The hottest phrase on Capitol Hill this year is “budget reconciliation.” Practically every conversation with a member of Congress, administration official, or third-party lobbyist involves mention of the coming reconciliation bill. But what exactly that is, and the process involved, is often unclear – both to D.C. insiders and the everyday American voter. However, such a bill could significantly impact federal policy on a wide range of issues that Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC) works on – from abortion to gender ideology to family tax policies. For that reason, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of what, exactly, “reconciliation” is.

Reconciliation is a special, optional procedure that Congress has in its toolbox to get bills through the Senate and its difficult-to-pass 60 vote cloture threshold. But it can only be used under particular circumstances (more on that later). Otherwise, the majority party would use it to pass legislation every time they wanted.

Reconciliation is a two-part process that starts with the congressional budget resolution, a bill that, unlike reconciliation, must get passed every year, as required by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974. In the budget resolution, Congress determines how much the government is going to spend on what expenditures, where its revenue will come from, and what the limit of the public debt will be.

 If you’ve ever looked at a budget resolution, such as the one that the House of Representatives passed several weeks ago, you’ll notice that these bills are very broad and generic. That’s because they provide total dollar amounts to each committee and then give the committees instructions on how to allocate those amounts. Most federal spending and revenues are based on permanent laws, so the budget resolution itself does not usually include substantive legislative changes. That’s where reconciliation comes into the process.

Reconciliation makes it easier for Congress to enact law changes through the budget process. If Congressional leadership opts to use the reconciliation process, then in addition to the regular financial instructions given to the committees, the budget resolution will also include reconciliation instructions. When that happens, committees are being asked to develop legislative changes that would align spending levels with the goals of the budget resolution.

Because the process requires Congress to draft two separate significant pieces of legislation – a budget resolution and a reconciliation bill – Capitol Hill can seem quite chaotic in the months that they spend putting these texts together. The House passes their resolution, the Senate takes it up and votes on amendments, it goes back to the House, and so on. Then rinse and repeat for the reconciliation bill which includes those legislative changes that the committee were asked to develop. While the budget resolution does not need to be signed by the President, the final reconciliation bill does.

The main advantage of going through this arduous process is that because the final reconciliation bill does not need to get 60 votes in the Senate, this is an opportunity for the majority party to implement some desired legislative changes that may not be able to pass under regular circumstances. But that only serves to make everything even more complicated.

Although a reconciliation bill has a lower vote threshold, it has to make it through what is called the “Byrd bath.” The Senate’s Byrd Rule for all reconciliation bills ensures that any legislative changes are purely budgetary in nature. That means anything that can be construed as a social policy could not be included in a reconciliation bill. But when budgetary matters touch on these issues, then they could make it through the Byrd bath.

This is the case with CWALAC’s main priority in this year’s reconciliation bill – defunding big abortion providers. It is true that our desire to cut off organizations like Planned Parenthood from the nearly $700 million federal dollars they receive annually stems from the fact that we want to hamper their ability to provide abortion. However, this is undoubtably a cost-saving policy, which makes it a clear budgetary matter. In this era of cutting government waste, fraud, and abuse, spending that kind of money on an organization that puts women and children at risk through unclean facilities and unsafe procedures is illogical.

This is why Congress has come close to ending funding to these organizations in the past. Language to defund Planned Parenthood passed the Byrd Bath in a 2015 reconciliation bill. But while both the House and Senate passed it, that bill was ultimately vetoed by President Obama. Still, it proves it can be done.

Aside from protecting the unborn, reconciliation has the potential to impact a variety of issues that CWA tracks, from maintaining the first Trump administrations tax cuts to possibly increasing the child tax credit, and defunding gender transitions in some areas of federal code. There are many moving pieces, and this process will likely go on well into the summer. But this is a rare opportunity to end the federal support of evil practices and CWALAC will be there every step of the way, committed to the fight.