you know what you're doing.

"Old" news, but worth a look for procedure geeks. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) blocked the regular meeting of the Joint Economic Committee usually held to discuss the Labor Department's latest job loss numbers -- this time a whopping 524,000. What Republican would want to meet to discuss that? Not Brownback, I guess.

But you know, he's got a point:

Sources say Brownback griped that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has dragged her feet on formally appointing Maloney to the post, which was recently vacated by Chuck Schumer. The chair-less committee, he argued, had no official right to convene, even though Pelosi has publicly signaled Maloney's appointment and leaders typically wait until mid-January to make appointment.

See for yourself. (It's what we're all about.)

RULE 2

The meetings of the Committee shall be held at such times and in such places as the Chairman may designate, or at such times as a quorum of the Committee may request in writing, with adequate advance notice provided to all members of the Committee. Subcommittee meetings shall not be held when the full Committee is meeting. Where there rules require a vote of the members of the Committee, polling of members either in writing or by telephone shall not be permitted to substitute for a vote taken at a Committee meeting, unless the Ranking Minority Member assents to a waiver of this requirement.

By the way, Madam Chair, can we get a clarification about who controls the JEC web presence? The top Google result for a search on the Joint Economic Committee is this one: http://www.house.gov/...

That's the House JEC site. There's another (which comes in up top if you enclose Joint Economic Committee in quotes) that's the Senate site. The Senate site should have been the main site last Congress, since the Senate held the chairmanship, in the person of Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Now that control of the chair goes to the House, it's Maloney. Maybe the main site will move over to house.gov/jec. But what I'm wondering is why the current House site appears to have been under the control of the Ranking House Minority Member, former Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ-03). Was it the practice to allow the Ranking Minority Member from the house not chairing the JEC to maintain that house's JEC web site, in lieu of having a minority site? It looks that way, since the Senate site links to the Saxton-controlled page when you click on "JEC Republican website" under the "About" category over there.

I don't know if that's the best compromise. I think maybe you should just let them have a minority site and designate it as such. It'll be fine for the next two years, since I assume you'll build your own site where Saxton's was, and the new Ranking Minority Member from the Senate side will maintain the Republican site at senate.gov/jec. Google experts will have to tell me whether it's the fact that "Senate" comes after "House" alphabetically that puts the Senate site the House site in the listings. If that's the case, then every time the Republicans are in the minority and the gavel goes to the Senate side, the minority site will be the first listed, and likely the first clicked on. To the extent that anyone in the world besides us ever goes for information to the JEC web sites, they're likely to get the minority's information before the majority's. And you don't want that. Do you?

OK, so John Cornyn and the Republicans say they'll filibuster any move to try to seat Al Franken, right?

So here's a question: Does it change any minds if they end up filibustering everybody?

Traditionally, the presiding officer -- for swearing in day, that's usually the Vice President -- recognizes the majority and minority leaders in turn for a few welcoming remarks before beginning with the process of administering the oath.

What if at that point, Harry Reid moved to seat either Al Franken or Roland Burris or both, without prejudice to the claims against their seats, as has usually been the case in contested elections? Yes, the Republicans would surely oppose the motion, and would just as surely filibuster it as promised. But if the motion was made before anyone was sworn in, you'd technically be looking at a situation in which there were only 64 Senators "duly chosen and sworn," as the phrasing of Rule XXII (the cloture rule) goes. The partisan breakdown at that point would be 38 Democrats and 26 Republicans, with 21 Democrats (if you include Burris and Franken) waiting in the wings, along with 15 Republicans (which would include ringleaders McConnell and Cornyn).

With just 64 Senators duly chosen and sworn, the "constitutional three-fifths" required to invoke cloture would be 39. Of course, we'll have just 38 at that point, so a party-line vote -- and it almost assuredly would be a party-line vote on something this contentious -- on cloture on the motion to seat Burris and/or Franken would come up one vote short.

