Whichever party controls Congress has one big legislative tool each year for bypassing Senate filibusters and putting a bill on the President’s desk without needing a single vote from the minority party: It’s called the budget reconciliation process, and the Republican leadership is planning to use it this year to pass a bill to end federal funding of Planned Parenthood.

Reconciliation

The budget reconciliation process was established by Congress on a bipartisan basis in 1974 as a special set of rules that the majority party in Congress could use to fast track their annual budget priorities.

The rules allow the leadership to declare specific budget reconciliation priorities in their annual budget resolutions and then limit debate on those priorities.

A senate vote will require only a simple majority of 51 votes for passage, not the 60-vote supermajority that has become standard for Senate business.

The reconciliation process traditionally has been used by lawmakers to reduce the deficit through revenue increases (tax hikes) and cuts to entitlements (e.g. Medicare and Medicaid, but not Social Security which cannot be changed under a reconciliation bill). The process has been used in the past to enact both tax cuts and tax increases, reforms to student loan programs, and even some minor pieces of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). Earlier this year there was talk of using it to pass a tax code overhaul that Obama and the Republicans could conceivably come to an agreement on.

How we got here

Republicans had tried but failed to pass a standalone bill to defund Planned Parenthood. Although the bill passed in the House 241–187, a Senate vote earlier in the summer failed 53–46, seven votes short of the supermajority Republicans needed to to break a Democratic filibuster.

Democrats filibustered the Planned Parenthood defunding bill in the Senate.

As a result, the Republicans’ most conservative wing hoped to package defunding Planned Parenthood with a “must-pass” government funding bill. The government’s fiscal year ends tomorrow and new funding must be enacted before the day’s end. A Democratic filibuster or Presidential veto of the combined package would have shut down the government.

Rather than risk a shutdown, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R) announced that he would step down next month and use his remaining time to pass a standalone government funding bill that has the support Democrats. Republicans are now turning to the special budget reconciliation process as a way to pass the Planned Parenthood bill.

What to expect this week

Here’s how things will go down this week. First, the Senate will pass a “clean” continuing resolution to extend the government’s funding until December 11 (“clean” means no policy riders or Planned Parenthood language). Then the House will take up and pass the Senate’s bill, likely with a majority of the votes in favor coming from the chamber’s Democrats. By Wednesday night, Obama will sign it into law and prevent a shutdown from taking effect on Thursday morning.

Later this week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will mark up legislation that would defund Planned Parenthood for one year and apply the savings to community health centers.

That legislation will be combined with pieces from a few other committees into an omnibus budget reconciliation bill. Other pieces to be included will seek to dismantle the Affordable Care Act by repealing the mandate on individuals to have acceptable insurance, the mandate for companies with 50 or more employees to offer health insurance plans, and a few other things. At some point in the future the budget reconciliation bill will then have to go through both chambers, but when it reaches the Senate it will be under special rules that make it immune from filibusters — guaranteeing that Republicans will have the votes to get it through.

The budget reconciliation bill, however, is very unlikely to actually become law. President Obama has already issued a veto threat against stand-alone legislation to defund Planned Parenthood, and he has issued similar threats for legislation affecting the Affordable Care Act in the past. Congressional Democrats have enough votes to sustain a presidential veto. Nothing that will be in the budget reconciliation bill is essential for the functioning of the government, so the veto threat is real.

It’s even possible that the Planned Parenthood language in the budget reconciliation bill won’t reach Obama’s desk at all. The “Byrd Rule,” actually a series of rules added to the reconciliation process in 1990, restricts the types of provisions that can be enacted under reconciliation to those directly relevant to the budget. Part four of the rule, for example, restricts provisions that “[produce] a change in outlays or revenues which is merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision.” It’s possible that the Senate Parliamentarian could rule that the Planned Parenthood language, or even the Affordable Care Act language, is “merely incidental” and not allowed under reconciliation’s fast-track rules.

What’s at stake

Federal funding for Planned Parenthood supports its reproductive health, maternal health, and child health services — but not its abortion services. Existing law prohibits federal funds from being used for abortions.

The bill also does not address the organization’s practices regarding fetal tissue, which were made legal in 1993.