On Monday the House Budget Committee finished the markup on The Reconciliation Act of 2010, approving it in a 21-16 vote. The act now moves to the House Rules Committee. As yet, the text of the act has not been made public. The House leaders are hoping to get a vote on the Senate Reform bill this week, along with the changes and amendments to the Senate bill that should be in the Reconciliation Act.

House leaders are reportedly considering the use of a measure known as the "self-executing rule" to pass the senate bill without a vote. In that procedure, approval of a special measure is also used to execute approval of another underlying measure, by incorporating the approval of the second underlying measure specifically into the language of the first. So for example, the Reconciliation Act could incorporate language that the Senate bill has passed, and if the Reconciliation Act is passed by vote the senate bill would also be passed by incorporation. This may be used if there are not enough congressional Democrats willing to go on record to vote yes on the senate bill.

Republicans are expected to uniformly oppose the bill. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated on Monday concerning the self-executing rule, "When we get our CBO [Congressional Budget Office] report and our decisions from the Senate Parliamentarian, when we have the substance, then we will decide on the process. But that would be one option -- there are others that we may use."

Pelosi would not say for certain that the House would use the self-executing measures, which are now drawing as much oppositional fire as the Reconciliation. (Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), for example, referred to the rule as a "toxic scheme".) The speaker said on Tuesday that the final choice of procedure would have to wait until the CBO had released its analysis. "I've told the members that until we see the substance from the CBO, we won't make a determination about how we go forward, but we want to know what our options are. And I didn't hear any of that ferocity when hundreds of times, the Republicans used these methods when they were in power. This is part - maybe 25 percent of what they did."

The House Rules Committee should be meeting on Wednesday concerning the Reconciliation Act, putting together its version of the bill. The Senate bill is expected to move forward with a vote this week as well. Should the House Rules Committee approve the Reconciliation Act for a debate, the discussion and voting on that measure may extend through the coming weekend.

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