But Rule II appears to say that, "all questions and motions arising or made upon the presentation of such credentials shall be proceeded with until disposed of."

If that means what it sounds like (and there's always every chance that it doesn't, when you're talking about the Senate), and the motion is made before the swearing in process gets underway, then nobody gets sworn in until the deadlock on Burris and/or Franken is settled. The Senate sits at 38-26, and the minority leadership is temporarily decapitated, though they'll still have floor privileges as Senators-elect. They may find their right to address the Senate in some dispute, though, even with Cheney in the chair.

Democrats will suffer their losses, too, to be sure. Among the Democratic Senators waiting to take the oath tomorrow are Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (which in combination with the Burris situation, would leave Illinois entirely unrepresented in the Senate) and Vice President-elect Joe Biden. And Democrats lose more seats total in this deal than do Republicans. But cloture remains a single vote away from our reach in straight party-line voting whether the Senate is seated at full strength (it'll take 60 votes and we'll "have" 59), or 1/3 down (when it'll take 39 and we'll "have" 38). Seating everyone but Burris and Franken leaves the Senate at 98, putting the cloture threshold at 59. But without Burris and Franken, we'll only "have" 57. Two votes short.

The big difference between being one vote short in a Senate of 64 and being two votes short in a Senate of 98 is that Republicans have no motivation to bend on Burris and/or Franken when the Senate's at 98. But although they'll have steam coming out their ears if the Senate is stalled at 64, continuing to block Burris and/or Franken with their 26 votes means continuing to block the seating of 15 of their colleagues, including two of their top leaders.

Would any GOP Senator break ranks to untangle this mess? It's hard to believe anyone would risk the scorn of Republicans everywhere, even habitual cloture jumpers like Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter. Specter, in particular, has got to be mindful of the potential of a primary challenge from the right (though maybe it's just time for him to retire, anyway). Snowe, on the other hand, doesn't face the voters again until 2012. And if she doesn't break the deadlock, her Maine colleague Susan Collins remains among the 15 Republican Senators-elect in limbo. That's probably not enough to tempt her to jump right away, or maybe ever. But something will have to give in, if Rule II means what it says.

Might it not mean what it says? Possibly. The Senate's "two track" system that permits legislative business to go forward even when there's a filibuster pending could possibly create complications. I'm not familiar enough with how that rule is structured to know just yet what effect it could have. But if it doesn't apply for some reason -- and with highly privileged matters like the disposition of a dispute on credentials, it might not -- then you could really put the Senate over a barrel with this.

But wouldn't it also mean that the stimulus package could be blocked? Yes it could. But filibustering the stimulus package is a dicey political prospect in these economic times. And if it contains a significant package of tax cuts, as is rumored to be the case, that'll only make it harder. Not that Republicans aren't up to the task, and willing to undertake truly stupid feats of obstruction. Also, if the Republicans continued to filibuster that long, they may also eventually be filibustering the seating of a fully credentialed Franken, to boot. How long could they really hold out filibustering 15 of their own Senators, plus 20 fully credentialed Democrats, and maybe even a replacement for Burris, named by Blagojevich's successor, and the stimulus package?

And in the meantime, how would the stimulus package -- on which work would no doubt proceed in committee, if not on the floor -- end up looking?

Well, with only 64 Senators sworn, and no new organizing resolution passed, the organizing resolutions from the 110th Congress might have to remain in effect. And without the Senators-elect able to participate in the committee voting, the 15-14 Democratic advantage from the last Congress becomes a 9-7 Democratic advantage in this shorthanded Congress, with Tom Harkin (D-IA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) not yet sworn in, and Ted Stevens (R-AK), Pete Domenici (R-NM), Larry Craig (R-ID) and Wayne Allard (R-CO) leaving the Senate, anyway. That's +1 for us. So, fine.

