Budget Reconciliation Process: Timing of Committee Responses to Reconciliation Directives
Released: 2016-01-19T00:00:00

The Reconciliation Process

The purpose of the reconciliation process is to enhance Congress's ability to bring existing spending, revenue, and debt limit laws into compliance with current fiscal priorities established in the annual budget resolution. When Congress adopts a budget resolution, it is agreeing upon budgetary goals for the upcoming fiscal year. In some cases, for these goals to be achieved, Congress must pass legislation that alters current revenue, direct spending, or debt limit laws. In this situation Congress seeks to reconcile existing law with its current priorities. The reconciliation process is still a relatively new congressional process in that there have been only 24 reconciliation bills passed by Congress since the first use of reconciliation in 1980.

Overview of the Reconciliation Process

Budget reconciliation is an optional congressional process that consists of several different stages ( Figure 1 ). The first stage is the adoption of the budget resolution. If Congress intends to use the reconciliation process, reconciliation directives (also referred to as reconciliation instructions) must be included in the annual budget resolution. These directives trigger the second stage of the process by instructing individual committees to develop and report legislation that would change laws within their respective jurisdictions related to spending, revenue, or the debt limit. These directives detail which committee(s) should report reconciliation legislation, the date by which the committee(s) should report, the dollar amount of budgetary change to be achieved in the reconciliation legislation, and the time period over which the impact of the budgetary change should be measured. If a single committee is directed in the budget resolution to develop reconciliation legislation, it will likely be instructed to report this language directly to its full chamber. If, however, several committees are directed to report reconciliation legislation, they will typically be directed to submit the language to their respective Budget Committees for packaging, without any substantive change, into an omnibus measure.

During the second stage of the reconciliation process, the specified committee develops legislation in response to the reconciliation directive included in the budget resolution. The committee will then meet to vote whether to report that language. The committee may vote to report the language favorably or unfavorably, the latter meaning that although it satisfied its directive, the committee did not support the language.

As stated above, if more than one committee has been directed to report reconciliation legislation, they are directed to submit such language to their respective Budget Committees. Each Budget Committee then packages all committee responses into an omnibus budget reconciliation bill without making any substantive revisions and votes on whether to report the omnibus reconciliation bill to the full chamber. In this way, both the legislative committees and the Budget Committees in both chambers have important roles to play in using the reconciliation process.

During the final stages of the reconciliation process, the reported legislation is considered under expedited procedures in both the House and Senate. As with all legislation, any differences in the reconciliation legislation as passed by the two chambers must be resolved before the bill can be sent to the President for the final stage of the process: either approval or veto.

Sometimes the reconciliation process triggered in the annual budget resolution of a specific year is not completed until the subsequent year. For instance, the FY2006 budget resolution, agreed to on April 28, 2005, included reconciliation directives that resulted in the enactment of two reconciliation bills, but these bills were not signed into law until February and May of 2006.

Reconciliation Directives

As described above, Congress has the option of including reconciliation directives in its annual budget resolution. These directives trigger the reconciliation process, and without their inclusion in a budget resolution, no measure would be eligible to be considered under expedited reconciliation procedures.

When reconciliation directives are included in an annual budget resolution, their purpose is to require committees to develop and report legislation that will allow Congress to achieve the budgetary goals set forth in the annual budget resolution. These directives detail which committee(s) should report reconciliation legislation, the date by which the committee(s) should report, the dollar amount of budgetary change that should exist within the reconciliation legislation, and the time period over which the budgetary change should occur. They might also include language regarding the type of budgetary change that should be reported (revenue, spending, or debt limit legislation), as well as other procedural provisions, contingencies, and programmatic direction.

In this way, the reconciliation process allows the Budget Committees to assist Congress in implementing the budgetary changes outlined in the budget resolution while, at the same time, protecting legislative committee jurisdiction over direct spending and revenue laws by allowing them to report legislative changes of their choice.

