Budget Update: House Names Conferees, 23 Dems Vote Against Reconciliation

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Now that Congress is back in session, House and Senate negotiators will have to get together in conference committee to resolve the differences between their budgets, which they passed in the days before the most recent recess. Moments ago the House chose Reps. John Spratt, Rosa DeLauro, and Allen Boyd to be their conferees.

More on them in a second. Recall first that there are some important discrepancies between the two resolutions, most notably that the House budget contains reconciliation instructions for health care and the Senate does not. Republicans (and some Democrats) aren’t pleased, and are doing whatever they can to kill reconciliation altogether. So how is that fight shaping up so far?

Spratt is the chairman of the Budget Committee and Rosa DeLauro is a progressive’s progressive, so presumably they’ll be staunch advocates of keeping reconciliation in the final resolution. Boyd, by contrast, is one of the House’s most conservative Democrats, and one can imagine him not putting up much of a fight.

Note, it’s important not to read too much into this. Senate conferees haven’t been chosen yet, and leadership stands behind reconciliation, so there’s no reason to assume the move is dead or anything. Just something to keep an eye on.

Just for the record, though, the Republicans offered their own conference instructions this afternoon, which would have knocked reconciliation instructions out of the budget altogether. That motion failed, but not without the support of 23 Democrats.

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