Summary
From 1990 to 2022, the Senate has taken an average of 81 hours over nine-floor sessions to complete the reconciliation process. In recent budget debates, the Senate has been able to complete the process in less time by concentrating the floor consideration of budget resolutions and reconciliation bills into a fewer number of longer sessions. The Senate is scheduled to be in session for 23 days during the current lame duck period, which should be sufficient time for it to consider a reconciliation bill before the end of the 117th Congress.
The lame duck session of the 117th Congress begins today with a very full agenda. One of the key questions facing congressional Democrats is whether they should use the congressional budget process to increase the debt limit before the end of the current Congress. Although the limit is likely not going to be reached until sometime around the middle of next year, Rep. Kevin McCarthy and other House Republican leaders are already planning to use it as leverage to extract policy concessions from the Biden Administration. Although using the budget process would allow Democrats to avoid a filibuster in the Senate and increase the debt limit without Republican votes, doing so would consume valuable Senate floor time and potentially jeopardize other items on the their agenda.
The key procedural question is – how much floor time would it take for the Senate to pass a debt limit bill? Using the budget process would protect the bill from a filibuster, but would require two separate floor debates. The first debate would be over a new budget resolution specifying the overall amount of federal revenue, spending, and debt, and the second debate would be over a “reconciliation” bill to increase the debt limit. Most of the recent reporting on the issue correctly notes that the Congressional Budget Act limits the Senate’s debate of budget resolutions to 50 hours and reconciliation bills to 20 hours. But these limits do not mean that it would take the Senate no more than 70 hours to pass a debt limit increase under these procedures.
Why? Because the Budget Act’s debate limits are not the same as a limit on the Senate’s full consideration of budget resolutions and reconciliation bills. In practical terms, what this means is that Senators can continue to offer amendments, motions, and appeals even after the Senate has reached the Budget Act’s debate limits. In this situation, any pending amendments and motions must be disposed of before the Senate can vote on the underlying budget resolution or reconciliation bill, but the Senate is prohibited by the Budget Act from debating them. To get out of this dilemma, the Senate goes through rapid series of votes — known as a “vote-arama” — until all the pending amendments and motions are either voted on or withdrawn. Consequently, the Senate may take longer than 70 hours to complete this process. Exactly how much longer depends on how many amendments and other motions are offered and required to be voted on.
To help answer the question of how long it might take the Senate to pass a reconciliation bill during this lame duck session, I analyzed the Senate’s consideration of 17 budget resolutions and 19 reconciliation bills from 1990 to 2022. Using Congress.gov, the Congressional Record, and C-SPAN’s video archives, I tabulated the amount of time the Senate considered these measures. My findings are summarized in the table below.
| Table 1 – Budget Resolutions and Reconciliation Legislation Considered by the U.S. Senate, 1990-2022 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal Year | Reconciliation Legislation | Hours of Consideration | Number of sessions | Budget Resolutions | Hours of Consideration | Number of sessions | Total Hours | Total Sessions | Average Hours per Session |
| 1991 | Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-508) | 23 | 2 | H. Con. Res. 310 & S. Con. Res. 110 | 35 | 3 | 58 | 5 | 11.6 |
| 1994 | Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1993 (P.L. 103-66) | 45 | 7 | H. Con. Res. 64 and S. Con. Res. 18 | 30 | 2 | 75 | 9 | 8.3 |
| 1996 | Balanced Budget Act of 1995 (H.R. 2491) | 75 | 7 | H. Con. Res. 67 and S. Con. Res. 13 | 36 | 4 | 111 | 11 | 10.1 |
| 1997 | Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-193) | 66 | 8 | H. Con. Res. 178 | 43 | 5 | 109 | 13 | 8.4 |
| 1998 | Balanced Budget Act 1997 (P.L. 105-33) | 38 | 5 | H. Con. Res. 84 & S. Con. Res. 27 | 29 | 4 | 67 | 9 | 7.4 |
| 1998 | Taxpayer Relief Act 1997 (P.L. 105-34) | 38 | 5 | H. Con. Res. 84 & S. Con. Res. 27 | 31 | 4 | 69 | 9 | 7.7 |
| 2000 | Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act of 1999 (H.R. 2488) | 33 | 3 | H. Con. Res. 68 & S. Con. Res 20 | 36 | 4 | 69 | 7 | 9.9 |
| 2001 | Marriage Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (H.R. 4810) | 46 | 5 | H. Con. Res. 290 and S. Con. Res. 101 | 10 | 3 | 56 | 8 | 7 |
| 2002 | Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2000 (P.L. 107-16) | 52 | 7 | H. Con. Res. 83 | 44 | 5 | 96 | 12 | 8 |
| 2004 | Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-27) | 68 | 8 | H. Con. Res. 95 & S. Con. Res. 23 | 28 | 3 | 96 | 11 | 8.7 |
| 2006 | Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171) | 56 | 5 | H. Con. Res. 95 & S. Con. Res. 18 | 41 | 6 | 97 | 11 | 8.8 |
| 2006 | Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-222) | 56 | 5 | H. Con. Res. 95 & S. Con. Res. 18 | 32 | 4 | 88 | 9 | 9.8 |
| 2008 | College Cost Reduction and Access Act (P.L. 110-84) | 68 | 6 | S. Con. Res. 21 | 21 | 3 | 89 | 9 | 9.9 |
| 2010 | Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-152) | 52 | 6 | S. Con. Res. 13 | 30 | 3 | 82 | 9 | 9.1 |