The Committee(s) Directed to Report Reconciliation Legislation

As described above, reconciliation directives in a budget resolution direct a specific committee or committees to develop legislation achieving a desired budgetary outcome.

Single Committee Directive vs. Multiple Committee Directives

In both the House and Senate, reconciliation instructions in a budget resolution have directed either a single committee to report or multiple committees to report. In cases when only one committee has been directed to report, the process directs the committee to report its reconciliation legislation directly to its full chamber. If the budget resolution instructs more than one committee to report reconciliation legislation, then those committees are directed to submit their legislative recommendations to their respective Budget Committees. Each Budget Committee then packages the committee responses into an omnibus budget reconciliation bill without making any substantive revisions and votes on whether to report the omnibus reconciliation bill.

Particular Committees Directed to Report

Any legislative committee with jurisdiction over spending, revenues, or the debt limit may be directed to report reconciliation legislation, and many have been instructed to report reconciliation legislation at some point. Because the Senate Finance Committee and the House Committee on Ways and Means each have jurisdiction within their respective chambers over all revenue and debt limit legislation—as well as some direct spending legislation—these committees are often directed to report some type of reconciliation legislation when reconciliation directives are included in a budget resolution. Since 1989, 14 budget resolutions have included reconciliation directives to Senate committees. Thirteen of those 14 directed the Senate Finance Committee to report reconciliation legislation. Similarly, since 1989, 14 budget resolutions have included reconciliation directives to House committees. Thirteen of those 14 directed the House Ways and Means Committee to report reconciliation legislation.

In current practice, reconciliation may include direct spending legislation but does not include discretionary spending provisions. Discretionary spending is subject to other enforcement mechanisms. The Appropriations Committees have been directed to report reconciliation legislation on only two occasions and have not been directed to do so since 1981.

Multiple Directives to a Single Committee

Individual committees are sometimes given several separate reconciliation directives within a single budget resolution. In 2000, for instance, the budget resolution included four separate reconciliation instructions to the House Ways and Means Committee.

There are several reasons why a budget resolution may include multiple directives to a single committee. First, a committee may be directed to report more than one kind of reconciliation legislation with a separate directive given for each type. Section 310 of the Budget Act recognizes three types of reconciliation legislation that committees may be directed to report: spending, revenue, and debt limit. The Budget Act also recognizes that committees may be directed to report a combination of spending and revenue legislation, including a direction to achieve deficit-neutral reductions. If a committee is given more than one directive—for instance, to increase revenues and decrease spending—then the committee may respond with separate pieces of legislation.

Under current practice in the Senate, however, this provision has been interpreted to mean that no more than one reconciliation measure of each type is permitted. Reconciliation instructions, therefore, may result in the creation of no more than three reconciliation bills that may be considered on the floor under expedited procedures—and only if they are divided so that there is one for spending, one for revenue, and one for the debt limit.

A committee may also be asked to report reconciliation legislation that achieves budgetary goals over different periods of time. Lastly, reconciliation directives may be separated to make clear that the directives are intended to achieve separate policy goals.

The Date by Which Committees Are Directed to Report

Reconciliation directives included in an annual budget resolution direct a committee to report (or submit to the Budget Committee) legislation by a specific date. For example:

(b) Not later than June 20, 1980, each committee specified in subsection (a) shall submit its recommendations to the Committee on the Budget of its House.

(1) Not later than July 23, 1999, the Senate Committee on Finance shall report to the Senate a reconciliation bill.

As can be seen in Table 1 , these due dates may vary in several respects. In some years, they have been the same for both the House and Senate committees. Due dates have sometimes been as early as April or as late as October and have fallen within every month between except August (due to the annually scheduled recess).

The decision regarding when to set committee response dates may be influenced by various factors. One factor may be a desire to achieve the President's legislative priorities as quickly as possible, particularly in the first year of his term. For instance, in 2001, President George W. Bush proposed the enactment of revenue reductions. Congress used reconciliation to consider revenue reduction legislation, setting a May due date for committee submissions and clearing the measure for the President by May 26.

