Congress

With control of a $3 trillion government teetering on how each party plays its role over the next 12 months, the legislative process has become a strange political tango.

Once was the time when the cycle of reauthorizations determined the legislative schedule. As each program came up for renewal every three, five, or six years, the committee with substantive jurisdiction over the program would report legislation to substantively revise it--and to set estimates (authorizations) for its cost.

Beginning in 1978 and 1979, however, Senate conservatives began putting "holds" on what previously would have been routine authorizations for agencies like the Consumer Products Safety Commission and the Federal Trade Commission (run by Ralph Nader acolyte Mike Pertschuk). And they began threatening to add huge numbers of controversial amendments to these routine authorizations.

The result was that the "Nader era" came to a screeching halt. But the other result was that Congress stopped doing controversial reauthorizations for minor programs--or even fairly significant ones. It just left decisions on money—and most policy issues--to the "appropriators" who actually doled out the funding. This trend grew between 2001 and 2006, when Republicans tacked huge policy initiatives on to appropriations bills, frequently in House/Senate conference. The "REAL ID"/National ID Card initiative is only a small example of this. . . .

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