Republicans may have majorities in both the House and Senate, but that doesn’t mean they’re able to just pass any and all legislation they want. They have 53 seats in the Senate – enough to be in the majority, but not enough to overcome the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold needed to advance most legislation.
This leaves Republicans with two options:
- Engage in bipartisan negotiations with Democrats, who will insist on concessions that mitigate the harm of the MAGA agenda before they lend votes to a Republican bill.
- Use the budget reconciliation process, which only requires 51 votes to pass, but has severe limitations to pass their main legislative agenda.
Because the pain is the point of the MAGA agenda, Republicans in Congress are moving forward with plans to use Budget Reconciliation to pass their top priorities: slashing Medicaid, SNAP, and other essential programs that working families rely on to pay for massive tax handouts to billionaires and corporations.
Budget Reconciliation, often referred to as just reconciliation, is a legislative maneuver that allows the majority to get around this 60-vote threshold. Reconciliation lets the Senate majority bypass the filibuster process, allowing them to pass legislation with 51 votes, instead of the normal 60. This document explains how reconciliation works.
What is Reconciliation?
Reconciliation is a budget process. When the Budget Committee creates their annual Budget Resolution, they can choose to include reconciliation instructions to committees. These instructions tell committees what budget acts (increase revenue, cut spending, etc) they need to do to accomplish what’s outlined in the Budget Resolution.
Committees do not have to follow the suggestions given to them by the Budget Committee, but cannot spend more money. Once committees return their text, the Budget Committee reports it to the floor for a vote.
Any provision in a Reconciliation bill must be primarily budgetary, severely limiting the scope of a policy that can be passed this way. In fact, reconciliation bills have to go through a ‘Byrd Bath’ to ensure they are compliant with all the reconciliation rules. If a reconciliation bill isn’t compliant with the Byrd Rule it loses its privileged status and has to pass via normal order, meaning it will be subject to a filibuster.
However, if a reconciliation bill is compliant with Byrd, it only requires a simple majority in order to pass.
The Reconciliation Timeline
Congress can only use one reconciliation bill per budget resolution
Congress creates a budget resolution which is a budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year.
- The resolution can include reconciliation instructions to committees detailing budgetary changes they need to make.
- Committees return their plans to accomplish the directions given to them to the Budget Committee.
- The Budget Committee compiles these plans and meets with the parliamentarian to hear how she will rule on provisions that may violate the Byrd Rule.
- The Budget Committee brings the bill to the floor for a vote
- Provisions that won’t be upheld are generally removed from the package.
- Finally, the full chamber votes on the bill, and it’s passed by a simple majority.
If you can pass one reconciliation bill per budget why are we passing two bills this year?
For FY 2025, Congress did not pass a reconciliation bill, which means that the Senate can pass one reconciliation bill for FY 2025 and a second reconciliation bill for FY 2026. Senate Republicans want to split up their agenda into two bills, while House Republicans are pushing for one big bill instead.
Vote-A-Rama
You may have heard the term vote-a-rama tossed around when discussing budget reconciliation. Reconciliation has a 20-hour limit on debate but no limit on the number of amendments that can be considered. Once the 20 hours of debate expire,the rest of the amendments are voted on back-to-back. Budget Resolutions and Reconciliation bills cannot be voted on for final passage until all amendments are voted on. This means the Senate has to cram a ton of voting into a short period of time which is why this process is referred to as a vote-a-rama. This gives Democrats an opportunity to introduce endless amendments that jam Republicans, forcing them on the record taking bad votes, and slows down passage of the bill.
Reconciliation matters the most in the Senate
Reconciliation bills in the House and Senate are both given priority, but it is the Senate that has dramatic procedural changes when considering a reconciliation bill. The most impactful procedural change is that debate in the Senate is limited to 20 hours, which eliminates the ability to filibuster the measure. The filibuster can stop Republicans from enacting their legislation agenda, especially because they don’t want to work with Democrats on a bipartisan compromise. A Reconciliation provides a pathway to avoid that for a limited number of policies.