Harkening back to my point that “none of the political leaders in Washington hold, or care about, the moral high ground when it comes to…procedural arguments,” and “they’re all hypocrites with respect to such arguments,” here’s a bit of perspective about the current “deem-and-pass” kerfuffle:
In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times, and was no stranger to the concept of “deem and pass.” That strategy, then decried by the House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration. I don’t like self-executing rules by either party—I prefer the “regular order”—so I am not going to say this is a great idea by the Democrats. But even so—is there no shame anymore?
Nope.
P.S. Having said that, I’m inclined to agree with Nate Silver’s tweets: “This ‘deem-and-pass’ strategy seems kind of dumb & loses Dems moral high ground about ‘simple majority’. … Deem-and-pass: we’ll use confusing backroom tactics to avoid having to take a vote on a bill sullied by confusing backroom deals. Genius! … Deem-and-pass: I voted for the bill at the same time I voted against it?”
Just to get this straight:
The Democrats are attempting to take over 1/6th of the US economy, fundamentally change the relationship of the government and the US people, without a single Republican vote, using a bill that hasn’t even been written yet, after failing to pass it for twelve months with absolute control in both houses, that is clearly opposed by a majority of the American people, openly using backroom bribes to garner Democratic votes, and using procedural tricks to try and avoid responsibility for their actions…….
and the Republicans are the bad guys?
“If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of Madison’s core checks and balances… Yes, self-executing rules have been used in the past, but as the Congressional Research Service put it in a 2006 paper, “Originally, this type of rule was used to expedite House action in disposing of Senate amendments to House-passed bills.” They’ve also been used for amendments… but never before to elude a vote on the entire fundamental legislation.
We have entered a political wonderland, where the rules are whatever Democrats say they are. Mrs. Pelosi and the White House are resorting to these abuses because their bill is so unpopular that a majority even of their own party doesn’t want to vote for it.” — “Slaughter House Rules”, WSJ, 3/16/2010
The hypocrisy charge is fine as far as it goes, and Brendan dutifully makes it against the GOP. However, there is no defense of the Dems’ procedural gamesmanship that is indisputably meant to hide the vote on a bill that fundamentally transforms a sixth of the entire economy in a pathetically transparent (and likely vain) attempt to avoid accountability for it. And of course, there are enormous differences between Obamacare and a paltry $40 billion deficit reduction package. If hypocrisy is under discussion, then what is more hypocritical by far is Obama’s, Reid’s and Pelosi’s whining about how “American’s deserve an up or down vote” on health care reform. Apparently not so much any more.
Have to agree with Gahrie on this one. This isn’t a minor amendment being shuttled through a legislative body. Considering the likely re-shaping of American health care that this bill will lead to, its difficult to find a superlative that overstates the impact of this legislation.
To put this in perspective, consider that liberals argue – rightly, IMO – that the Bush/Cheney torture program, particularly the legalization/normalization therein, has crossed the proverbial Rubicon and opened doors for institutionalized nefarious behavior from the American superstate. Some conservatives push back that torture will always be an (extreme) part of American intelligence gathering, to which liberals (again, rightly, IMO) push back that Bush/Cheney’s legalization of torture is an important difference of degree.
Same thing applies here. If you argue that reshaping a vast and enormous sector of the American economy via backroom dealings is no different from Republicans passing a trivial amendment via the same procedure, you probably also believe that the occasional CIA agent resorting to improper tactics at a foreign black site is no different than Yoo et. al. legalizing torture.
I emphatically reject both arguments.
I agree with Brendan’s assertion that neither party has the moral high ground regarding the hypocrisy of parliamentary procedure and how it is employed by the majority. But the electorate deserves a VOTE on any legislation that directly impacts 1/6th of our economy. I don’t care which side of the argument you fall on, this is too important to our nation to send to the President for signing, without the House ever to have voted on the legislation. I have written a longer post on the topic on my blog “bigfreezerblog.com” if you want to stop by and read it.
The Republican argument is not hypocritical insofar as the Democrats are using the deem-and-pass method in a fundamentally new context designed to avoid having to vote on the base legislation vs. minor amendments and attachments to the base legislation. If you can’t see how this extraordinary example of legislative legerdemain is a new low in American politics and you are not rankled by it, you’re either not paying attention or your sense of ethics has been totally numbed by your reflexive partisanship.
Just to put this in perspective, imagine if Bush had used this sleight of hand to privatize Social Security, pass a flat tax, or some other holy grail conservative initiative. The howling on this blog would have been enough that Brendan probably would’ve had to cancel his NCAA tournament blogging because there wouldn’t be enough web-oxygen in the universe to allow blog posts for both topics.
As soon as the Republicans agree to an up or down vote on this bill in both houses then you can all claim whatever moral high ground you want about procedural methods the Democrats try. Until that happens you have no ground to stand on because the filibuster is the whole reason they are doing this and both sides are equally guilty of procedural run arounds and tricks both now and in the past.
…because the filibuster is the whole reason they are doing this..
Puh-lease. The have the DAMN MAJORITY. Quit bitching about the stupid filibuster.
The only reasons they are doing this:
1. It’s a crap bill
2. They know it’s a crap bill
3. They don’t have the votes needed to pass this crap bill
4. They’re looking to pander to their base and cover their assess by not having to actually vote on record for a crap bill while actually voting for said crap bill.
Give me a break. This is a slap in the face to the country and the Constitution.
If the House passed the Senate bill and used reconciliation while quesitonable that wouldn’t be anywhere near as nefarious as what they’re trying to do now.