Conversely, submission deadlines may be set for later in the session when the need for extensive negotiations is foreseen. For example, the FY1996 budget resolution was adopted on June 29, but the submission date for reconciliation legislation was September 22. In 1990, prolonged negotiations with the President over a "budget summit" agreement delayed the adoption of the budget resolution until October, which also prolonged the triggering of the reconciliation process. As a result, the FY1991 budget resolution set a submission deadline in both chambers of October 15, five days after the annual budget resolution was agreed to.

When a single committee is directed to report multiple pieces of reconciliation legislation, staggered deadlines may be used to regulate the pace of legislative activity. For example, the reconciliation instructions included in the FY2006 budget resolution in 2005 included three sets of instructions for the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee with three different due dates. These due dates were staggered with a week between each, allowing the committees time to develop and report legislation to satisfy each individual directive.

Procedural Enforcement of Budget Reconciliation Timing

The Budget Act includes a budget process timetable stating that Congress is to complete action on reconciliation legislation on or before June 15. There is no corresponding enforcement mechanism, however, for ensuring that reconciliation legislation be completed by that date, and Congress has instead followed a timetable established by the committee due dates in reconciliation directives in the budget resolution. Another provision in the Budget Act prohibits House consideration of any resolution providing for adjournment of more than three days during the month of July if the House has not completed action on any required reconciliation legislation.

There is no procedural mechanism, such as a point of order, for enforcing the date specified in the reconciliation directive as it appears in the budget resolution. Committees have sometimes reported reconciliation legislation in response to their directives after the date specified in the directive with no impact on whether the resultant legislation was considered as reconciliation legislation. In other words, the late response of one or more committees did not cause the bill to lose its privileged status as a reconciliation bill.

In the case of omnibus reconciliation measures, the House and Senate Budget Committees have at times delayed reporting a bill until tardy committee submissions were received.

Extensions to the Committee Due Date

During the first years in which the reconciliation process was used, explicit extensions were sometimes granted to committees that were unable to meet their reporting due date. For instance, in 1983, the House and Senate extended their committee submission due date from July 22 to September 23. Since this specific extension, however, the House has not employed the use of due date extensions, although the Senate continued the practice through the 1980s.

Because committee due dates have no mechanism for enforcement, in current practice neither chamber uses formal committee due date extensions.

In the Event That a Committee Does Not Respond to a Reconciliation Directive by the Date Indicated

In some years, committees have not formally responded to the reconciliation directive instructing them to report legislation. There may be several reasons for the lack of a formal committee submission. For instance, there may have been a shift in policy priorities and Congress no longer desires to pass reconciliation legislation. It could also be that a committee fails to approve reconciliation language, or it may be that although committees did not respond formally to the directive, they reported freestanding legislation that was not considered under reconciliation procedures but may have satisfied the goal of the reconciliation directive.

As explained above, there is no procedural mechanism for requiring a committee to report reconciliation legislation by the date indicated in the reconciliation directive. Each chamber, however, may employ methods of moving forward with reconciliation legislation and include legislative language that falls within the non-reporting committee's jurisdiction in the event that the committee has not yet reported. These methods vary by chamber.

House of Representatives

In the House, if a committee has not responded to a reconciliation directive, it may still be possible to consider reconciliation legislation on the House floor that would satisfy the committee's directive. The Budget Act states that the House Rules Committee may make in order amendments to a reconciliation bill to satisfy reconciliation directives if a committee has not submitted reconciliation legislation to the House Budget Committee. This would be in order only if there were a reconciliation bill available for consideration by the House either reported from the Budget Committee or received from the Senate.

Senate

In the Senate, if a committee has not responded to a reconciliation directive, it may still be possible to consider reconciliation legislation on the Senate floor that would satisfy the committee's directive. This would be in order on the floor in the form of a motion to recommit the bill to that committee with instructions that it report the measure back to the Senate forthwith with an amendment. Unlike amendments to the reconciliation bill, the motion to recommit would not have to be germane if it were made in this situation. Such a motion to recommit would allow any Senator to craft legislative language within the directed committee's jurisdiction on the floor.

