By Larry Jones
May 23, 2005

In adopting the conference report on the 2006 Budget resolution in April, Congress approved two little noticed but significant changes in the Senate's budget rules. The changes call for a 60-vote point of order in the Senate against legislation that would impose new unfunded mandates on state and local governments and a 60-vote point of order against bringing to the Senate floor any bill that would increase or decrease federal revenue before the annual budget resolution is adopted.

The unfunded mandate provision significantly strengthens the hands of Senators to block floor action on unfunded mandates. Under current law it only takes a simple majority vote of 51 Senators to override a point of order. It will now take a supermajority, 60 votes in the Senate to override a point of order against an unfunded mandate. This gives Senators an alternative to using the filibuster (which also requires 60 votes to override) to block action on legislation.

In this partisan environment, it will be very difficult to override a 60-vote point of order. Commenting on the change in rules, Senator Lamar Alexander (TN), who backed the change, said the old simple majority point of order was worthless. "It was hailed and widely described as a penalty flag that could be thrown when we started coming up with ideas of sending the bill to governors and mayors," Alexander said. He explained, "The problem is, for ten years, it was never thrown. It wasn't thrown one single time, because 50 votes wasn't enough. I think a 60-vote point of order can be effective."