House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it (Slaughter Rule in serious play)

Washington Post ^ | Tuesday, March 16, 2010 | Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane

[Bigtigermike]

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might instead attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would instead vote on a more popular measure that presumes the health-care bill has passed the chamber.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the Senate bill.

"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

Republicans quickly condemned the strategy, framing it as an effort to avoid responsibility for passing the Senate measure, and some suggested that Pelosi's plan for a self-executing rule would be unconstitutional.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503742_pf.html

[BigEdLB]

The So-Called Democratic Party has long forgotten the words penned by its founder:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Slaughter rule is an appropriate name for this monkey-business

[americanophile]

Flatly and unambiguously unconstitutional. Absolutely breathtaking.

If they want inssurection, this is the way to go about it.

[PghBaldy]

Isn’t the gist of this article many hours old?

[philetus]

The Presidency is now Hocus Potus.

[Bigtigermike]

WASPOST posted is for Tuesday.......now many today on blogs were declaring that it was looking that way.(Slaughter rule)

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

IIRC they have already passed bills like this with this “self-executing” rule, e. g. PAYGO plus raising the debt ceiling. I’m not sure whether the house or senate voted last.

[Presto]

Folks,

Republicans can destroy the health care reform bill right now; if they will emphasize this message -——————— By immediately raising taxes, this bill will sink our struggling economy.

If every prominent Republican who addresses the media will emphasize that single crystallized point, the political pressure on wavering Democrats in the House to vote no will increase enormously. Factually: the bill legislates massive new taxes on personal incomes and on medical devices and services all of which go into effect immediately upon the bill’s passage. RAISING TAXES DURING A RECESSION will obviously hurt the economy. (Which is why Democrats have not dared attempt a tax increase despite controlling both chambers of congress.) So as unpopular as this ugly bill already is, it can be made much more so with simple clarion emphasis regarding what is sure to be its immediate destructiveness to the American economy.

The American people already hate what the bill stands for (the rotten substance of the bill) as well as they hate the corrupt process that has produced it. Now it needs to be branded into the national psyche that passage of the bill will cause personal financial harm to everyone in the near term. The ball game will be over if Republicans will simply apply immense pressure to that one point. (They can use the new CBO numbers coming out on the reconciliation/fix-it bill as a fresh predicate to sound the alarm.) There is simply no way Pelosi can secure wavering votes in the House if the Republicans drive home the message that this bill is instant poison to our ailing economy. Imagine multiple variations of the following sound bite issued from Republican after Republican: : : “If the Health Care Takeover Bill becomes law, our taxes immediately go up, and it will make one of the worst recessions we’ve ever experienced much worse. Everyone knows you don’t raise taxes in a recession.”

Note that this is not the same as arguing that the added deficits this bill is sure to generate will be unsustainable in the long run. That’s the “Generational Theft” message which has been lucidly conveyed and has resonated with the American public. Severe concern has been raised… about the future. But the argument that the bill will also do serious harm to TODAY’S jobs and to TODAY’S fragile economy has yet to be forcefully made. – And this is the checkmate move that needs to be made this last week.

[JohnLongIsland]

C I V I L - W A R - I I

[unkus]

Very good!

[calex59]

Well, she is in for a serious let down if she does that, there will be an immediate move to have the courts declare the slaughter rule unconstitutional, which it plainly is, and we can probably bring criminal charges against the dems for voting on the slaughter rule, if not now, then when we take back the Presidency in 2012. It is clearly sedition if they vote on the slaughter rule and try to say that the rule then passes a bill.

[444Flyer]

Ha that’s good!

[444Flyer]

These people are truly Psycho.

“Fox: Top Dem: We Have the Votes.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2471882/posts

“Rep. John Larson’s confidence is a departure from what other senior Democratic leaders have been saying — that party leaders will line up the votes to pass the legislation but haven’t yet...

WASHINGTON — A Democratic leader in the House voiced confidence Monday that his side has the votes necessary to pass the health care reform bill, and may do so as early as this week...”

[Psycho_Bunny]

Pure treason.

[danamco]

This is what you are getting, pubbies. When they did NOT have the cojones to ask for the birth certificate and all sealed records and hold to the Constitution’s NBC status, this Obozoscare bill would not have seen the light, don’t complain!!!

[Art in Idaho]

Mark Levin from Michelle Malkin's site:

Let me be as clear as I know how. If this is done, this will create the greatest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War. It would be 100 times worse than Watergate.

.…It would be government by fiat… meaning there would be no law… the mere discussion by officials in this government is such a grotesque violation of the actual legislative function of Congress [that it] puts us… at the brink. At the brink.

This is why we conservatives revere the Constitution. This is why we stress the Constitution’s words have meaning and historical context and must be complied with. Because otherwise we have anarchy, which leads to tyranny.

This is a crucial lesson for those of you who… aren’t sure what your beliefs are, or if you have any beliefs. Or aren’t sure if you even care. We have an effort underway by the one of the most powerful chairmen in Congress, the woman who heads the Rules Committee, …openly discussing gutting Congress. Gutting Congress.

[MonicaG]

Amen to that! Thank you so much for posting that.

[Art in Idaho]

CIVIL-WAR-II

Yes, only this time it's All the States vs Washington D.C.. .

[danamco]

Or....???

http://www.usofearth.com/2011-obamas-coup-fails.php

[bjcintennessee]

Ping

[R0CK3T]

These people love Health Care more than their own lives.

There will be open civil conflict if they do this, and big time reprisals from Congressional investigations when the GOP takes power.