Reconciliation: Abuse of Power?

The Democrats plan to push ObamaCare through Congress via reconciliation, a parliamentary tool traditionally used for fast-tracking budget measures with only 50 votes. In the context of health care reform, the invocation of this tool is indeed an abuse of power. Even some Democratic proponents of the legislation would agree according to the Wall Street Journal:

President Clinton preferred to use reconciliation to pass HillaryCare in the 1990s, but he was dissuaded by West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who argued that it would be an abuse of the process. Mr. Byrd, author of a four-volume history of Senate rules and procedures, told the Washington Post last March that “The misuse of the arcane process of reconciliation—a process intended for deficit reduction—to enact substantive policy changes is an undemocratic disservice to our people and to the Senate’s institutional role,” specifically citing health reform and cap and trade.