Posted on 03/03/2010 7:09:50 PM PST by cotton1706
I've been wondering why nobody has been saying this. If the house passes the senate bill, then the legislative process is complete. They can just send it to the president and it becomes law. They can amend the law of course with reconciliaton or whatever.
I think that is what's going on here. I think the senate is going to convice enough house members that they can pass health care through reconciliation. Then those house members push health care over the line in the house. Then they just forget about reconciliation and send the bill to the president.
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I don't think so. I have read all the relevant rules. They all point to Reconciliation bill modifying a previous bill, not laws. I think it probably violates the spirit of the Reconciliation measure, but not the letter of the law. So long as Obama signs the original bill first, there's not going to be a problem with judicial review.
And, even if it did, it's really immaterial so long as Biden is the President of the Senate wielding the authority to overrule the Senate parliamentarian. To overrule Biden, the GOP would need to muster 60 votes, and of course that's not likely.
There is a part of me that agrees with you. Problem is that if they pass this thing we will never get rid of it. Epic in Senate will still be GOP at 51 or 52 seats. They would need 2/3 to override an Obama veto to get rid of it. The best possible thing, if they ram it through and the GOP picks up 80+ seats in the House, is the House appropriations to not fund the program (somehow, don't ask me how).
That is my understanding and Lindsay Graham was just on Greta saying the same thing and the Dem’s in the House would be the biggest chumps in D.C.
I thought that was the smokescreen, no?
When a recipe says you should dice a vegetable, what size do you dice it to?
The bill the House will be voting on isn’t the one that already passed the Senate.
They won’t bring it to the house floor until they have the votes to pass the “new” bill in the Senate.
You are correct on all items except this: after the House passes the Senate bill and the prez signs into law, the House will take up Obama’s amendments he outlined today... They will not resort to any House language from last year.
Bottom line: the President’s proposal today IS the reconciliation. It is now being drafted into legislative language.
Can it? The Constitution is very specific on such things ..."All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."(Art 1 Sec 7) It seems that the framers intended that all revenue-raising bills (which this is) must be originated in the HoR, not the Senate. The Senate has the authority to propose amendments and to concur, but NOT to originate.
That would seem to mean that the only viable bill is the one passed already by the HoR or they go to conference with both bills.
If the House had the votes to pass it they would have done so weeks ago.
You are right. This is the fight.
And here’s the dirty little secret. Once they pass the Senate bill, and it is the law, conservatives might well find that reconciliation is better than nothing.
In other words, given that the senate bill has passed and is law, it is quite possible that the reconciliation bill makes the senate bill a little less bad. Conservatives will then have to decide whether it is better to oppose the reconciliation.
For example, if they did manage to put the Stupak language in the reconciliation, there would be pro-life groups pushing to pass it.
You are incorrect. The House MUST pass the Senate bill as-is and this must happen first.
Then, and only then, can they proceed with reconcilation. The reonciliation is simply the amendments the President is proposing.
Note that this leaves the liberal pro-abortion language intact
I have seen no evidence for that rumor. On the other hand, I have previously posted actual news stories that say it was Reid's decision to skip reconciliation, because if you had a conference, it would certainly have changed the senate bill, and then they'd have to get 60 votes in the Senate again.
We WANTED a conference, and it was a violation of the normal process to avoid a conference. And there is no way for a minority senator to "object" to the conferees list and block a conference.
I don't know where this rumor started.
I agree Pelosi aint got the votes right now. However, I think she can flip Massa due to the scandal - she is promising him the world
I enjoyed reading the comments over there at Slate.
flop sweat!
Our key (conservatives) is to make it clear to the House that there is NO WAY a reconciliation measure that they like will ever make it through the Senate.
Of course, I am sure they will try to hide the details of the reconciliation until the last minute.
Good thought, but Reid got around this b4 Christmas by dumping his entire manager’s amendment, which was the Senate bill, into an obscure revenue bill that originated in the House.
The problem is that the 9 democrats who would not go along with the Senate bill changes will be disenfranchised along with the republicans by the reconciliation rules.
All the deals they took to buy their votes for cloture will be removed, and they can vote against it but their votes won’t be needed.
No democrat should EVER AGAIN trust their leadership. Their votes were bought, and now that they aren’t needed the leadership is going to take back what they promised.
And all those senators who said they were just voting to move the process along, and don’t worry because they could vote no on the final measure — they are all screwed, along with the American people.
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