Democrats may pass healthcare without a vote!

[1bad65]

Is this insane or what? Even you guys who want this bill have to admit this is not the way to do things. This is America, we don't do things like this.

"Washington (CNN) -- Can the House of Representatives pass a health care bill without actually voting on it?

That question -- bizarre to most casual political observers -- took center stage Tuesday as top House Democrats struggled to find enough support to push President Obama's top legislative priority over the finish line.

The House is expected to vote this week on the roughly $875 billion bill passed by the Senate in December. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, needs 216 votes from her 253-member caucus to pass the measure. No Republicans are expected to back it.

Pelosi's problem: A lot of House Democrats don't like the Senate bill. Among other things, some House members have expressed concern the Senate bill does not include an adequate level of subsidies to help middle- and lower-income families purchase coverage. They also object to the Senate's proposed tax on high-end insurance plans.

Pelosi's solution: Have the House pass the Senate bill, but then immediately follow up with another vote in both chambers of Congress on a package of changes designed in part to make the overall legislation more acceptable to House Democrats.

Now, Pelosi also may try to help unhappy House Democrats by allowing them to avoid a direct up-or-down vote on the Senate bill. The speaker may call for a vote on a rule that would simply "deem" the Senate bill to be passed. The House then would proceed to a separate vote on the more popular changes to the Senate bill.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that Republicans will try to block the procedure. They will try to force a vote on a resolution requiring the Senate health care bill to be brought to an up-or-down vote."

Wasn't Obama just saying he wants an "up or down vote" on this?

Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/...ex.html?hpt=T1

[David Jamieson]

Is this insane or what? Even you guys who want this bill have to admit this is not the way to do things. This is America, we don't do things like this.

"Washington (CNN) -- Can the House of Representatives pass a health care bill without actually voting on it?

That question -- bizarre to most casual political observers -- took center stage Tuesday as top House Democrats struggled to find enough support to push President Obama's top legislative priority over the finish line.

The House is expected to vote this week on the roughly $875 billion bill passed by the Senate in December. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, needs 216 votes from her 253-member caucus to pass the measure. No Republicans are expected to back it.

Pelosi's problem: A lot of House Democrats don't like the Senate bill. Among other things, some House members have expressed concern the Senate bill does not include an adequate level of subsidies to help middle- and lower-income families purchase coverage. They also object to the Senate's proposed tax on high-end insurance plans.

Pelosi's solution: Have the House pass the Senate bill, but then immediately follow up with another vote in both chambers of Congress on a package of changes designed in part to make the overall legislation more acceptable to House Democrats.

Now, Pelosi also may try to help unhappy House Democrats by allowing them to avoid a direct up-or-down vote on the Senate bill. The speaker may call for a vote on a rule that would simply "deem" the Senate bill to be passed. The House then would proceed to a separate vote on the more popular changes to the Senate bill.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that Republicans will try to block the procedure. They will try to force a vote on a resolution requiring the Senate health care bill to be brought to an up-or-down vote."

Wasn't Obama just saying he wants an "up or down vote" on this?

Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/...ex.html?hpt=T1

I find it odd that not a single republican will support well... anything the potus does. So, no I don't find anything unusual about going around the republicans who seem to just be about refusing, sticking, jamming, and interfering with the process of governance since they lost the last election.

so, I guess they are forcing the other side to dictate what laws will be passed or not due to their non participation in government and their refusal to work with the potus for whatever reason.

dang silly ass republicans. get your act together.

[1bad65]

I find it odd that not a single republican will support well... anything the potus does. So, no I don't find anything unusual about going around the republicans who seem to just be about refusing, sticking, jamming, and interfering with the process of governance since they lost the last election.

Actually several did on recent bills. Including Scott Brown.

so, I guess they are forcing the other side to dictate what laws will be passed or not due to their non participation in government and their refusal to work with the potus for whatever reason.

dang silly ass republicans. get your act together.

So, bottom line: Do you support a bill passing the House without a vote?

[David Jamieson]

Actually several did on recent bills. Including Scott Brown.



So, bottom line: Do you support a bill passing the House without a vote?

can a bill not be defeated without a vote?

[Drake]

Actually several did on recent bills. Including Scott Brown.



So, bottom line: Do you support a bill passing the House without a vote?

Didn't Reagan do the same thing?

[Reality_Check]

The Republicans used self-extracting rules quite often when they were in the majority in the House.

http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?to...roup_id=180829

When Republicans were in the minority, they railed against self-executing rules as being anti-deliberative because they undermined and perverted the work of committees and also prevented the House from having a separate debate and vote on the majority’s preferred changes. From the 95th to 98th Congresses (1977-84), there were only eight self-executing rules making up just 1 percent of the 857 total rules granted. However, in Speaker Tip O’Neill’s (D-Mass.) final term in the 99th Congress, there were 20 self-executing rules (12 percent). In Rep. Jim Wright’s (D-Texas) only full term as Speaker, in the 100th Congress, there were 18 self-executing rules (17 percent). They reached a high point of 30 under Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.) during the final Democratic Congress, the 103rd, for 22 percent of all rules.

When Republicans took power in 1995, they soon lost their aversion to self-executing rules and proceeded to set new records under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). There were 38 and 52 self-executing rules in the 104th and 105th Congresses (1995-1998), making up 25 percent and 35 percent of all rules, respectively. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) there were 40, 42 and 30 self-executing rules in the 106th, 107th and 108th Congresses (22 percent, 37 percent and 22 percent, respectively). Thus far in the 109th Congress, self-executing rules make up about 16 percent of all rules.

