3/01/2010

Reconciliation and Biden's Role

During the Vice Presidential debate in 2008, Joe Biden claimed:

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive, and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.


Obviously, Biden got this wrong. Some though have caught on and realize that it could have important implications for the health care debate.

Most people think all the Vice President does is break ties, but a former Senate parliamentarian has just delineated a job that could be FAR more controversial and important: the Vice President can override the Senate's nonpartisan arbiter of the chamber's rules, the parliamentarian.
Talk about the real nuclear, heck - kamikaze, option, the specter of Vice President Joe Biden (former long time senator) overruling the current parliamentarian, Alan Frumin, during the upcoming healthcare debate, as Democrats work to get around a GOP filibuster.
"It is the decision of the Vice President whether or not to play a role here," former Senate parliamentarian Robert "Bob" Dove told MSNBC. Dove said the parliamentarian is merely dispensing advice, and the Vice President can overrule that advice, even though "not since Hubert Humphrey" has this happened. . . .

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