On Finance, the 11-10 panel becomes an 8-7 panel instead, with Max Baucus (D-MT), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), John Kerry (D-MA) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) unable to be sworn in, and Gordon Smith (R-OR) and John Sununu (R-NH) both defeated. Ken Salazar (D-CO) is on that panel, too, but he won't be resigning until he's confirmed as Interior Secretary, and that won't happen until the Burris/Franken deadlock is settled.

Other panels come out similarly. GOP attrition is just much more damaging than Democratic attrition, even with a filibuster blocking 30% more Dems than Republicans. Agriculture goes from 11-10 to 9-4. Armed Services from 13-12 to 9-3. Banking from 11-10 to 9-6. Budget from 12-11 to 11-5. Commerce from 12-11 to 8-6. Energy from 12-11 to 10-6. Environment from 10-9 to 8-4. Foreign Relations from 11-10 to 9-8. Health from 11-10 to 8-6. Homeland Security from 9-8 to 5-2. Indian Affairs from 8-7 to 7-4. Judiciary from 10-9 to 9-6. Rules from 10-9 to 8-3. Intelligence from 8-7 to 7-4. Aging from 11-10 to 11-5. Veterans' Affairs from 8-7 to 6-4.

Only the Small Business committee presents a problem, going from 10-9 to 5-7.

Of course, none of these panels would be able to actually pass any legislation on the floor, if Rule II serves to keep things jammed up for the duration of the Republican filibuster of the swearing in process. But it'd be interesting to ratchet up the pressure on the GOP by reporting out bills under these temporarily favorable (sometimes very favorable) committee ratios. And the longer it went on, the more bills could be considered this way, reported out, and placed on the calendar, so that when the issue was finally settled, we might have some pretty good stuff waiting for us. Not that the Republicans wouldn't then try to filibuster it all on principle. But they may do that anyway. And would the public really stand for following up their filibuster with yet more filibusters?

Maybe while we're setting the Capitol on fire, we ought to consider using the "constitutional option" to change the cloture rules, too.

So... uh... hmm.

Seems like this has to fall apart somewhere, though, doesn't it?

Race tracker wiki: IL-SEN MN-SEN

CQ Politics has the story we've all been waiting for:

An early partisan skirmish is likely in the House next week, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to move a rules package that would curb the GOP’s ability to derail legislation through a parliamentary maneuver it used on occasion over the past two years.

But Democratic leaders are definitely taking a hard look at preventing the minority party from scoring easy political points with motions to recommit a bill to committee with instructions to make contentious language changes and then report it back to the House "promptly." In the outgoing Congress, "promptly’’ has meant an indefinite hold, because committees were not willing to adopt poison-pill amendments sponsored by the minority.

Most motions to recommit require instead that an amended bill be returned to the floor "forthwith," which means within minutes.

Republicans would retain the right to offer two other motions to recommit — either without instructions for policy changes, or with instructions to make changes "forthwith," or immediately, meaning that the bill stays on the floor and moves to passage with revisions.

"Republicans will still get a chance to make motions to recommit. But they would not be allowed to just kill bills in a way that was never intended," said one Democratic aide.

I have usually expressed a preference for better caucus discipline -- i.e., teaching people what the motion to recommit is really all about and instructing them that the answer in virtually all cases is a quick "no" vote and then moving on. But that's obviously not going to happen.

Still, all things considered, this is not a bad approach. The allowance for the "promptly" instruction is just silly. It doesn't make any sense on the surface, and really, I've never seen it explained why it couldn't just essentially mean "promptly or better," meaning that if it was done "forthwith," then that'd be an added bonus, and just ducky with everyone. Or why you couldn't construct a procedure in which the House would perhaps go into recess subject to the call of the Chair, hold an immediate meeting of the relevant committee, which would report the thing back so "promptly" you wouldn't know what hit you, and then reconvene the House and pass the bill as amended.

Of course, another way of handling that, but with less mess, is just to get rid of the "promptly" instruction, I guess. So... do that instead. Nevermind.

