House to take up corrected reconciliation bill tonight

By Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 25, 2010

Senate Republicans have identified two minor violations of reconciliation rules in the final piece of the health-care package. The violations will force the Senate to change the reconciliation bill and ship it to the House of Representatives for final passage.

But Democratic leaders said the provisions that will be struck -- from the part of the bill dealing with Pell Grants for college students -- do not significantly affect the student loan program or the health-care bill overall.

The corrected legislation most likely will not be subjected to additional challenges when it is sent back to the House, Democratic staffers said. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) said in a statement that if the Senate passes the reconciliation bill in a final vote Thursday afternoon, as expected, the House will take up the corrected bill Thursday evening.

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), told reporters shortly after 3 a.m. that Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin "struck two minor provisions tonight from in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act."

(More here.)