Word: parliamentarians
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...Democrats try to salvage health care reform, there is one man who above all others will help determine its fate, and he is not Barack Obama or Harry Reid or even a member of Congress. In fact, odds are you've never heard of Alan Frumin, the Senate parliamentarian. But when it comes to the complex budgetary procedure known as reconciliation, the filibuster-proof process which Democrats hope to use to make certain fixes to the Senate bill, Frumin is "the defense counsel, he's the prosecution, he's the judge, he's the jury and he's the hangman...
...Oklahoma, say they plan on filing hundreds of amendments, potentially gumming up the Senate for months; and 2) under a provision known as the Byrd rule - named after Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia - every provision passed through reconciliation must be deemed relevant to the underlying budget by the parliamentarian...
...years past, Byrd rule meetings have lasted weeks and even months. Negotiators, usually the parliamentarian and the secretaries of both parties, Lula Davis for the Democrats and Dave Schiappa for the Republicans, sit cloistered in the parliamentarian's tiny office off the Senate floor in sessions that have come to be called Byrd baths. The provisions and amendments they rule nongermane have likewise come to be called Byrd droppings. (See pictures of the health care debate...
...Frumin, 63, is a graduate of Colgate University in upstate New York and Georgetown Law. He's worked for the parliamentarian's office since 1977, and starting four years after that, he and former parliamentarian Bob Dove have effectively rotated what must be one of the most thankless jobs on Capitol Hill. They kept switching off because various congressional leaders fired one or the other in frustration. Dove served under Republicans from 1981-87, when he was fired by Robert Byrd after Dems took control. Frumin ran things until 1995, when Dove was reinstated. He only lasted until 2001, when...
...halal option is "an Islamic tax" on diners. Not to be outdone, members of the ruling conservative Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) have also fretted over Quick's menu change. UMP secretary general Xavier Bertrand says it is undermining France's secular, integrationist social model, while UMP parliamentarian Richard Mallié salutes Vandierendonck's "republican combat...