Doing this with a rules change was something I was worried about because I thought the idea was to just eliminate the motion entirely, which, as poorly as the motion has been used lately, would still be a pretty serious blow to minority rights. But retaining the "forthwith" instruction makes the MTR into exactly what it ought to be: a last-ditch chance for the minority to bypass an iron-fisted committee chairman who just won't allow them a fair shot at passing their serious amendments, but which they think would pass if given at least a brief airing in full view of the American public.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Seriously, though, that's still something I think is important, even if I also think that most votes on MTRs (or properly, I guess, MsTR) should be "no," even if it sounds like a good idea, if only because there are rarely any ideas you can be sure are good ones if they're only debatable for 10 minutes.

Remember when we were told the other day that the 110th Congress saw  one of the most productive House sessions ever?

You probably had the same funny feeling I did about that, even before I took a look at how many of the 1,000+ bills passed turned out to be post office naming measures (just over 40% of the bills passed in the 110th House, it turns out). But if the funny feeling you had wasn't that there were an awful lot of post offices being named -- and I must admit I still haven't looked to see whether they named more in the 110th than in any other recent Congress -- but rather that the Congress as a whole still ended up not passing a whole lot of high profile stuff, then maybe your answer is here, in this CQ article you probably aren't able to read because it's subscription only:

Slowest Year in the Senate Since 1961
By Emily Ethridge, CQ Staff

The campaign trail this year may have turned some senators into national rock stars, not to mention a president, but back in the chamber it was a slow year. The Senate held the lowest number of votes since 1961.

Second sessions of Congress usually make for lighter loads, but the 215 votes in 2008 represented a major drop from 2007 when the Senate tallied more than double that number of yeas and nays.

Nearly one-quarter of the 2008 votes — 49 — were procedural votes on motions to invoke cloture. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., frequently presumed there would be a filibuster threat on a piece of legislation and filed cloture motions to work around it. The high number of cloture votes illustrated the procedural slog that can slow things down when a Senate leader is working with the thinnest of majorities.

Yeah, you've heard the complaints about Republican obstruction in the Senate before. But I thought I'd point out that it can also put the brakes on a banner year (or two) -- if that's what they were -- in the House.

Or thought so, anyway.

Here's something from about the time of Steny Hoyer's (D-MD-05) first blow-up about the MTRs. A comment by Barney Frank (D-MA-04):

Democrats dismiss the Republican maneuvers as largely symbolic and so arcane as to be irrelevant to the public.

"From a public policy standpoint, it's not very significant," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), regarded as an expert in parliamentary combat. "It's almost a Capture the Flag game. The number of people in America who say, 'Oh my gosh, the Republicans won another motion to recommit' is very small."

You are that very small number of people in America.

Barney, I'm sure, would like that number to remain small. My job is to make it bigger.

Of course, I never say, "Oh my gosh, the Republicans won another motion to recommit," really. I usually say, "Oh my gosh, the Democrats just lost one." I don't care about the symbolism of a Republican win on a MTR. I care about the obstacles to Democratic wins, and that's exactly what the MTRs have become. Frank's statement, it should be noted, is from May 2007 -- a long way before the MTR was used to drive FISA policy off the cliff, and kneecap the legislative agenda such that the Dems had to employ all sorts of procedural tricks to try to avoid MTRs.

I wouldn't doubt that he feels somewhat different about it today, though I couldn't guarantee it.

I've been tracking this for a long time, and now CQ (subscription) says the results are in:

A New Recommit Record
By Jennifer Scholtes, CQ Staff

As records go, this one could have been just a tiny bit better if Republican critics of $700 billion financial bailout bill had been able to offer one more motion to recommit.

But even though they were unable to use the parliamentary maneuver on the historic measure, House Republicans still managed to rack up a new record for the 110th Congress — 120 motions to recommit overall, more than doubling the previous record of 56 set by the 109th Congress.

