The Dems control both sides of Congress, and POTUS. They are responsible for crafting legislation that they can pass. They have failed to do that on health care. The fault is theirs. Blaming the Mean Old Conservatives is childish, weak, and highly amusing.
Do you even know what filibustering is? :dubious:
As has been said what should be too many times already, but obviously is still not enough: Don’t be deliberately obtuse.
Let me see if I understand:
Senate has passed Bill A. The House would like Bill A with a little bit of B added, so they pass C.
In passing C, they proclaim that A has passed (so that part will become law). But won’t the part B (the removal of the kickbacks, etc.) have to still go to the Senate and overcome a 60 vote hurdle to pass?
Can you fucking count? The GoP only had 39 senators until Ted “the Chappaquiddick Killer” Kennedy had the decency to take his rightful place in Hell and a Republican won his seat.
39 is not enough to filibuster successfully. Therefore, failure to pass a better bill can’t be blamed on GoP filibusters, be they procedural or otherwise. The blame goes to the majority party, which had a potential to muster 61 votes in the Senate. Enough to defeat any filibuster. But they failed to do it.
That’s the reason the House has to pass Bill A, even though they don’t want it.
Here’s how it works:
The Republican party has signaled to everyone excluding Oakminster that it will block an up and down vote of any health care bill that House Democrats pass.
Therefore, if the Senate is going to move on Bill B (the House Amendments), they have to do so through budget reconciliation, which is a procedure to force votes on bills.
However, Reconcilation requires that the Bill be passed by both houses*, so the House has to have also passed Bill A (the original Senate bill), even though the House does not like Bill A. The House wants Bill B. The Senate even wants Bill B. But because of the Republican’s obstruction, the House has to pass Bill A, which neither chamber wants anymore.
The self-executing rule is a procedural way of getting Bill A, which will not become law, to pass, by merging it with the amendments and creating Bill C.
Once that is done, the Senate will vote, through reconciliation, on Bill B. At that point, the Senate and House will have both voted, with yeas and nays recorded, on Bill B. It will then be signed by the President and become law.
*I’m still simplifying that a bit; it’s of no matter to this discussion, but I’ll explain it if you ask.
Lieberman is an Independent, not a Democrat and campaigned for McCain despite being in the Democrat caucus.
And having a (D) next to your name does not make you a Dem. Just as many bemoan that Olympia Snowe should not have an (R) next to her name.
I can count all the way to 40. You obviously cannot. Here’s a link you can start with.. Gawdamighty.
Wow. Spoken like a true Christian. :rolleyes:
As you must know anyway, Kennedy was unable to participate in any Senate proceedings for most of the last year.
56, really, and then only for the few months after Franken was finally seated. Nelson and Conrad have conservative states to take care of, Lieberman would just keep demanding more ass-kissing, and Kennedy wasn’t there.
You really haven’t been paying much attention to the world around you recently, have you?
Oakminister’s argument is basically this:
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Republicans impose a extraconstitutional 60 vote threshold on passing all legislation.
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Democrats, the majority party, can only round up 98.33% of their caucus behind the legislation.
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IT’S ALL THE DEMOCRATS FAULT! HAHAHAHAHAHA GOP RULES
That’s the best you got? I’ve only posted that I’m an atheist approximately 3 jillion times on this very board.
Then you shouldn’t believe, much less hope, that Kennedy’s in Hell. Where’d that come from?
I take it you now have some grasp of the nature of the filibuster and the actual vote counts available to either party. If not, then screw it, there’s no hope.
Note that I have said nothing remotely close to “GoP Rules”. I left that party in 2003.
I have been critical of most Dems, and moreso of liberals. I also posted something positive about the Blue Dog Dems, who I am hopeful will help kill this health care bill. Considering I made a campaign contribution to one of them, I’ll be dissappointed if he votes in favor…but I don’t think he will.
Ted Kennedy was a murdering sonofabitch. If there is a Hell, I hope he’s in it. Otherwise, it’s just a figure of speech. You think that’s bad? I suggest you not inquire about what I wish for Hanoi Jane Fonda.
Do you at least understand what filibustering is by now?
Well, I played loose with it because some are using it in the following manner. The language of “in all such cases” apply to the “Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate,” which begins the paragraph. I am not asserting I find it persuasive, I am just wanting an opinion on it.
You are wrong – the “all such cases” refers to when the president returns a bill to Congress and the Houses proceed to another vote to override the veto.
Do you understand now why anyone saying Art I Sec 7 requires roll call votes on every bill is either wrong or lying?
Ima thinkin’ that Oakminster should either put down the keyboard, or put down the beer.
And if wether he was a Christian or not, he sure sounded like one - exactly as claimed.
The two houses of Congress get to set their own rules. There is nothing unconstitutional about this procedure.
Well I do not think I am wrong, as I never said I agreed with it, so get off of your undeserved high horse.
Thanks for the explanation. What’s to stop this from applying to any bill that has already passed the Senate by more than 60 votes?
Say the Senate passes a bill honoring our service men and women fighting overseas. It passes 100-0.
Then the House passes a bill which establishes Universal Health Care and a single payer system and attaches a rule that “deems” that the bill honoring the soldiers has passed with the health care vote.
The bill then goes back to the Senate where it no longer needs 60 votes, correct? A filibuster-buster. Or what am I missing?
I am inclined to think this is the correct position, and there isn’t any specific or particular language in Article I, Section 7, which prohibits the Slaughter Rule. I am also skeptical of Michael McConnell’s claim the language of Article 1, Section 5, requiring and the yeas and nays of the members of either House on any question is implicated here. From what I understand, they are recording the yeas and nays on the rule, and the yeas/nays on the proposed amendments and corrections to the bill.
I do not find persuasive, however, the logic of a vote for the amendment package can constitute as a vote for a bill, but I cannot find anything in Article I prohibiting this rule. Under this reasoning, however, does it not follow the Congress could pass a rule asserting a majority is not needed to pass legislation but rather so long as 109 vote in favor the legislation in the House, it is deemed passed, and 25 in the Senate, it is deemed passed? There is certainly nothing in the U.S. Constitution requiring a majority vote to approve legislation.
Here is another argument, by law professor Michael McConnell, asserting the Slaughter Rule is unconstitutional.
To be sure, each House of Congress has power to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” Each house can thus determine how much debate to permit, whether to allow amendments from the floor, and even to require supermajority votes for some types of proceeding. But House and Senate rules cannot dispense with the bare-bones requirements of the Constitution. Under Article I, Section 7, passage of one bill cannot be deemed to be enactment of another.
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. As the Supreme Court wrote in Clinton v. City of New York (1998), a bill containing the “exact text” must be approved by one house; the other house must approve “precisely the same text.”
I have some problems with his claim “no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form” and I cannot find what in Article I, Section 7, precludes the passage of one bill as deeming to be enactment of another. Maybe I am missing something in Article I, Section 7?