Parliamentarian is rock star in health care debate

In some ways, Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin has accomplished every senator's dream without the chores of fundraising and vote-seeking that mark the lawmakers' lives in elective politics.

Frumin doesn't have to talk to a single voter, raise a dime or deal with reporters, but he wields as much power over the fate of health care reform as President Barack Obama or any of the Democrats who control Congress. And, he's becoming almost as famous.

"You're our new celebrity," Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., recently teased the bespectacled Frumin on the Senate floor.

In that way, the mustachioed scholar of Senate procedure is living every senator's dream. But his job can sound like a nightmare, too - especially with the stakes as high, and the partisanship so pronounced, as they are on health care.

Fortunes ride on the fate of the health care bill after more than a year of tortuous debate that has taken a toll on Obama's standing and the public's trust in Congress. Health care changes will affect one-sixth of the nation's economy and every American - millions of whom will elect or toss out lawmakers come November.

Frumin's outsized influence over health care stems from the fact that he's one of only a few people who fully understands the rule that will govern its progress on the Senate floor. But technically, he's only an adviser to majority Democrats. They can rule as he recommends or ignore him and rule as they please - and risk the wrath of a public already deeply suspicious of one party controlling both houses of Congress.

Also, they can fire him.

"I foresee a very miserable period for him," said Frumin's predecessor, Bob Dove, who was fired in 2001 when Republicans, then in the majority, disliked his recommendations on a budgetary matter.

"I did not like it when I was there," Dove said of reconciliation. "My sense is, he will be happy when it's over."

On most days, Frumin is the Cyrano de Bergerac of the Senate. When freshmen senators take their turn presiding over routine business, it's Frumin, seated just out of camera range but within whispering distance, who makes these lawmakers sound like they know how to run the place.

Reconciliation is anything but routine. Contrary to the way it sounds, it's the most divisive procedure in the majority's tool box because it blocks filibusters that might otherwise have been launched by the party in the minority at the time - this time, Republicans. So when health care reform comes before the Senate in pieces, it'll be up to Frumin to divine - from a few rules and precedents and his own three decades in the Senate - what changes, if any, are in order. Even without the toxic partisan atmosphere of this health care debate, reconciliation, as Dove described it, is the bane of any parliamentarian's existence.

Several Republicans launched a pre-emptive effort to discredit Frumin's objectivity, a charge that Senate officials said upset him. But Frumin maintained his public silence, and the criticism was short-lived. Now, Senate Republican leaders at worst say they will have to trust him to be fair; others are more complimentary.

"People know he's fair," said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, who has known Frumin since being elected to the Senate in 1992.

For someone who's so central to the workings of the clubby Senate, Frumin is largely unknown outside of its context. He is known to walk the halls without being recognized, though less frequently nowadays. He seemed surprised this week when a photographer for the Associated Press snapped his photo as he walked the tunnels to a House office building. Bob Greenwalt, a senior tax adviser to Majority Leader Harry Reid, has lately been mistaken for Frumin.

The parliamentarian's official biography is brief: He grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y., holds a law degree from Georgetown University and is said to enjoy tennis, jogging and skiing. His wife's name is Jill, and they have one child.

But Frumin, 63, is likely to have little time for his outside life in the coming weeks.

Already, Republicans and Democrats have been vetting their ideas with Frumin on substance and the general choreography to be followed.

"It's a pretty involved set of conversations," said Eric Ueland, who was chief of staff to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee. "It's intense, and it can be frustrating."

That's behind the scenes - often in Frumin's ground-floor office in a private corridor near the historic Senate Appropriations Room.

Once the overhaul bill emerges from the House later this week, the drama moves mostly to the Senate floor during a tightly controlled session of debate and, later, unlimited amendments decided in a series of votes dubbed the vote-o-rama. That's when Frumin will have to make on-the-spot calls on which amendments are in line with reconciliation rules.

The questions coming Frumin's way will test his skills, his patience and his fortitude. Among them: Is an amendment germane to the underlying legislation, and, therefore, in order? Can the House pass the Senate's health care overhaul but hold onto it until reconciliation passes and then send it to Obama?

Dove says he's given his old friend words of encouragement and predicts Frumin will do as well as anyone can in that job, under those circumstances.

"He is unflappable, he does his homework," Dove said. "It's a perfect personality for the job."