More worrisome still than the ridiculous number of MTRs is this:

Within that record was another record — 24 of the 120 motions were actually adopted, far exceeding the old record of 6 set by the 106th Congress.

This is ridiculous. I've had my disagreements with others who maintain that it's really nothing to worry about, but in my opinion, the approach of the Democratic Caucus and the leadership to dealing with these motions to recommit cost Democrats the ability to work as a functioning majority on a number of critical bills. The counterclaim to this is, of course, that Democrats were able to gain and then expand their majority because they allowed their members the freedom to "vote their districts" on MTRs, meaning that Dems were allowed to vote with the GOP on these procedural stunts so they wouldn't be subject to attack ads accusing them of voting against them.

But the numbers alone should tell you something about how out of control things have gotten. They didn't just break these records, they shattered them, allowing the minority to pass four times the previous record number of MTRs. And what does that kind of success encourage the minority to do? Offer more MTRs, of course. More than double the previous record. Yes, that's twice as many MTRs offered, but four times the success rate.

Not a problem? Really?

Well, I'm not sure everyone agrees. In fact, I'm positive that they don't. Certainlynot Maxine Waters (D-CA-35):

[A]s I watched Democratic leaders organize "yea" votes on this motion, I was convinced that Democrats are traveling down a path of complicity on motions to recommit the likes of which we have never seen before. I cannot help but wonder if our Caucus will be torn apart by frequent support for Republican motions to recommit. I find myself wondering, "Where will this end?"

But Waters isn't alone in her concern.

Earlier, I said that CQ was now saying the results were in, but the truth is that that article was dated October 7th. I've just been holding it for a good opportunity to discuss it. And Roll Call (also subscription) now gives me reason to do so:

Republicans are gearing up for a battle to protect a parliamentary maneuver that has helped them remain relevant in the face of a Democratic majority.

Democrats contend that no decision has been made on whether to move forward with a rule change for motions to recommit, but the prospect has Republicans in an uproar.

Democratic leaders have reason to want the procedure eliminated or tweaked.

In the 110th Congress, Republicans were able to lure vulnerable Democrats into voting for motions to recommit. Those motions previously had been dismissed as purely partisan procedural votes when Republicans were in the majority.

As a result, 25 motions to recommit passed in the 110th, as opposed to 14 in the 12 years that Democrats were the minority party.

From the 101st to the 109th Congress, only 7.6 percent of motions passed the House, according to a Feb. 2 Congressional Research Service report.

So yeah, it's more than just lonely Maxine Waters with serious concerns about the MTR and what it's done to the ability of Democrats to function as a majority. But an attempt to eliminate or seriously curtail the ability of the minority to use MTRs would cause problems of its own:

"That would blow things up in the House on the first day," said Don Wolfensberger, director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Wolfensberger, who served as the Republican chief of staff for the House Rules Committee in the 104th Congress and is now a contributing writer to Roll Call, said any attempt by House Democrats to further marginalize the GOP minority is at odds with President-elect Barack Obama’s message of bipartisan cooperation.

Wolfensberger is exactly right in saying it would blow things up in the House. In a fit of frustration over the Republican use of MTRs in mid-2007, if I recall the timing correctly, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD-05) did in fact raise the prospect of a rules change, and the Republicans proceeded to grind things to a halt with a week's worth of procedural delays in protest against the threat.There's no doubting that they'd do the exact same thing if threatened again.

And while I'm not sure I agree or care much for Wolfensberger's second assessment -- that the change (they can't believe in) would be at odds with Obama's message of bipartisan cooperation -- I'm certain that the ensuing protest could put a serious crimp in the drive to pass the opening salvos of whatever legislative agenda the new administration puts forward. And I think we all know how that'll be reported. Dems control both Congress and the White House, yet nothing's happening, yadda, yadda...

