Posted on 03/20/2010 12:56:59 PM PDT by SmartInsight
Democratic leaders have decided to abandon the plan to avoid a direct vote on the Senate health care bill, known as deem and pass.
Instead, multiple Democratic sources told CNN that they will have three independent votes -- a vote on the rule, then a vote on the fix package, followed by a vote on the Senate bill.
Previously, Democrats did not think they could pass the fixes before the bill. But they have been assured by the Senate parliamentarian that it is possible.
The committee was expected to determine whether the House will vote Sunday on a rule that would simply deem the Senate bill -- a sweeping $875 billion reform plan that cleared the Senate in December -- passed. The House then would've proceeded to a separate vote on another $65 billion in compromise changes.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Also -- the Senate parlamentarian told the Republicans that the Senate bill has to be passed by the House and signed by the President, FIRST, BEFORE they can vote on the "fixes". Now he says the opposite.
I think there is a whole lot of mis- and dis- information out there.
Crooks and traitors in action. Behold a national disgrace; political feces evil and treasonous enough to make our fallen patriots roll in their graves.
This is crazy!!! The parlimentarian has said all okay!!!
I have the feeling dropping the cop out of deem and pass will shake a few loose who find this whole thing too radioactive.
Everyone is speculating, gesticulating, pontificating. We’ll know how it ends when they take an actual vote. Most of the news right now is either disinformation or ill informed rumor.
Bottom line. It's just another attempted trick on the House democrats.
I could be wrong, but I thought the Parlimentarian already ruled on this.

"Let us hide and let (Gov.) Palin fight alone for the American people
As we (RINOs) scheme to screw them all mercilessly once again."
When I tried to access the link on Drudge for the article about “Chaos in the Rules Committee” it would crash my browser. Tried 2nd browser and same thing happened.
Finally used Lynx text browser and was able to access the article on the Washington Examiner.
It is an issue of “sequence” on the vote.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
“At the House Rules Committee meeting, Democrats desperate to pass their national health care plan are running into the barrier of basic civics. Here is the problem: The Senate has passed its HCR bill. If the House passes the same bill, it goes on to the president; once he signs it, the bill becomes law. But House Democrats, when they vote for the Senate bill using the “Deem & Pass” dodge, also want to simultaneously pass a package of amendments to the law. Except HCR will not, at that point, be law. It will only become law when the president signs it. Congress can amend the law — it does so all the time — but can it amend something that isn’t law?
Which is where Democrats are tripping up. Passage of their HCR proposal should be very simple: Senate passes it, House passes it, president signs it. But House Democrats are terrified of voting for the unpopular bill, so they hope to pass it by “Deem & Pass,” in which they will vote, not for the bill, but for a rule that both deems the Senate bill to have passed and, in the same vote, passes the package of amendments. So House Democrats will have two fig leaves: 1) they didn’t vote directly for the Senate bill, and 2) they voted to simultaneously amend — to “fix” — the Senate bill.
The problem is the sequence. Can the House vote to amend something that isn’t the law, as the Senate bill will not be law before the president’s signature? The Rules Committee meeting turned into mass confusion.”
LOL, Diogenesis, LOL
The problem is the sequence. Can the House vote to amend something that isnt the law, as the Senate bill will not be law before the presidents signature? The Rules Committee meeting turned into mass confusion.
1. In the HCR, you can't amend something that doesn't exist yet [since the President hasn't signed the bill] and also "deem" it passed in the same HCR - and if SCOTUS rules that you can, then you just changed the language of the Senate bill - and it has to go pack to them for re-vote BEFORE it goes to the President for signature.
2. If you "deem" the bill to have passed in the HCR, you cannot then just arbitrarily strip out the bill and send it to the President for signature - it will LACK the necessary recorded yeas and nays, as per Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution [the Bill Presentment Clause].
Two different parliamentarians, one Senate, one House. They disagree with each other, apparently. IMO, the Senate one is correct.
If they give a straight up and down vote on the Senate Bill, all the rest is irrelevant.
NO. Unfortunately your statement is incorrect.
The SAME Senate parliamentarian who told the Republicans one thing, now he is saying a different thing, contradicting his own first statement. Please see below:
"According to a Democratic member, the Senate Parliamentarian, alerted the Democratic Leadership this afternoon that they COULD in fact pass a fix it bill BEFORE the Senate bill. Prior to today the idea was that that would not be allowed. For this reason, the Leadership opted out of using "deem and pass."
This is very weird. When I first read the thing, it said HOUSE Parliamentarian. Now it says Senate Parliamentarian.
And the full CNN article doesn’t contain ‘parliamentarian’ at all.
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