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To: Kenny
"I need clarification. I understand it to be that the original Senate bill will be deemed passed when the new House bill becomes law. Is that correct? I still don't like the "deemed" part but it would buy us some time to fight it. "

No, the original Senate bill (H.R. 3590) will be deemed passed when the House votes on this (and presumably passes) this Reconciliation Bill that they've just posted.

You would then have the original Senate bill (H.R. 3590) passed by both Houses of Congress, and available for the President's signature. There have been some whispers that Nancy would hold onto the H.R. 3590 until the time that the Senate passes the Reconciliation bill. The Speaker can (and does from time to time) hold legislation. In fact, the Speaker can hold it for a year, or until the session ends, whichever comes first. Of course, this raises the legal dilemma of "can a Reconciliation Bill be voted on before the original legislation actually becomes law. That is the problem which will probably be worked out in the Supreme Court, if they elect to hear such a case.

156 posted on 03/14/2010 9:19:40 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
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To: OldDeckHand
This doesn't sound any more constitutional than the SlaughterHouse Rule...Maybe with an added 3 card monte variation.

And they're still talking about passing reconciliation before signing the fundamental bill into law.

TalkRadio is gonna be fun tomorrow.

188 posted on 03/14/2010 9:38:52 PM PDT by Tex-Con-Man
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To: OldDeckHand
This guy, Michael McConell, says the so-called 'Slaughter Rule' is unconstituional. He's a former federal judge.

Enter the Slaughter solution. It may be clever, but it is not constitutional. To become law—hence eligible for amendment via reconciliation—the Senate health-care bill must actually be signed into law. The Constitution speaks directly to how that is done. According to Article I, Section 7, in order for a "Bill" to "become a Law," it "shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate" and be "presented to the President of the United States" for signature or veto. Unless a bill actually has "passed" both Houses, it cannot be presented to the president and cannot become a law.

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."

Link

195 posted on 03/14/2010 9:46:08 PM PDT by LdSentinal
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