I'll go out on a limb and say that there's another Republican who has assessed the situation correctly, too:

[Jo] Maney [a spokesperson for Rep. David Dreier (R-CA-26)] said Democrats never settled on an internal strategy on how to deal with the parliamentary maneuvers, which forced Democrats to pull several bills, creating chaos on the House floor on at least one occasion.

I do believe there was no coherent Democratic strategy on how to deal with MTRs. I think that's evidenced both by the record numbers of them that were offered and passed, and by Maxine Waters' letter. With Rahm Emanuel now installed at the White House, though, one of the chief architects of what little there was that passed for Democratic strategy on MTRs is now out of the picture. So perhaps a better approach can be designed. My preference is for the old way of dealing with them. That is, voting them down routinely as procedural annoyances. While it's certainly possible that the Republicans will take their use of MTRs more seriously and will thus offer a few tweaks here and there that are genuinely valuable, in general Democrats ought not to feel too uncomfortable about voting down anything that can be brought to the floor sight unseen and is only debatable for ten minutes. No rank-and-file Democrat would ever be afforded an opportunity to pull a surprise amendment out of his pocket with no notice and change or even kill a bill entirely with it in ten minutes or less. So why give that power to Republicans?

What did the MTR cost us in the last Congress? I think we lost a lot of leverage in the FISA debate, for one thing, although the reality is that we probably would have ended up losing that fight no matter what. (Even if we'd passed a good law, the Bush-Cheney "administration" wouldn't have obeyed it.)

But there's another concrete example:

Republicans used the motion to recommit for one of their earliest victories in the 110th Congress: In March 2007, the GOP blocked a Washington, D.C., voting rights bill by tying it with legislation to lift the city’s gun ban. Knowing what was coming, Pelosi pulled the voting rights bill from the floor.

Things didn't work out so well on the city's gun ban in the end, did they? The Supreme Court struck it down this year, upholding a D.C. Circuit court ruling that had already been made by the time of the MTR. So the Republicans got their way on the gun ban in the end, and Democrats were defeated in passing a voting rights bill for DC. Dems couldn't even hold it together to vote the MTR down and declare that they were for letting the courts handle it, as they already were. So we hit into the double play to end the inning on that one. Awesome strategy!

This is an issue that definitely calls for some reform. But I don't know that a rules change is the best way to go about it. Dems just need to get together and remind the caucus what's a stake, the procedural reasons why you don't want to encourage the use of these motions, and make it clear that the leadership will have an eye on those votes and who strays on them.

A good question posed by DocGonzo today brings us to a bit of useful (if arcane) knowledge.

If [the proposed economic stimulus measures] pass by January 15, who will sign them? Would Bush sign them? Why would Democrats let Bush take the credit for it, instead of waiting 5 more days? During which everyone knows Obama will sign it, and during which practically no spending would occur anyway.

Or does the 111th Congress just hold back the bills, at Reid's and Pelosi's discretion, letting Bush twist in the wind for a final week while we all hold our breath?

The answer is that after a bill (or conference report on multiple versions of a bill) passes both houses, there are some ministerial functions that it has to go through before it's presented to the president for signature. Those procedures can be expedited or slowed down at the discretion of the Congressional leadership, with the only serious restriction being that the process has to be finished up before the Congress adjourns sine die -- that is, before it ceases to sit as a Congress, at the end of the two-year terms to which its House members were elected.

What happens during that process, known as "enrollment?"

Here's an excellent C-SPAN article on the subject that explains the whole deal. Definitely recommended reading.

The short answer, though, is that any changes made to the text of the bill by the conference report are incorporated into the finished product by an enrolling clerk. Then it's printed up and bound in a formal package for presentation to the president. But before it goes, it's signed by the presiding officers of the Congress -- the Speaker of the House and the President (or President Pro Tem) of the Senate. Only then does it go to the president for signature.

But do read that C-SPAN article. It's got even more detail, including the official process for counting the ten-day window the president has to sign enrolled bills -- an issue that came up last year during George W. Bush's purported "pocket veto" of the Defense authorization bill.