Posted on 03/14/2010 8:03:31 AM PDT by C19fan
Any legal eagles freepers know if the Slaughter is unconstitutional? Common sense would say yes but I have read this has been used before; specifically Gephardt used a similiar technique so his buddies would avoid having to have a direct vote to raise the debt ceiling. Since the House has to approve the rule would that be considered as equivalent to an actual vote on the bill?
It doesn't say how it must be passed. It just says it must pass both houses. So, if the House votes on a rule which deems the Senate bill passed, I see nothing in the Constitution forbidding that tactic. And that would be the identical Senate bill, voted passed in the Senate, and voted passed in the House (via the vote on the rule.) Where is that outlawed? I don't see it.
And it should be noted they operate under Roberts Rules of Order at their pleasure. The Constitution does not require it. They could use Colonol Sanders Rules of Fried Chicken if they want to. It’s left entirely up to them, and is, therefore, a political, not a constitutional issue.
I say the House rule bill is a derivative of the Senate bill and therefore can not by definition be identical to it. You disagree. Ok, fair enough. But ask yourself this; if the bills really are the same, why bother with all the hoop jumping and pretzel twisting? Why not just take the Senate bill and vote on it?
One more argument in favor of my interpretation is the flow of thought through the paragraph.
1) Every bill that is passed goes to the President
2) If the President approves it, he signs it and it becomes law
3) If the President doesn’t approve it, he sends it back to the originating house with objections, and Congress votes in a proscribed manner
4) If the President doesn’t return it within 10 days, excluding Sundays, it becomes law unless Congress adjourns during the 10 day period.
Your interpretation would have the flow of thought be interrupted between #3 & #4 redirected back to before #1, before a bill is sent to the President.
The Founders were grammarians, but they were also logicians, and your interpretation, by interrupting and redirecting the flow of thought, is not a logical flow of thought.
The point of doing it this way is that it avoids there being any moment when the Senate bill is passed BEFORE the reconciliation changes take effect. Members are afraid if they pass the Senate bill on its own, it will get signed and then they WON'T get the reconciliation changes they want.
So they devise a way to do both simultaneously. They use a house rule. The house rule states that the bill is passed, and also includes the other changes. The rule still has to be voted on. It's not as if they are making a rule and not voting on the rule. They aren't just deeming the Senate bill passed. They are saying if you vote YEA to this rule, you deem the bill passed. And at the same time you get the other changes.
It's a smart tactical move. It may hurt them politically, but I think they've already discounted for that. They are all-in on this hand and want to win it come what may.
It's probably a smart strategic move also. If they do pass it, they might lose in the short run (midterms, 2012 presidency) but in the long run, they win, like they did with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc etc.
Intent is irrelevant?? Are you kidding? Intent is most assuredly relevant. Have you never heard the term “legislative intent?” Do you even have a copy of the Constitution handy? I’m guessing not. Here’s what Article I, Section 7 says:
“But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by 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.”
Note the language “...for and against the Bill...” It doesn’t say “...for and against the Bill, or any rule that bypasses the vote on the Bill...” or some such thing.
Good God, if intent doesn’t matter, then we live in a world of Humpty Dumpty where each word means only what the speaker of the word says it means, nothing more and nothing less. How absurd can you be?
“If they vote on the rule, they vote on the bill.” Yeah, and if you call a horses tail a “leg,” then a horse has five legs. Except that it DOESN’T have five legs, and voting on a rule is NOT voting on a bill.
Holy cow. Do you actually vote? I hope not...
There’s no squinting required. All that’s required is a functioning brain and a copy of the Constitution, and some character.
Article I, Section 7 states unequivocally:
“But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by 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.”
That is unequivocal. The vote is required on a Bill, NOT on a rule that bypasses Article I, Section 7.
Folks, go to www.heritage.org and ask them to send you a free pocket copy of the Constitution. You really ought to have it handy. It would preclude people from Huck rambling on and on here about that which he/she clearly knows little.
Hey Huck, if you call a horse’s tail a “leg,” how many legs does a horse have?
No, the answer is not “five.” The answer is “four.” Calling a horse’s tail a “leg” doesn’t make it a leg, just as calling a vote on a rule a vote on a bill doesn’t make it a vote on a bill.
Go read Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution.
After further reflection, yes, it’s flatly unConstitutional.
Both houses have to pass exactly the same bill - not something that says “yeah, we already passed that, and we also passed something that made it completely different”.
As for “handy”: http://www.constitution.org is where I often go.
I’ve read it.
Intent is not relevant.
"If someone found a letter from George Washington to Martha telling her that what he meant by the power to lay taxes was not what other people meant, that would not change our reading of the Constitution in the slightest.... Law is a public act. Secret reservations or intentions count for nothing. All that counts is how the words used in the Constitution would have been understood at the time."
Judge Robert Bork
"You will never hear me refer to original intent, because as I say I am first of all a textualist, and secondly an originalist. If you are a textualist, you don't care about the intent, and I don't care if the framers of the Constitution had some secret meaning in mind when they adopted its words."
Justice Scalia, Speech at CUA, 10/14/1996
Is that the best you can do? Cite a quote from Bork, and a silly “what if” about George Washington?
Try citing the actual Constitution. Try refuting the plain language of Article I, Section 7.
So Bork is a textualist. So take the TEXT of Article I, Section 7, and explain how that doesn’t prohibit the Dems’ and the Slaughter Rule.
Use the Constitution - the law of the land - to explain the validity of the Slaughter Rule. You can’t. Which is why your only defenses are lame and silly.
The plain language of Article 7 doesn't say whether or not the House can pass a bill via a rule or not. Which is why the court won't touch it.
Upon adoption of the selection of Speaker of the House, it shall be deemed as unanimous sense of the House of Representatives that democrats shall receive no votes in the new Congress. Additionally, by unanimous consent, democrat appointed judges are hereby deemed impeached.
Wrong again. A Yea vote indicates that the senate bill is deemed to have been voted on and passed. There’s a big difference. Are you advocating this unconstitutional nonsense?
I don’t see the difference.
Difference: There will not be an actual recorded vote on the senate bill, just a vote to agree that the bill was voted on and passed. If there was an actual vote on the bill, it would be soundly rejected (otherwise the marxist maggots would not be trying to run this scheme...).
I hope this helps.
There will be an actual recorded vote on the rule that passes the bill. To me it's a distinction without a difference. People are running down the wrong path on this one. What's wrong with health care reform is the substance, not the process. Is it unusual? Sure. Has it been done on this big a bill? Apparantly not, but it's been done before, by both parties on substantive matters. It's just a parliamentary procedure. It's very obvious they still need an up or down vote, or else it would be passed already. This is just a distraction and a sideshow.
It’s been used before without being challenged, but never at this level. So I imagine if the Democrats take that route then an immediate court challenge will be filed. We’ll find out the constitutionality then.
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