The Recent Practice of House and Senate Committees in Responding to Reconciliation Directives

The following section provides information on the timing of committee responses to reconciliation directives during the period covering 1989-2015 and offers insight on the extent to which the submission due date included in a reconciliation instruction is a predictor for the timing of committee responses.

The House of Representatives

Table 2 provides information on the timing of House committee responses to reconciliation directives. The table includes only reconciliation acts that involved multiple committee directives. It includes the relevant reconciliation act, the number of directives to House committees included in the budget resolution, the number of committee responses that were submitted on time, the number of responses that were submitted late, the number of House committee directives that were not formally responded to, and the number of days before or after the deadline that the last reporting committee submitted its response. It does not speak to the content of the response.

The table also includes the date the House Budget Committee reported, the number of days between the final included committee submission to the House Budget Committee, and the date when the House Budget Committee reported.

The data in Table 2 show that directed committees have sometimes submitted reconciliation legislation before the due date, at the due date, and after the due date, and in some cases, committees never formally responded. Further, the table shows that reconciliation legislation has been passed by the House regardless of whether committees reported late or whether some committees never formally submitted a response.

Table 2 illustrates at least three practices of the House Budget Committee. First, the Budget Committee has sometimes delayed the reporting of an omnibus reconciliation bill in order to allow a committee that has missed its directed date to submit its response. Conversely, it shows that in some cases, the Budget Committee has not waited for all committees to submit before reporting the bill. Lastly, it shows that, except for in one case, once the House Budget Committee has received the last submission to ultimately be included in the omnibus bill, it reports the legislation without substantial delay.

In the case of omnibus reconciliation bills, the committee responses ranged from all committees submitting on time (Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990) to all committees submitting late (Deficit Reduction Act of 1997). Several omnibus bills included both timely and tardy responses.

In some years, reconciliation was included in budget resolutions adopted by one or both chambers, but in the absence of final agreement, the process was not triggered. Such years are not included in this report.

Table 4 presents a timeline of four particular stages of reconciliation action in the House for eight different reconciliation acts. The figure includes reconciliation acts agreed to by both chambers that involved multiple committee instructions with the same due date. It shows (1) the date that the budget resolution that directed committees to report reconciliation was agreed to by both chambers, (2) the date by which the instructed committees were directed to submit their responses to the House Budget Committee, (3) the date that the last responding committee submitted reconciliation legislation to the House Budget Committee, and (4) the date that the House Budget Committee reported reconciliation legislation.

Figure 2 shows the variability in timing for three of the four stages. Although the first stage shown (budget resolution agreed to) tends to occur between April and June, the timing for the other three stages varies. Further, there is considerable variation in the total time taken for all four stages to be completed. In one case it took only a month (1997), and in another other case it took almost 11 months (2009/2010).

There is also variability in the stages as they relate to one another. For instance, sometimes the first two stages (adoption of budget resolution and the due date for committee submission) have been within the same month, and sometimes they have been several months apart. This is also true for the relationship between the second and third stages (committee submission due dates and actual committee submission date). However, the amount of time between stages three and four (the submission date of the last committee formally submitting and the date the budget committee reports an omnibus bill) has been fairly consistent, except in one case. As in Table 2 , this shows that, except in one case, the House Budget Committee has reported the omnibus legislation shortly after it has received the final submission to be included in the omnibus bill.

The Senate

Table 3 provides information on the timing of Senate committee responses to reconciliation directives. The table includes only reconciliation acts that involved multiple committee directives. It includes the relevant reconciliation act, the number of directives to Senate committees included in the budget resolution, the number of committee responses that were submitted on time, the number of committee responses that were submitted late, the number of committees directives that were not formally responded to, and the number of days before or after the deadline that the last reporting committee submitted its response. It does not speak to the content of the response.

