Let Me Get This Straight: S. 294 and H.R. 6003 (Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Acts of 2007 and 2008)

[lattasnip9]

     I'm attempting to make some sense of this political hubbajubba (my 9th grade government teacher would probably not be happy with me right now).  So the Senate's version of the bill wants to appropriate $8.9 Billion to Amtrak over 2008-2012.  The House of Representatives' version wants to appropriate $14.9 Billion to Amtrak over 2009-2013.  I know both the bill's have been passed by their respected chambers.  When the bill's go through the two chambers again, will they be compromised or what is going to happen?  Call me stupid... but I'm just trying to get a hold of what's going on.

Here are the links to the Bills.

H.R. 6003 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billreport.xpd?bill=h110-6003&type=cbo

S. 294 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-294

[Paul Milenkovic]

The bills may not be that far apart because they may be comparing "apples and oranges" of what portion of the Amtrak appropriation those budget numbers refer to.

There is also something called a Conference Committee, where representatives from the House and member of the Senate sit down and haggle over the difference and draft a compromise bill.  That compromise bill, typically, gets express treatment because the members of both chambers have already debated and registered their vote on the original, somewhat different drafts, of what is now the same thing.  However, given the political version of Murphy's Law, sometimes legislation can fail at this stage.

There was some discussion earlier about not getting one's hopes too high because this bill may be only the "authorization" and not the actual "appropriation."  That is why getting anything done requires platoons of "outside lobbyists" representing "special interests", keeping an eye on this whole process that legislation finally gets on the President's desk.

There is another feature of the Constitution that any bill that actually has to do with spending money or taxing to raise money has to come from the House of Representatives.  Who knows, perhaps the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia thought this better represented the will of the people on taxes and spending.  Since this bill came out of the Senate, there may need to be some parliamentary maneuver to make it appear that it came out of the House, and this kind of thing is done all of the time.

You have to watch hours and hours of lame sketches of the TV program Saturday Night Live to get to the classic funny parts, but there was one sketch or humorous segment on SNL that needs to be excerpted and distributed to all of the Ninth Grade Civics classes throughout this land.  When Ronald Reagan was elected President (I am not endorsing nor criticizing the Reagan Presidency here, so don't go all political on me), his "political coattails" brought in a Republican Senate for the first time in decades, but the House was still firmly controlled by the Democrat members.  Apparently, since he only had majority party influence over the Senate, a great deal of "Reagan Revolution" legislation on taxes started in the Senate, but by the Constitution there had to be an originating bill in the House, and a lot took place in those Conference Committees.

If I remember correctly, there were enough votes in the House to pass "Reagan Revolution" bills but the problem was getting those bills originated in the House.  The Democratic Party had such a strong, long-lasting majority in Congress because it emcompassed a broad coalition, ranging from some of the most "liberal" members of Congress to the most "conservative."  The conservatives, known as Blue Dog Democrats, included such Senators as Phil Gramm of Texas and Richard Shelby of Alabama along with many members of Congress, many of whom switched parties and accounted for the House turning Republican in the Clinton years than as large a shift in party allegiance among the voters.  The House had a majority Reagan-supporting coalition of Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats, but the leadership was decidely more liberal and at odds with President Reagan's program, hence the fancy legislative maneuvering.

The writers at SNL were smart enough to figure out that the "Reagan Revolution" was taking place through some special legislative tactics in a divided Congress and a House of Representatives strongly divided with the politics of the President (remember House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neal?).  What they did to not only make this slightly understandable but a lot funny, is that they charted the normal legislative process and contrasted with the "Reagan Game Plan" as if they were doing the color commentary for Monday Night Football, and they drew lines, arrows, circles, and X's on a Telestrator overlay of the typical civic's class overlay of a chart showing the different branches of government and houses of Congress.  In the style of John Madden and other commentators, they outlined a bill getting passed by the Senate but "boom, blocked in the House Ways and Means Committee" where they drew an X, and then they described the "end run" into Conference Committee, where they drew a circle.

Anyone know if this sketch is on You Tube?

The reason I mention this is that the passenger train advocacy community should probably all see a video of that SNL sketch to better focus our efforts on getting this bill passed.

The other thing about passenger train advocacy is that it is about building a legislative coalition across party lines.  I am not against discussions of the politics of train advocacy, but when I see the discussion get partisan on issues well outside of trains, either here or in bricks-and-morter advocacy circles, I think of how counterproductive this is.  On a lot of the big issues of national and international importance beyond trains, the public is pretty much divided 50-50 on a lot of things.  You might think that only Blue State people support trains and that the Red State people are all in the Highway Lobby and pave-it-over camp, but to be successful with trains, you are going to have to get a lot of Red State people to cross over because you are not getting 100 percent of the Blue State people.  If you keep poking the Red Staters in the eye with gratuitous statements about things that are dear to Red Staters, or maybe things about which you are dead certain but others are conflicted about, things that have nothing to do with trains, passenger advocacy is going to lose plain and simple.

This S294 bill is exactly what I mean in terms of a political coalition, so keep that in mind when identifying your passenger advocacy friends and when tempted to demonize the opposition.

[Wdlgln005]

In the simplest form, both bills will me changed so that the same bill with the exact same items & details is passed by both houses of Congress, then passed on to the President. Earlier this year, Congress sent a Farm Bill to the President that he vetoed. THe House/senate voted to overide what they thought was a version of the bill. In reality, some sections had been omitted. The Congress had to pass a corrected version of the bill. You may want to search the "net to find the details on this item. It would be great for a 9th grade class.

[Prairietype]

I recently received a communication that provided a status report on SB-294 and HR 6003. It stated that HR 6003 is moving through the conference committee process, and, that from this point on will be known officially as SB-294. HR-6003 will technically no longer exist.

Here is the text of the communication I received:

 

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed by voice vote a

procedural motion to send the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement

Act to conference committee.  From here on out, the bill will be

referred to as S.294; H.R. 6003 technically no longer exists.



The House has appointed their conferees.  They are: Chairman Jim

Oberstar (D-MN) and Representatives Corrine Brown (D-FL), Elijah

Cummings (D-MD), Michael Capuano (D-MA), Tim Bishop (D-NY), Grace

Napolitano (D-CA), Dan Lipinski (D-IL), Bruce Braley (D-IA), Michael

Arcuri (D-NY), John Mica (R-FL), Tom Petri (R-WI), Steve LaTourette

(R-OH), Henry Brown (R-SC), Bill Shuster (R-PA), Mario Diaz-Balart

(R-FL), and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA).  The Senate should appoint its

conferees soon.