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March 16, 2010
Heritage Foundation: Obamacare Slaughter Rule is without Precedent
Topics: Political News and commentariesAccording to the Heritage Foundation, contrary to the left's claim that because Republicans have done it in the past, then they can do the same - the Constitutional question is on the table and there is no direct precedent for the House to pass a reconciliation measure which deems a massive health care bill to have passed without a direct vote:
[...] Many on the left are relying on a Congressional Research Service Report (CRS) for the proposition that the Slaughter Rule has been used on numerous occasions. According to CRS, self-executing rules are a "two for one" that describes "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." Now many times this has happened to incorporate amendments before a bill receives an up or down vote or it can be used to get a bill to conference.It would seem that even the Democratic leadership could discern the difference between prohibiting smoking on domestic flights and the massive "transformation" of our health care system with the federal government essentially taking over a sixth of our national economy; but of course we're talking about politicians who place their ideology ahead of common sense, precedence, and the will of the American public, so what's there to be surprised about!The self-executing rule can be used to deal with bills containing amendments added by the Senate. The CRS report cites a few examples of self-executing rules to "enact significant substantive and sometimes controversial propositions." The first example CRS identifies is that "on August 2, 1989, the House adopted a rule (H.Res. 221) that automatically incorporated into the text of the bill made in order for consideration a provision that prohibited smoking on domestic airline flights of two hours or less duration." The legislation to prohibit smoking on domestic flights was made part of another bill, then that other bill received a vote. This is very different, because the health care reconciliation measure will not be incorporated into the Senate passed version of Obamacare and the reconciliation measure will be sent to the Senate for separate consideration. (emphasis added)
Posted by Abdul at March 16, 2010 4:07 PM
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