The Budget Reconciliation Process: The Senate’s “Byrd Rule”

Robert Keith
Specialist in American National Government

Reconciliation is a procedure under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 by which Congress implements budget resolution policies affecting mainly permanent spending and revenue programs. The principal focus in the reconciliation process has been deficit reduction, but in some years reconciliation has involved revenue reduction generally and spending increases in selected areas. Although reconciliation is an optional procedure, it has been used most years since its first use in 1980 (19 reconciliation bills have been enacted into law and three have been vetoed). 

During the first several years' experience with reconciliation, the legislation contained many provisions that were extraneous to the purpose of implementing budget resolution policies. The reconciliation submissions of committees included such things as provisions that had no budgetary effect, that increased spending or reduced revenues when the reconciliation instructions called for reduced spending or increased revenues, or that violated another committee's jurisdiction. 

In 1985 and 1986, the Senate adopted the Byrd rule (named after its principal sponsor, Senator Robert C. Byrd) on a temporary basis as a means of curbing these practices. The Byrd rule has been extended and modified several times over the years. In 1990, the Byrd rule was incorporated into the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 as Section 313 and made permanent (2 U.S.C. 644). 

A Senator opposed to the inclusion of extraneous matter in reconciliation legislation may offer an amendment (or a motion to recommit the measure with instructions) that strikes such provisions from the legislation, or, under the Byrd rule, a Senator may raise a point of order against such matter. In general, a point of order authorized under the Byrd rule may be raised in order to strike extraneous matter already in the bill as reported or discharged (or in the conference report), or to prevent the incorporation of extraneous matter through the adoption of amendments or motions. A motion to waive the Byrd rule, or to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the chair on a point of order raised under the Byrd rule, requires the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the membership (60 Senators if no seats are vacant). 

The Byrd rule provides six definitions of what constitutes extraneous matter for purposes of the rule (and several exceptions thereto), but the term is generally described as covering provisions unrelated to achieving the goals of the reconciliation instructions. 

The Byrd rule has applied to 17 reconciliation measures considered by the Senate from 1985 through the present. There have been 54 points of order and 43 waiver motions considered and disposed of under the Byrd rule, largely in a manner that favored those who opposed the inclusion of extraneous matter in reconciliation legislation (44 points of order were sustained, in whole or in part, and 34 waiver motions were rejected).


Date of Report: March 17, 2010
Number of Pages: 35
Order Number: RL30862
Price: $29.95

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