One other point about using reconciliation for passing health care

A reader asked where the video of GOP members advocating for using the 51 vote rule in the Senate. If you go back to 2005 I am sure you could find at least one member discussing the use of the so-called "nuclear option" to get some stalled judges passed. That probably was not on the Senate floor because at the time, when the GOP majority was considering the procedure it would not have been discussed by them on the floor.

In that case, several democrats had put "holds" on various nominations and the GOP argued that the decision by one member of the Senate was holding up a vote where the nominee would pass. Ultimately, a bi-partisan group of 14 Senate members forced a compromise where some of the nominees were allowed to go through. That was one of the first times when the epithet RINO (Republican in name only) was used.

There is a body of literature in economics that deals with voting theory. The 1986 winner of the Nobel, James Buchanan, and his scholarly partner Gordon Tullock, have written extensively on the issue. Buchanan credits his thinking as coming from an article he read as a postdoctoral student by Swedish economist Knut WIcksell. The literature describes the benefits of using various voting procedures in different situations to balance competing interests, as several of the commentators on the video presented earlier argued for. The founders of our system, especially Madison, recognized the key importance of creating a system which emphasized differences. We are not a democracy but a republic. Thus, the electoral terms and constituencies of members of the two houses were intentionally made different. House members can be elected at 25 and have a constituency that is very local. Senators can be elected at 30 and have a statewide constituency which is not based on population. Harry Reid's vote counts the same as Diane Feinstein's regardless of the size of the state. In the House all members represent the same sized constituency.

The use of a supermajority for important votes was something that grew out of Senate practice which has a long tradition in British derivative legislatures (and actually goes well before that to Rome). According to the rules of the Senate the leader can require those opposing something to continuously maintain the floor but it is evident that the current Majority Leader does not want to exercise his power.

The extraordinary use of reconciliation to pass such a major bill as the health care reform would be unprecedented. The procedure was authorized in the Budget Act of 1974 specifically to deal with passing a budget. Obviously with the germaneness rules in the Senate, the rule could be stretched to allow such a measure. But my point in the original post was that there are good reasons why for such a major issue as health care reform is inappropriate for this kind of expediency. In 2005 the Democrats argued against using a lowered majority. My point was they should listen to their earlier speeches.