Liberal Burblings

Alan Frumin. It’s a name worth remembering in case you ever end up in a game of Trivial Pursuit (US Congress minutiae edition) – presumably in the section of hell reserved for political anoraks. He’s the US Senate Parliamentarian. Eh? Well he’s like one of the clerks in the House of Commons really. He sits just below the Senate President and whispers into his/her ear to advise on procedure.

This week, Mr Frumin played a pivotal role in the US Healthcare reform process by ruling (allegedly) – according to The Hill - that:

President Barack Obama must sign the broader Senate healthcare legislation before the upper chamber can take up changes demanded by the House. The ruling means House Democrats would have to rely on a good-faith promise that senators will pass the changes after the healthcare bill is signed into law, a difficult prospect at a time when lower-chamber lawmakers have grown distrustful of their Senate counterparts.

However, Huffpo reports that early reports, such as that above, of the Parliamentarian’s ruling were somewhat skewed:

Now it seems that the parliamentarian’s words were not so assertive. On Friday morning Congressional Quarterly reported that the Senate parliamentarian “later reportedly clarified his position to Senate aides, saying that the reconciliation bill could be written in a way that would not require Obama to sign the Senate bill into law before the reconciliation bill is voted on.”