Sure, because Congress is a model of efficiency, that is why they are going with the two-in-one method. If they sent it back to the Senate with the proposed changes it opens the bill up to debate. And since the bill was written pretty much without input from, well, just about anyone from the other side of the aisle, there probably would certainly be some debate.
Question, do you think if Coakley had won instead of Brown and the Senate still had its’ filibuster-proof majority, they would still use the two-in-one option?
End-around. 100%. Whether the end-around is good or necessary given the political situation is another debate, but let’s not pretend it is anything but what it is.
There’s a bit wrong with your legislative analysis here. Also with your analysis of who had input in the bill (I seem to recall a great deal of Republican input on the Finance committee - and at least one Republican that voted for it on said committee).
But in the end it merely confirms what was said up-thread - those that are upset about the process are pretty much entirely a subset of those that are opposed to the bill.
If Coakley had won then reconciliation wouldn’t be an issue, nor “deem and pass”, because the bill would be subject to a conference comittee report which would be passed by both houses (over a filibuster in the Senate). The key point being that the House Dems would not be in the position of having to pass the Senate bill as-is.
So I guess the answer is no, but not for the reasons you seem to think.
It is an end-around, absolutely. Nobody is really denying that. But what the are ending around is not what you seem to think it is. They want to be able to vote for the final bill, not the intermediate pre-amended bill.
There will be an up-or-down vote in both houses on the final package. I don’t see how this is a crisis of democracy.
I’m willing to bet that even if Coakley were elected, the same procedure would have been used. What is acceptable to a bare majority of the House is probably only acceptable to a bare majority of the Senate. I do not think it would have been likely that 60 senators would support something that 216 House members would, so reconciliation probably would have been used anyway.
ETA: if the bill passes and there are 59 votes for the reconciliation package in the Senate, I concede I will have been proven wrong. But I’m betting there will be fewer than 59 votes for the reconciliation package in the Senate.
I think I heard the Public Citizen v US District Court for DC decision was that the court had no jurisdiction and, upon reading the decision, it seems that Public Citizen had no standing.
I wonder if the Supreme Court would be willing to hear a case against using this tactic to pass legislation. The Public Citizen v US District Court for DC seems to deal more with the procedures used to fix a typo in the legislation as opposed to using the deem and pass rule to PASS legislation.
You’ve gone past me to needing a few real lawyers to parse these out for the layperson (IANAL).
It does however seem to be constitutional and while those cases may not be exactly on point they are being pointed to as relevant.
Here’s a bit more where the guy defends his assertion that this is constitutional (and if you read enough see he thinks it is stupid but constitutional). (Bolding below original)
My understanding is that SCOTUS has ruled that it will not interfere with the workings of congress (separation of powers in Field v Clark ) but will intervene if the rules put in place by congress are unconstitutional (Clinton v City of New York). Since this rule would allow the bill to pass without having the house actually vote on the exact language that passed the senate, it appears unconstitutional and may be heard by the court.
Landmark Legal is run by Mark Levin. Yes…the radio host. He is also a constitutional lawyer who served in Justice under Reagan. Here is an interesting section of the suit. I had not considered this:
The courts risk much in not acting in this case. For if the Enrolled Bill Rule were
to block consideration of this deliberate adoption of a procedure to repeal the Bicameralism
Clause, then the House and Senate will be free to adopt any such procedures in the future,
assured that they will be immune from judicial review under any and all circumstances. After
all, if the House can pass a rule that “deems approved” one measure on adoption of a separate
measure and keep that maneuver from judicial scrutiny, then it, and its companion Chamber the
Senate, can do anything. There can be no doubt that the day after a ruling in this case that no
judicial review is permitted, the House and Senate would be free to adopt as procedures a lineitem
veto through use of multiple enrollments of unitary appropriations bills, deeming every item
in the bill as a separate bill. See, e.g., Gressman, Observation: Is the Item Veto Constitutional?,
64 N. Car. L. Rev. 819 (1986). Everything about the House’s action invites chaos: economic,
political, and constitutional. Under the specific facts presented here, the Congress has forfeited
any claim to judicial deference.
So we have you and John Mace claiming CNN and MSNBC are also misrepresenting what Deem & Pass is.
Yet we have no quotes from either of you but rather one line assertions they did so. Please cite their misrepresentations.
If indeed they all did the same thing as FOX News then we can discuss in another thread the failure of mass media. As I noted above “deem & pass” has occurred near 90 times in four years in this decade alone with plenty from both parties. Can anyone here cite where, in those ~90 times, anyone got in a fuss about it akin to today?
I saw it on TV. That limits the ability to cite it. If it means that much to you, just forget that I said it. I’m not going to look for transcripts or anything.
Regarding the fuss, if you were not a supporter of UHC, you’d make a fuss too. In those other 90 times, what was passed that changed the size and scope if the .gov like UHC will? In my opinion, any perceptions of a shifty move or underhandedness should be eliminated as it only give the naysayers yet another item to bitch and moan about it. YMMV and it certainly does in this case. Just drop the BS about the Congress suddenly wanting to become more efficient with their time.
I have plenty of doubt about this assertion. How does it follow that if Congress can pass a law by conditioning it on a future bill from the Senate that all judicial review of Congress ceases to exist?
You can say that the bill will pass without the House voting on it all you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that the House will vote for it, only in advance of the senate bill being presented.
And Ravenman cited a deem & pass that was a big deal in post #54:
The first example I mentioned, HJ Res 51, raised the statutory debt ceiling from $6,400,000,000,000 to $7,384,000,000,000, or just shy of $1 trillion dollars. I would say that it is VERY significant and controversial.
Watched it and it does not seem particularly bad to me and mostly accurate. Of course it is for political cover. No one is denying it and is why the Reps have used this tactic as well literally dozens of times in the past.
On Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, co-host Bill Hemmer stated: “We start this morning with what could be the latest tactic to pass health care. Democrats considering pushing it through the House without actually voting on it. Now, how’s that work? It’s called the self-executing rule that does not require a single vote, and lawmakers on the Hill are apparently ready to use it – but how and when?”
That is an outright falsehood. They in fact need a majority vote to pass the bill.
Yes, and that is correct. The Fox News one is not. The key difference is the phrase “Senate health-care bill”.
The House, if they use the self-executing rule, will indeed be passing the Senate bill without voting on it directly. They will not be passing Health Care Reform without voting on it (like Fox News claimed).
Also, the phrase “wouldn’t require a single vote” is particularly inaccurate (as they would realize if they spent half a second to wonder why their reporting of Kucinich’s switch meant a damn thing if there wasn’t even going to be a vote…)
You really believe this statement from Fox News is correct: “It’s called the self-executing rule that does not require a single vote”? Because it is pretty obviously false.