An Idle Thought on Dirty Tricks

Hey — you know what would kill the Stupak Amendment? Reconciliation. The process of “reconciliation” cuts off debate, terminates amendments except under certain circumstances, and moves to a simple majority vote the budget-impacting portions of a congressional bill ONLY.

It’s arguable that a limitation on funding for abortions would fall within reconciliation, actually — consider subsections b(1)(A) and (b)(3)(B) of 2 U.S.C. § 644 (the “Byrd Rule” on excising extraneous material) — but because of the limitation on amendments, the provision would have to be introduced first. That hasn’t happened in the Senate, and could likely be blocked by the reconciliation process.

Of course, any substantially different bill would still have to survive conference. So… there’s that.