The DNC Self-Executes Their Credibility

So basically the House can vote on a bill directly from the Senate without voting on certain provisions or amendments the House finds distasteful (like the Cornhusker Kickback). In essence, the House does not ever really vote on the original Senate bill, rather they vote on the amendments they want to make to the Senate bill. Once the House has come to terms with their changes to the Senate bill, their validation of those changes are considered a sort of retroactive passing of the original Senate bill, while at the same time the House changes are also included.

So what is the matter with this procedure? It has become very popular in both parties (so Republicans quit your crying). The problem is that it denies due process of law, countermanding some very fundamental rules about how laws are formed in the United States. The Constitution specifically states that a bill must pass both the Senate and the House. Right now that is not happening with the Health Care bill.

There have been some scathing comments made by Senators and House Representatives decrying the use of deem and pass. Here’s a little bit a flavor for the stew:

“…we didn’t even get an opportunity to vote on the bill itself except by reference in a self-executing rule. What kind of lack of confidence does that display? What kind of process in pursuit of effectiveness does that mean that we are adopting? What kind of demeaning of democracy is the objective of efficiency resulting in?”

That was Steny Hoyer in 2003. If you’ve been watching the news the last few days, you might have noticed now he’s all excited about how fair and utterly democratic self-executing rules are.