Alan Frumin May Surge From Obscurity to Craft Senate Health Bill
Its a role the obscure official could assume if the Senate fails to reach a bipartisan deal on a health-care bill. Democratic leaders and President Barack Obama say they would prefer such an accord. If they cant get it, they have signaled they will turn to the so-called reconciliation procedure to short-circuit Republican opposition.
That move would enable Senate Democrats to pass a bill with 51 votes, rather than the 60 typically needed for contentious legislation. Under Senate rules, it also would give Frumin, 62, broad authority to decide which portions of the Democrats bill are relevant to the budget and empower him to delete provisions he considers unrelated.
“Youd end up with the parliamentarian of the United States Senate writing a health-care bill,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican.
Provisions of a health-care plan Frumin may remove, lawmakers say, include a proposal barring insurers from denying coverage, the creation of a government-run insurance program and efforts to encourage preventive medicine.
Used by Both Parties
Reconciliation has been used 22 times, by both parties, since it was created in 1974. Republicans relied on it in 1981 to cut spending programs such as welfare and food stamps. President George W. Bush employed the procedure to approve his tax cuts. In the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton revamped welfare policies with it. In 2007, Senate Democrats invoked it to pass a measure cutting subsidies to student-loan providers.
Talk of reconciliation in the health-care battle intensified as the Senate headed into its August recess without an agreement on a bill. Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said last week that if the Finance Committees Republicans and Democrats couldnt strike a deal by Sept. 15, his party may go it alone through reconciliation. Obama also raised that prospect.
The reconciliation process was devised to make it easier to trim the federal deficit by removing the 60-vote requirement that proved a barrier to passing tax increases or spending cuts. Senate rules bar lawmakers from using it to pass measures tangential to the budget.
Appointed in 2001
Frumin declined to comment. A graduate of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, and Georgetown Universitys law school in Washington, hes worked in the parliamentarians office since 1977. He was appointed to the top job in 2001 after his predecessor, Bob Dove, was fired by then-Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican. Frumin became the first parliamentarian named by both parties. The job pays about $167,000 a year.
A senator may demand that a bills provision be deleted if it has only an “incidental” budgetary impact. Deciding what counts as incidental is the parliamentarian, whose rulings stand unless overridden with 60 votes.
Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, said he has been researching Frumins role under reconciliation. He said he didnt want to give Democrats advance warning by identifying the provisions he might target. “Im not going there,” Coburn said.
Concern
The chambers No. 2 Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, said he was concerned that “just about any of the insurance reforms were talking about” could be eliminated by Frumin on grounds they arent connected to the budget. That includes provisions to bar insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.
Also vulnerable, said Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, is a public insurance plan that Obama and many in his party consider crucial and is opposed by most Republicans.
Proposals designed to encourage preventive medicine may also be struck, said Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the finance panels top Republican.
The parliamentarians authority to alter legislation under reconciliation stems from the so-called Byrd Rule, named for Senator Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who devised it. Durbin calls the rule “the most inscrutable thing Ive ever dealt with” in the Senate.
Chopped Up