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Deem and Pass: Pelosi Indicates That She May Pass Health Bill Under a Controversial Self-Executing Rule

It appears that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is contemplating the use of a “deem and pass” tactic to secure passage of the health-care bill. The procedural tactic is designed to allow members to avoid accountability for their votes and would reflect a conclusion that, in an up or down vote, the bill for fail.

Instead of a direct vote, Pelosi just vote on popular fixes to the Senate bill and declare that the health care bill is deemed passed.

Pelosi was remarkably honest about the purpose of such a maneuver: “It’s more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know. But I like it, because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”

That is precisely why it is more convenient than principled. While the Republicans are hardly credible in objecting after they engaged in similar tactics when in control, it is not the way that one of the most important pieces of legislation in decades should pass. The courts would likely uphold the tactic. This procedure has been used many dozens of times by the Republicans, including with major funding bills.

The courts are highly deferential to Congress on its internal rules and Article I requires a vote of both houses, which Pelosi can claim is satisfied by the vote on the reconciliation language. However, it will only fuel criticism that the White House is seeking to avoid a direct vote — particularly in the Senate where it lacks the votes.

The tactic is called a “self-executing” rule that embodies a “two-for-one” procedure. The House agrees to pass one matter while saying that the other matter is deemed passed as well. It is routinely used for less important or non-controversial pieces of legislation.

While legal, I believe it is a mistake and bad precedent for Congress. If they use this tactic, they will give the GOP another rationale for seeking to repeal the bill if they regain control of Congress. More importantly, given the unpopularity of the bill in many parts of the Congress, this will reaffirm in the eyes of critics that the bill was passed by procedural trickery rather than democratic process.

Members should vote on the record and the Speaker should not work to help members avoid accountability for their decisions. I do not like the GOP tactics or scare tactics on the bill any more than Pelosi but this is not the way to take the high ground in the debate. Instead, it validates the GOP tactics. Let’s have an honest debate and honest vote. If the GOP kills health care, we have an election around the corner to seek a public verdict on the matter.

full story: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR20100315037
42_pf.html

http://jonathanturley.org/2010/03/16/deem-and-pass-pelosi-indicates-th
at-she-may-pass-health-bill-under-a-controversial-self-executing-rule/

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Slaughtered "Worse Than Watergate": GOP Rules Chief Wimps Out, Resigned to Letting Congress Pass Obamacare Without a Vote

Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee, indicated yesterday that he was resigned to letting congressional Democrats make the Senate health-care bill the law of the land without ever holding a vote on it in the House of Representatives by passing a rule governing debate on another bill, the budget reconciliation, that “deems” the health care bill as passed.

The Slaughter Rule -- named for House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) who proposed it -- would allow the Senate health bill to be incorporated into the Rule for the reconciliation bill coming out of the Senate. If members vote to pass this Rule they, in effect, pass the Senate health care bill wihout actually voting on it -- they instead vote on the reconciliation package.

Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, however, expressly states that for any bill to beome law "the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by the yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively." After that, under the Constitution, the president must either sign the bill or hold it for ten days (not counting Sundays), after which it will become law unless Congress adjourns in the interim.

Constitutional scholars have said that what the Democrats may try to do by making the Senate health care bill law without ever voting on it in the House is unconstitutional and could spark a constitutional crisis far worse than Watergate.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/62813

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Pelosi Readies “Self-executing” Fascism to Force Obamacare on Americans

In January, a measley 36 percent of Americans approved of Obama’s health care “reforms” while fifty-four percent disapproved. “Many see the health care legislation as an inappropriate federal power grab,” writes Carrie Lukas for The Daily Caller this morning. 76 percent of respondents to a recent poll believe the government has no right to force you to buy health care. If Congress passes the bill, they will punish them at the polls.

Maybe. It depends on how well they are fooled this time around.

For Pelosi and the Democrats, this is not an issue. They don’t care if you don’t want Obamacare at gunpoint. They are ready to push through the bill by way of “self-executing rule,” also known as “deem-and-pass.”

From the Washington Post:

As House leaders looked for a path that could get the Senate legislation through the chamber and onto Obama’s desk, conservatives warned that Pelosi’s use of deem-and-pass in this way would run afoul of the Constitution. They pointed to a 1998 Supreme Court ruling that said each house of Congress must approve the exact same text of a bill before it can become law. A self-executing rule sidesteps that requirement.

You may remember Pelosi’s dismissive comment about the Constitution. Back in October, she was asked what part of the Constitution authorizes the federal government to force all Americans to buy health care. “Are you serious? Are you serious?” she responded. Pelosi’s press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, later clarified: asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a “serious question.”

Demanding an explanation why Congress feels it can violate the Constitution is not a serious question?

It is up to the American people to call the Democrats out on this. It does not look like they will before the House rams Obamacare through.
“Constitutions alone cannot limit government,” writes Anthony Gregory. “The overwhelming bulk of what the federal government is engaged in, from imperial wars to drug prohibition, from Social Security to Medicare, is unauthorized by the Constitution, and yet they persist. What matters ultimately is the Constitution in the hearts and minds of the people. So long as the American public supports unconstitutional actions, such actions will commence. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, as Jefferson noted. The Constitution spells out great limits on the government, but without the support of the people, the document loses its teeth.”

In other words, as Walt Kelly’s Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Decades of ignorance about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights has taken a serious toll. Both Democrats and Republicans have assaulted the Constitution for decades now and most Americans remain oblivious or at best apathetic.

Around the time Pelosi dismissed the Constitution (more specifically, the Commerce Clause), Rep. Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican, said Obama wants to “establish an authoritarian government” and said that Obama, Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are part of a “socialist elite” that wants to declare martial law in America. Obama wants to go down the road of Hitler, he said.

http://www.infowars.com/pelosi-readies-self-executing-fascism-to-force
-obamacare-on-americans/

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