We’re not talking about the House amending the Senate bill-- Once Brown won Massachusetts, that became politically impossible. What “deem and pass” would have done would have been to pass the Senate bill as-is, while at the same time also voting on a separate bill containing the changes. The separate bill containing the changes would have gone back to the Senate, and could possibly be bounced back and forth with more amendments, but the main bill would have passed.
Without having read any of the thread I’m taking odds that it will contain something like this:
“Should we question liberals’ use of Deem and Pass to pass things I disagree with, despite the fact conservatives haven’t been up in arms about the 40 times it’s passed under their control in the past 10 years? Hey, i’m not saying Deem and Pass is right or wrong, I’m just asking questions, man…”
I can’t imagine that should Republicans find they have regained a majority in the senate that any of them would show discomfort over or dismay at using a tactic they had previously denounced the Democrats for using. I think they will shamelessly use whatever tactic that is convenient for them to use.
I doubt they would even address the seeming hypocrisy or bother to try to explain why it is ok for them to use a tactic they once condemned. I do imagine that some Republican might say that using the tactic to further their righteous cause is quite different from the atheist using it to further their unholy agenda, but I would not expect a cogent explanation of how it is different.
I’m sure you’re right. We have only to look at the filibuster rule to see the truth of that. When Democrats ruled the Senate, the filibuster was an embarrassing remnant of the past that should be abolished (according to the Democrats) or a necessary bulwark against the tyranny of the majority (if you listened to the Republicans). Less than ten years later, when the leadership was swapped, the opposite positions were announced by both sides, without, so far as I can recall, the slightest hint of embarrassment on either side.
And now that the situation has come full circle, the positions have switched again, Even the New York Times famously switched its position, those editors at least having the grace to say, “Yeah, we were wrong before.” No idea what they’ll say if the GOP retakes the Senate.
But this thread isn’t about that. The whole point here was to say, “OK – for the moment, no party has a vested interest in this procedure. So perhaps we can discuss it on the merits, rather than colored by a particular proposal we happen to like.”
So, out of curiousity, why did the the Republicans use “Deem and Pass” so often? During the debate over its use, we heard that the while they were criticizing it, they’d used it tens of times when they held the House.
I understand the Dem reason for doing so with the Health Care Reform bill, they had a bill that they wanted to make changes too before voting, but they couldn’t just make the changes and send the original bill back back to the full Senate since the original block of 60 Senators that had voted for the first bill was now down a member. So the wavering members wanted a way to vote for “bill+changes” instead of having to vote for “bill” and then vote for “changes”. Putting aside the Constitutional argument, this at least makes sense from a tactical perspective.
But those circumstances seem fairly unusual, since the composition of the Senate doesn’t change that often mid-term. So why did the GOP need to use it so much?
Not sure how they’d do it logistically. A vote comes down 50/50 is it both passed and failed at the same time? You’d go back and forth between 60% passing a bill, then the 40% repealing it, then 60% passing… 
Yeah, well, didn’t say it’d make sense. Just not sure anything actually prohibits it.