Procedure Trumps Progress On Spending Bills

Republicans are having a grand time in Congress creating procedural tie ups in both chambers as the clock ticks away on the 2007 session.

The latest GOP trick came in the Senate Wednesday evening, when Republicans used a new Senate rule to split up a massive appropriations bill that Democrats had cobbled together in an effort speed up the delayed appropriations bills.

For Congress geeks out there, the vote was on whether to waive a point of order raised by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), who claimed that an 11th hour combination of the Labor Health and Human Services bill with the Veterans Affairs spending bill violated Senate rules. The vote was 47-46, well short of the 60 votes needed to essentially ignore Senate rules and keep the legislative train runnning. As a result, the bill was split in two, which is exactly what Republicans wanted.

What does this all mean at this point?

For Republicans, it was a chance to make Democrats live up to a campaign promise to prevent legislative items like bridge to nowhere earmarks from being "airdropped" into bills during closed door negotiations. The veterans spending bill was added to the larger Labor Health and Human Services spending measure during a conference committee last week, and the Republicans prevailed in separating the bills with their parliamentary maneuver.

But substantively, the procedural gyrations will mean little to the average voter, except to send the message that Congress still can't get its annual appropriations bills done, some five weeks into the new fiscal year.