To deem or not to deem

In response to my request to readers for articles that would clearly explain the purpose of the Slaughter Solution so that my poor brain could understand it, Rick U. wrote:

Here’s an article from March 10 in the New York Post on why they are using the Slaughter Rule. As I understand it, there is no big mystery on the why—they don’t have the votes to pass the Senate bill as written.

I replied:

Thanks. A worthy try. For a while there I thought the piece, by Grace-Marie Turner, was going to be the one. But in the end it falls short and makes no sense. She gives not one, but two possible purposes of the “deeming”: (1) to get the votes that they can’t get on a real vote, because the “deeming” vote won’t count as a “real” vote; and (2) to avoid holding the bag for having passed the Senate bill in the event that the Senate betrays them and doesn’t pass the fixes.

Here’s the paragraph near the end of the column which ought to be the pay-off, but it doesn’t explain anything at all. It’s incoherent:

So now Democratic leaders say they’ll package a two-for-one vote: Moving the original Senate bill simultaneously with a “reconciliation” bill—thus, if the House votes for the bill of fixes, the main Senate bill will be deemed to also have passed. Then the reconciliation bill will go back to the Senate, where it only needs 50 votes (plus Vice President Joe Biden’s) to pass.

How does deeming have different results from just voting for the bill in the normal manner? What is accomplished by the deeming that would not be accomplished by a normal vote? She doesn’t say. At least I don’t see it.

And this has been the case with every article I’ve read about the deeming. No one is able to explain what it actually accomplishes. And the funny thing is, these writers and journalists don’t seem to realize that they don’t understand what deeming accomplishes. They all think they understand it, but they don’t, at least to judge by their vague, incomplete accounts.

Here is the column:

Nancy’s nutty new rules
By GRACE-MARIE TURNER
March 10, 2010

The next act in the drive to pass ObamaCare is the mother-of-all political maneuvers—in which Democrats will use an incredibly convoluted and possibly unconstitutional process.

Things were already arcane: President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have been threatening to enact “health-care reform” through the narrow path of budget reconciliation. It’s a ploy to allow the Senate to pass “reform” with just 51 votes—making the election of Scott Brown as the 41st senator against ObamaCare irrelevant.

To use reconciliation, Pelosi must first get House members to vote for the exact bill the Senate passed in December. That is, the House would “keep the process moving” so both the House and Senate could pass a second bill to fix things members don’t like in the Senate measure.

But the speaker is having trouble rounding up the 216 votes she needs to get the Senate bill through the House. Her members rightly fear that the Senate might prove unwilling or unable to pass the “fixed” bill—and, at the least, would have a huge advantage in negotiations over just what “fixes” to make.

The problem is straight out of a 7th-grade civics class: If both houses of Congress pass identical bills, the bill can go to the president to be signed into law.

House members are being told that they must vote for the Senate bill as a procedural step. But the bill would then be only a presidential signature away from becoming law. That is, House members might end up voting for the Senate’s Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase, “Cadillac” tax, abortion coverage and other unpopular provisions—and then find it’s all become law.

The risks are plain enough that Pelosi doesn’t yet have the votes: Her members fear they’ll be left hanging to defend their votes for the hated Senate bill.

So now Democratic leaders say they’ll package a two-for-one vote: Moving the original Senate bill simultaneously with a “reconciliation” bill—thus, if the House votes for the bill of fixes, the main Senate bill will be deemed to also have passed. Then the reconciliation bill will go back to the Senate, where it only needs 50 votes (plus Vice President Joe Biden’s) to pass.

Hmm. Nowhere in the US Constitution does it say that Congress can deem a bill to have passed. Pelosi & Co. aren’t just making up policy as they go, but also procedure—possibly unconstitutional procedure, at that. All to enact a bill remaking a sixth of the US economy over the 3-1 opposition of the American people.

Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a nonprofit research organization focusing on patient-centered health reform.

galen@galen.org

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 17, 2010 01:48 AM | Send