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Why No ?Blue Slip??

Did the House?s commitment to ?blue slip? any revenue or appropriation bill originating in the Senate slip the House?s mind? (That question, assumes, of course, that the House has a mind.)

The ?Origination Clause,? Article I, Section 7, of the Constitution grants the House the sole authority to originate revenue legislation, which the House interprets to mean to mean both raising and appropriating revenue. ?So,? as C-SPAN explains,

whenever the Senate does initiate appropriations legislation, the House practice is to return it to the Senate with a blue piece of paper attached citing a constitutional infringement of House prerogatives. The practice of returning such bills and amendments to the Senate without action is known as ?blue-slipping.?

Without House action, Senate-initiated spending legislation cannot make it into law. So in practice, the Senate rarely attempts to initiate such bills anymore, and if it does, the House is diligent about returning them. Regardless of one?s opinion of the correct interpretation of the Constitutional provision, the House refusal to consider such Senate legislation settles the matter in practice.

Wikipedia is also clear and succinct about this practice:

In Article I, Section 7 of the United States Constitution, the House of Representatives in given the exclusive authority to introduce bills raising revenue by the clause ?All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.? Under House precedent, this includes bills ?raising revenue and appropriating the same? and the House considers itself to be the only proper venue to originate any bills appropriating revenue. (The Senate has historically disagreed with the House, but to no avail.)

When, in the opinion of the House of Representatives, a Senate-introduced bill that raises revenue or appropriates money is passed by the Senate and sent to the House for its consideration, the House places a blue slip on the legislation which notes the House?s constitutional prerogrative and immediately returns it to the Senate without taking further action. This blue-slipping procedure, done by an order of the House, is routinely completed to enforce its interpretation that the House is the sole body to introduce revenue or appropriations legislation. The failure of the House to consider the legislation means it cannot become a law. This tactic has historically proven of great use to the House and, as a practical matter, the Senate does not introduce tax or revenue measures to avoid a blue slip.

Perhaps the Senate is not being ?practical? with its Paulson Plus bailout bill? Or perhaps the $700 billion is being regarded as a guarantee rather than an appropriation? In any event it will be interesting to see whether the ?Blue Dog? conservative Democrats, especially, and their colleagues will, ?as a practical matter,? decide not to ?blue slip? the bailout.

Full post as published by Discriminations on October 02, 2008 (boomark / email).