On April 26, the Rules Committee served up the mother of all self-executing rules for the lobby/ethics reform bill. The committee hit the trifecta with not one, not two, but three self-executing provisions in the same special rule. The first trigger was a double whammy: “In lieu of the amendments recommended by the Committees on the Judiciary, Rules, and Government Reform now printed in the bill, the amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of the Rules Committee Print dated April 21, 2006, modified by the amendment printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, shall be considered as adopted in the House and the Committee of the Whole.”

[dimethylsea]

It's not "passing it without a vote".. it's consolidating several votes into a single vote so that the GOP can't point to one of the votes and scream while failing to mention the connected vote that canceled certain provisions of the first vote.

The whole process is only necessary because of the filibuster games the Senate GOP is playing anyway.

They are saying "we will take this vote, and this vote will include the passing of the Senate bill as is, but include the reconciliation version that amends the Senate bill to take out the objectionable parts".

It's not "passing healthcare without a vote".. it's passing healthcare with a way of voting that doesn't let the GOP lie and misrepresent the actual intentions of the legislators.

[1bad65]

It's not "passing healthcare without a vote".. it's passing healthcare with a way of voting that doesn't let the GOP lie and misrepresent the actual intentions of the legislators.

BS. When you have a bill, you vote on it. It's that simple.

What they are trying to do is pass it, but not have a record of them voting for it.

If they do this, not only will it likely be called unconstitutional, the November elections will be even worse for them. Americans like fair play, not shenanigans.

[1bad65]

Didn't Reagan do the same thing?

He never did it to take over 1/6th of the US economy.

[SanHeChuan]

What they are trying to do is pass it, but not have a record of them voting for it.

No it's a way to pass the senate bill and the changes to the senate bill with one vote instead of two. That way the congressmen are not voting against their conscience on the senate bill on the hope that the changes will also be passed latter. It's a two fer.

What they are trying to do is pass it, but not have a record of them voting for it.

They will have a record, but not a record of the parts of the senate bill they are changing. So people can't point at parts of the senate bill democratic congressmen don't like and say look what they did, even though they changed it latter.

He never did it to take over 1/6th of the US economy

Yes, yes, we know. Everything is ok when republicans do it and nothing is ok when democrats do it. You’re not hypocritical at all.

[Drake]

He never did it to take over 1/6th of the US economy.

But he DID do it, and isn't that what this discussion is about?

[Reality_Check]

BS. When you have a bill, you vote on it. It's that simple.

What they are trying to do is pass it, but not have a record of them voting for it.

If they do this, not only will it likely be called unconstitutional, the November elections will be even worse for them. Americans like fair play, not shenanigans.

So, it's okay when Republicans use self-executing bills? And, golly gee, when self-extracting bills were used in the past, they weren't judged to be unconstitutional.

http://www.rules.house.gov/Archives/98-710.pdf

Definition of “Self-Executing” Rule. One of the newer types is called a “selfexecuting”
rule; it embodies a “two-for-one” procedure. This means that when the House
adopts a rule it also simultaneously agrees to dispose of a separate matter, which is
specified in the rule itself. For instance, self-executing rules may stipulate that a discrete
policy proposal is deemed to have passed the House and been incorporated in the bill to
be taken up. The effect: neither in the House nor in the Committee of the Whole will
lawmakers have an opportunity to amend or to vote separately on the “self-executed”
provision. It was automatically agreed to when the House passed the rule. Rules of this
sort contain customary, or “boilerplate,” language, such as: “The amendment printed in
[section 2 of this resolution or in part 1 of the report of the Committee on Rules
accompanying this resolution] shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the
Committee of the Whole.”

And from the Constitution:

http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei

Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings...

How again would this be unconstitutional?

[SanHeChuan]

I honestly think he doesn't understand the self-executing process.

So the democrats want to pass both the senate bill and the changes to the senate bill. Instead of voting on each separately... They will only vote once with the understanding that a vote for either is a vote for both.

What they will likely vote on is the changes to the senate bill with the self-executing rule attached saying that if the changes to the senate bill passes, the senate bill its self will also be considered passed. If they passed the changes to the senate bill without passing the senate bill that wouldn't make much sense would it? And since many do not like the senate bill without the changes they won't have to vote on senate bill with only the hope that the changes will also be passed. Make sense?

So there will be a vote.

How is that unconstitutional? And why is it unconstitutional now but not when republicans or democrats did it the past 240 of times it was used?

[Luk Hop]

........ So, no I don't find anything unusual about going around the republicans who seem to just be about refusing, sticking, jamming, and interfering with the process of governance since they lost the last election.....

?????

With the numbers the way they are in the House, there is no need to "go around" the republicans. This is being done to "go around" other democrats.

[SanHeChuan]

With the numbers the way they are in the House, there is no need to "go around" the republicans. This is being done to "go around" other democrats.

It’s not "going around" anyone, there is still going to be a full vote. It is satisfying other democrats that don’t want to pass the senate bill, as is, without the changes. By voting for both at the same time they can be sure of what those changes to the senate bill will be instead of passing the senate bill first and hoping that everything works out latter.