The Glade 4.0

We're not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely "deem" that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway.

Under the "reconciliation" process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate's Christmas Eve bill and then use "sidecar" amendments to fix the things it doesn't like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process.

But Mrs. Pelosi & Co. fear they lack the votes in the House to pass an identical Senate bill, even with the promise of these reconciliation fixes. House Members hate the thought of going on record voting for the Cornhusker kickback and other special-interest bribes that were added to get this mess through the Senate, as well as the new tax on high-cost insurance plans that Big Labor hates.

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Associated Press

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y
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slaughter

So at the Speaker's command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what's known as a "self-executing rule," also known as a "hereby rule." Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill.

Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill. They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote. Even John Kerry never went that far with his Iraq war machinations. As we went to press, the precise mechanics that Democrats will use remained unclear, though yesterday Mrs. Pelosi endorsed this "deem and pass" strategy in a meeting with left-wing bloggers.

This two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a "Bill" to "become a Law," it "shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate." This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes. While sometimes one house cedes entirely to another, the expectation is that its Members must re-vote on the exact language of the other body's bill.

As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, "The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form." If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of Madison's core checks and balances.

Yes, self-executing rules have been used in the past, but as the Congressional Research Service put it in a 2006 paper, "Originally, this type of rule was used to expedite House action in disposing of Senate amendments to House-passed bills." They've also been used for amendments such as to a 1998 bill that "would have permitted the CIA to offer employees an early-out retirement program"—but never before to elide a vote on the entire fundamental legislation.

We have entered a political wonderland, where the rules are whatever Democrats say they are. Mrs. Pelosi and the White House are resorting to these abuses because their bill is so unpopular that a majority even of their own party doesn't want to vote for it. Fence-sitting Members are being threatened with primary challengers, a withdrawal of union support and of course ostracism. Michigan's Bart Stupak is being pounded nightly by MSNBC for the high crime of refusing to vote for a bill that he believes will subsidize insurance for abortions.

Democrats are, literally, consuming their own majority for the sake of imposing new taxes, regulations and entitlements that the public has roundly rejected but that they believe will be the crowning achievement of the welfare state. They are also leaving behind a procedural bloody trail that will fuel public fury and make such a vast change of law seem illegitimate to millions of Americans.

The concoction has become so toxic that even Mrs. Pelosi isn't bothering to defend the merits anymore, saying instead last week that "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Or rather, "deeming" to have passed it.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

And, I'll simply state, I need no further proof than the shenanigans of these elected officials to demonstrated that universal suffrage is a greater threat to freedom and "democracy" then anything else.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Hopwin:

As I have said a dozen times before ...

1. Land Owners
2. Property Owners (think Condo)
3. Those who have completed a 6 year term of service in the U.S. Armed Forces
4. Business Owners

Plus, you must actually have to pay taxes.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

What about apartment dwellers in areas with limited ownership potential (thinking NYC)?

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

I would add elected officials to that list, Khross.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Only if they own a business or have military service.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Elected officials should never be allowed to vote for their own re-election.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

So everyone else who pays taxes is SoL?

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

My guess is that only those with the franchise would be required to pay taxes.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

I thought the House passed a bill as did the Senate so all that remains is to send it to committee to match up the two bills and vote yes or no on the changes that come through as a result.

1. Land Owners
2. Property Owners (think Condo)
3. Those who have completed a 6 year term of service in the U.S. Armed Forces
4. Business Owners

Plus, you must actually have to pay taxes.

The conservative case against "Deem and Pass" is getting very complex, very fast. Yesterday, the argument was that it was flatly unconstitutional. But it turns out that Republicans used Deem and Pass dozens of times while they were in power. So today's furor is that Nancy Pelosi and Louise Slaughter joined Public Citizen in a lawsuit arguing that a bill that George W. Bush signed was invalid because Deem and Pass is unconstitutional. But the court ruled against Public Citizen, Pelosi and Slaughter. Deem and Pass, well, passed. And now Democrats are using it, too.

This is the sort of world I warned about in my article on the arms race of procedural gimmickry in the Congress. The minority makes the filibuster a constant presence. So the majority makes reconciliation a frequent friend. The Senate bogs down and so the House stops being able to trust that the Senate will be able to pass legislation, so they begin innovating methods of defensive legislating like self-executing rules and Deem and Pass. The whole thing is nuts, and it's done by both parties. The variables here are majority and the minority, not Democrats and Republicans.

As I said in the piece, it's time to clean the rulebook. I'd like a 51-vote Senate. If America chooses a 60-vote Senate, then so be it. But either way, let's decide how the place will work and set that into stone. This world where loopholes keep transforming Congress has created a norm of legislating using any process you can concoct, rather than in a single, straightforward fashion.

My objection to that approach, Khross, is that property isn't the only interest affected by government, so it excludes people who do have a vested interest in the government from participating in it.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.