The table also includes the date the Senate Budget Committee reported the omnibus bill, the number of days between the final included committee submission to the Senate Budget Committee, and the date when the Senate Budget Committee reported.

The data in Table 3 illustrate that directed committees have sometimes reported or submitted reconciliation legislation before the due date, at the due date, and after the due date and that, in some cases, committees never formally responded. Further, the table shows that reconciliation legislation has been passed by the Senate regardless of whether committees submitted late or whether some committees never formally submitted a response.

Table 3 illustrates at least three practices of the Senate Budget Committee. First, the Budget Committee has sometimes delayed the reporting of a reconciliation bill to allow a committee that has missed its deadline to submit. Conversely, it shows that in some cases, the Budget Committee has not waited for all committees to submit before reporting the omnibus reconciliation bill. Lastly, it shows that once the Senate Budget Committee has received the last submission to be included in the omnibus, it reports the legislation without substantial delay.

In the case of omnibus reconciliation bills, the committee responses ranged from all committees submitting on time (Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990) to all committees submitting late (Deficit Reduction Act). Several omnibus bills included both timely and tardy responses.

Table 3 presents a timeline of reconciliation action in the Senate for six particular reconciliation acts. The figure includes reconciliation acts agreed to by both chambers that involved multiple committee instructions with the same due date. It shows (1) the date that the budget resolution that directed committees to report reconciliation was agreed to by both chambers, (2) the date by which the instructed committees were directed to submit their responses to the Senate Budget Committee, (3) the date that the last responding committee submitted reconciliation legislation to the Senate Budget Committee, and (4) the date that the Senate Budget Committee reported reconciliation legislation.

Figure 3 shows variability in timing for three of the four stages. Although the first stage shown (budget resolution agreed to) tends to occur between April and June, the timing for the other three stages varies. Further, there is considerable variation in the total time taken for all four stages to be completed. In one case, it took only one month (1997), and in another case it took eight months (2005).

There is also variability in the stages as they relate to one another. For instance, sometimes the first two stages (adoption of budget resolution and the due date for committee submission) have been within the same month, and sometimes they have been several months apart. This is also true for the relationship between the second and third stages (committee submission due dates and actual committee submission date). However, the amount of time between stages three and four (the submission date of the last committee formally submitting and the date the budget committee reports an omnibus bill) has been fairly consistent. As in Table 3 , this shows that the Senate Budget Committee reports legislation shortly after it has received the last submission to be included in the omnibus bill.

The following tables provide more detailed information on House and Senate committee responses to reconciliation directives. Table 4 pertains to the House, and Table 5 pertains to the Senate. Both include the relevant Congress and session, the fiscal year to which the budget resolution pertains, the budget resolution number, the date the budget resolution was agreed to by both chambers, the committees directed to report reconciliation legislation, the date by which the committee was directed to respond, the date on which the committee responded, the date that the budget committee reported a reconciliation bill (if applicable), and the reconciliation legislation that was subsequently passed by Congress.

The date of response for each committee has been determined in two ways, depending on whether the committee was directed to report to the full chamber or to submit to the Budget Committee. In the case that a committee was instructed to report directly to the full chamber, the date of the committee report was used. In the case that the committee was directed to report to its Budget Committee, the date on the submission letters accompanying its reconciliation responses was used. These letters were found in committee reports and committee prints accompanying the reconciliation legislation. In some cases these letters had been inserted into the Congressional Record .

In some cases, the tables do not show a committee response date. Committees have not always formally responded to the reconciliation directive instructing them to report legislation. There may be a number of reasons for the lack of a formal submission. For instance, there may have been a shift in policy priorities over the course of the year and Congress no longer desired to consider reconciliation legislation within that committee's jurisdiction. It may also be that even though committees did not respond formally to the reconciliation directive, they did report freestanding legislation that would have satisfied the goal of the reconciliation directive.