Roll Call reports that the Food Safety Legislation that passed the Senate on November 30 may be “blue-slipped” by the House because its Section 107 contains “some fees that are classified as revenue-raisers.”
Since that bill has received a lot of attention from POPVOX users, it seemed like a good time to explain exactly what “blue slipping” means. Short version: any bill with a tax has to start in the House of Representatives. Best info: CRS Report from May 10, 2002: “ The Origination Clause of the U.S. Constitution: Interpretation and Enforcement .”
Article 1 , Section 7 of the Constitution (sometimes referred to as the “Origination Clause”) states, “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives." That little sentence is the basis for the formation of the House Committee on Ways and Means , the oldest Congressional committee. (So much so, that a few years ago the “Article 1, Section 7s,” was in the running for the name of the W&M staff softball team… yes, I was a very non-essential/sometimes member of that team.)
According to Wikipedia , the origin of the Origination Clause (ha) is with the English parliamentary system, to ensure that the “power of the purse” remained with the House of Commons. The specific clause was part of the Great “ Connecticut Compromise ” of the 1787 Constitutional Convention between big and small states.
In law school, one of the first lessons of statutory construction is that you first look to plain language. When that plain language is not just in a statute, but actually appears in the Constitution, it carries a lot of weight. The U.S. Supreme Court has looked at the issue a few times (see the CRS doc) but has respected the Legislature’s determination of a bill’s origination, indicated by whether the bills has an “H” or “S” prefix. This is why you sometimes get long Senate-initiated bills that “ride” on an unrelated House bill with a House bill number.
Trivia: Do you remember the official name of the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program” bill? (Hint: “The Bailout” is not right.) Visit GovTrack for the answer.
If a law passes with a “revenue raising measure,” that did not “originate in the House,” it can be “Blue-Slipped” by any House Member (but is usually handled by the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee). The name comes from the piece of paper that is attached to the offending Senate bill and volleyed back across the Capitol.
My own observation is that this is not a partisan question – Ways and Means Members generally defend blue-slipping as their Constitutional duty, whether it affects a bill from their own party or not.
The potential outcomes for S.510 are laid out in the Roll Call article, so I won’t repeat them here. The gist is a complicated endgame for Lame Duck passage.
As Rachna described in her recent post, POPVOX will provide a platform for advocacy and endorsements of bills to continue even after the current Congressional session ends, before these bills are reintroduced in the next session. So, for now, for those for or against, continue to register your opinion on POPVOX. Those comments will be archived, searchable, and publicly available — whether now or in the new Congress next year.
UPDATE: Roll Call reports that on Sunday, December 19, the Senate again voted and passed the Food Safety legislation, this time in House-passed "vehicle," H.R. 2751 , the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act, which passed the House in June 2009. At the request of Senator Reid, the text of S. 510 replaced the original text of H.R. 2751, and the bill passed by voice vote. It now has to go back to the House for a final vote before it can be signed into law by the President.
