crs_reports: R48444

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

Data license: Public Domain (U.S. Government data) · Data source: Federal Register API & Regulations.gov API

This data as json

id title publish_date update_date status content_type authors topics summary pdf_url html_url
R48444 The Reconciliation Process: Frequently Asked Questions 2026-02-23T05:00:00Z 2026-02-25T17:37:52Z Active Reports Tori Gorman   When Congress adopts a budget resolution, it establishes budgetary goals for the years covered in the resolution. In some cases, it is necessary to change existing revenue, direct spending, or debt limit laws to achieve those goals. One method Congress may use to consider such legislation is through reconciliation—an expedited process made available under Section 310 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (the Budget Act). A distinctive feature of reconciliation is that debate time is limited in the Senate, which means cloture (and its requisite three-fifths majority vote) is not necessary to reach a vote on final passage. Reconciliation is a two-phase process. In the first phase, the House and Senate adopt a budget resolution containing reconciliation directives to one or more committees (also referred to as reconciliation instructions). There are three types of reconciliation directives: to change laws providing for spending, to change laws providing for revenues, and to change the public debt limit. In the second phase, the named committees respond with recommended changes in law within their jurisdictions consistent with their directives in the budget resolution. No more than one reconciliation bill may include provisions in response to each type of instruction in one budget resolution, for a maximum of three reconciliation bills. In practice, Congress has generally combined the reconciliation submissions from every committee into a single, omnibus reconciliation measure. Once a reconciliation bill is on a chamber’s calendar, the House and Senate consider it under the rules and expedited procedures enumerated in the Budget Act. Any differences between the House and Senate are resolved via conference committee or an exchange of amendments between the two chambers, or one chamber may adopt the reconciliation legislation of the other without any changes. The contents of a reconciliation bill are constrained by several rules, most notably Section 313 of the Budget Act, known as the Senate’s Byrd rule. This provision prohibits the inclusion of matter in a reconciliation bill that is extraneous to the purpose of reconciliation and a committee’s directives. The Byrd rule establishes six tests used to identify extraneous matter. A point of order made under the Byrd rule is surgical: If sustained, the offending matter is stricken from the text, but the rest of the measure remains before the Senate. In the Senate, a reconciliation bill enjoys certain privileges unavailable to most other bills and resolutions: It is not required to lie over one day before it can be considered, and the motion to proceed is not debatable. Pursuant to the Budget Act, debate on a reconciliation bill is limited to 20 hours (10 hours for a conference report), which means cloture is not required to reach a final vote. Once all debate time has expired in the Senate, consideration may continue during a period referred to as “vote-arama.” In the House, consideration is typically structured by a special rule reported from the House Rules Committee, which sets the terms for debate and may permit specified amendments to be offered from the floor. Since 1980, Congress has considered 29 reconciliation bills and enacted 24—four were vetoed and one did not pass the Senate. Of the 24 bills enacted into law, the length of time between adoption of a congressional budget resolution and enactment of the resulting reconciliation bill ranged from 28 to 385 days, with an average of 148 days. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48444/R48444.5.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R48444.html

Links from other tables