| 2016 | Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015 (H.R. 3762) | 92 | 6 | S. Con. Res. 11 | 20 | 2 | 112 | 8 | 14 |
| 2017 | American Health Care Act of 2017 (H.R. 1628) | 40 | 5 | S. Con. Res. 3 | 45 | 3 | 85 | 8 | 10.6 |
| 2018 | Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (H.R. 1) | 26 | 3 | H. Con. Res. 71 | 42 | 5 | 68 | 8 | 8.5 |
| 2021 | American Rescue Plan of 2021 (P.L. 117-2) | 30 | 2 | S. Con. Res. 5 | 38 | 2 | 68 | 4 | 17 |
| 2022 | Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (P.L. 117-169) | 17 | 1 | S. Con. Res. 14 | 19 | 1 | 36 | 2 | 18 |
| Overall average | 49 | 5 | 32 | 3 | 81 | 9 | 10 | ||
On average, it took the Senate 81 hours of floor consideration spread over nine sessions to pass a budget resolution and consider any subsequent reconciliation bill(s). Budget resolutions were considered for an average of 49 hours over five sessions, and reconciliation bills were considered for an average of 32 hours over three sessions. The Senate’s consideration of budget resolutions exceeded 50 hours eight times (47 percent of all resolutions), and its consideration reconciliation bills exceeded 20 hours 16 times (84 percent of reconciliation bills).
What does this mean for the upcoming lame duck session? First, it appears that the Senate will have sufficient time during the session to pass a debt limit reconciliation bill. The Senate is scheduled to be in session for 23 days between today and the end of the year. This is almost three times the average number of daily sessions it has taken the Senate to complete the reconciliation process over the last 32 years and more than double the 1990-2022 maximum (13 sessions). Second, the Senate has taken less time to consider budget resolutions and reconciliation bills when its consideration is condensed into a fewer number of longer sessions, as shown in the chart below.
The consideration of the most recent reconciliation bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, underscores this relationship. The Senate completed the reconciliation process for the IRA faster than any other reconciliation bill since 1990 by condensing the process into two floor sessions – a single 17-hour session for the budget resolution and a 19-hour session for the reconciliation bill. Additionally, each of these sessions were held immediately before the Senate respectively adjourned for the 2021 and 2022 August recesses. Although Senate Republicans will have a stronger incentive to obstruct and delay during the lame duck session, Senate Democrats may be able to expedite the process for a debt limit bill by condensing its consideration into fewer sessions that are held close to painful calendar deadlines.
Using the record of past reconciliation exercises to forecast future reconciliation debates has inherent limits, however. Although the current members of the Senate are bound by the same budgetary rules and procedures that governed the budget debates included in this analysis, the political context of each debate is unique. And these political differences may cause Senators to act differently than their predecessors. Nevertheless, my hope is that this analysis sheds some additional light on the central procedural tradeoff of using reconciliation to increase the debt limit before the end of this Congress.
Methodology
This analysis is limited to budget resolutions and reconciliation measures considered by the Senate between 1990 and 2022. Budget resolutions that did not contain reconciliation instructions were excluded.
During the period of this analysis, the Senate often considered a budget resolution or reconciliation bill and then inserted the amended text into another resolution or bill via an amendment in the nature of a substitute. The count of resolutions and reconciliation bills in this analysis only includes the the final amended resolution or bill.
Budget resolutions and reconciliation measures considered before 1990 were excluded from the analysis because the congressional budget process underwent significant procedural changes between 1974 and the enactment of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (Title XIII of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-508)).
The number of hours of floor consideration is rounded to the nearest whole hour and includes time spent bringing the Senate into session, quorum calls, and voting. Under Senate rules, the time spent in a quorum call counts against the Budget Act’s debate limits, but time spent voting and bringing the Senate into session does not. In cases where the consideration of a budget resolution or reconciliation bill did not immediately follow the opening of a new session, the time spent brining the Senate into session and considering non-budgetary matters was excluded from these calculations. Additionally, if the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to charge time spent in recess against the Budget Act’s statutory debate limits, that time was included in the floor time calculations but excluded otherwise. These decisions were made to simplify the process of calculating a first-order approximation of the amount of time it took for the Senate to consider rather than debate budget resolutions and reconciliation bills.
Finally, the consideration of the American Rescue Plan includes 11 hours of floor consideration that were mostly spent reading an amendment in the nature of a substitute containing the text of the legislation, due to a Senator objecting to a unanimous consent request to immediately consider the amendment.