David K., @#8: As soon as the Republicans agree to an up or down vote on this bill in both houses then you can all claim whatever moral high ground you want about procedural methods the Democrats try . . .
Strong words from someone defending shenanigans specifically and individually tailored to duck having an up-or-down vote in the House. Strong words. Strong, illogical words.
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) tweeted this yesterday (which I have dutifully cleaned up to appear prosaic rather than twittered): “We’ve gone from passing Bills without reading them to passing Bills without VOTING on them.”
Much as I hate the slippery-slope argument, it’s not a far stretch to envision enacting bills without passing them from here. Had Bush done half of this, people would have called him a fascist. Including me.
AML Trojan #7 – “The howling on this blog would have been enough that Brendan probably would’ve had to cancel his NCAA tournament blogging because there wouldn’t be enough web-oxygen in the universe to allow blog posts for both topics.” – bravissimo !
At which point David K confirmed your assessment ! (A two-fer !)
Two thoughts …
1) (reductio ad davidkium) If the Dems as *so* sure that “this is for the good of the country”, then why do they not bring in a new House Rule that Bills affecting more than 10% of the nation’s economy can be passed by a simple majority vote of the majority party’s representatives in the House ?
2) If the deemwits in the Dem leadership do go the “Deem and pass” vote route, a vote for such a thing is *still* a vote to have the House pass the Senate Bill – and a vote against such a thing is *still* a vote to prevent House passage of the Senate Bill … the subterfuge *might* have worked before the InterNet was invented by Almost-President Gore, but, as with the Cult of Global Warming, information gets out, and more and more people are realising the reality behind the MSM claims …
Legal question: Who has standing to challenge the Constitutionality of a “Deem and pass” vote on such a Bill in such a situation ?
@Yellamo – I assume you are unfamiliar with how the filibuster works then? You can’t beat it with a majority, you need a 60 vote SUPER majority. The use of the filibuster by BOTH parties to block legislation they don’t like when they are in the minority is bullshit and counter to the written and implied intent of the founding fathers. Whatever problems you have with what the democrats are trying to do to get around the filibuster is the direct result of the abuse of the filibuster. Personally i think its ALL bullshit and if you can get the majority you get to pass the bills. If we want to change the constitution to make it harder, then fine, lets do that, but we need to stop hiding abusing procedure first. Its patently absurd to single out the democrats here because the republicans are just as much a part of the problem.
@Mike –
If the Deem and Pass and Reconcilliation behavior is wrong, so is the Filibuster, its all the same thing, manipulation of procedure to get around doing what should be done, holding an up and down vote. NO ONE has the high ground here, its all bullshit, but the Democrats are doing what they are doing, at this point, because of what the Republicans are doing. If they Republicans agreed not to filibuster and the Democrats THEN kept trying to do the procedural bullshit i’d call them on it, but until that happens, no side can call bullshit because they are BOTH DOING IT.
@Alasdair –
You are, as usual, a partisan idiot. The only thing I confirmed is that I agree with Brendan, NO ONE has the high ground here. The filibuster is bullshit, the deem and pass is bullshit, the reconciliation is bullshit, but BOTH SIDES USE THEM. You can’t call out one party as in the wrong and stand up for the other, when you do that you are WRONG. Either these procedural rules are ok (which is what the Republicans argued when they were in power) or they are not (which is what they are donig now, Democrats vice versa). If they are ok for one party they are ok for both parties, if they are NOT ok for one party they are NOT ok for both parties.
As usual you can’t see beyond your party loyalties, which is frankly part of the whole damn problem.
I assume you are unfamiliar with how the filibuster works then? You can’t beat it with a majority, you need a 60 vote SUPER majority
You mean like the one the Democrats had until Sen. Brown was elected? A man who ran in what was supposed to be the safest of all seats for the Democrats, and was, until Brown made opposition to this travesty of a health bill the main focus of his campaign?
counter to the written and implied intent of the founding fathers.
Actually, unlimited debate (which the filibuster allows) is EXACTLY what the Founders wanted in the Senate.
f you can get the majority you get to pass the bills.
Our system was set up expressly to prevent the tyranny of the majority. Our Founders biggest fear was democracy and rule by majorities.
manipulation of procedure to get around doing what should be done, holding an up and down vote
David, you are not paying attention again…the Democrats are the ones manipulating procedures to avoid and up or down vote.
The one thing you almost get right David, is that if this was not an attempt to seize control of 1/6 of our economy against the wishes of the American people and fundamentally change the relationship of the American people and the government, people would just consider this business as usual and no big deal.
David,
The interesting thing about your posts 12-14 is that you argue in each that neither side is above the fray. What makes that interesting is that none of the Republicans on this thread disagree with that argument; reread the last paragraph of Gahrie’s post above – its the essence of the Republican complaint. You haven’t addressed that complaint yet. Will you?
I also find it odd that you equate the filibuster with the current machinations. I am not a constitutional scholar, but I suspect filibuster antagonism is partially motivated by the word itself, it sounds antagonistic, like “gonna fill YOU, buster!” Or something.
Reframe “filibuster” as “a simple majority cannot categorically impose its will”, and you might see a desirable alternative to the shady machinations of the British parliamentary system. It seems to me that the problem these days is not so much the filibuster, but rather the fact that Washington politicians don’t work together. For me, rather than changing the filibuster, I’d rather that politicians were no longer allowed to fly home all the time, such that Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan types were forced to play poker and deal (with each other) on Friday evenings.
The answer, it seems to me, is not to move toward a simple majority. In the era of commuter politicians, that will only make hideous retrenched partisanship way way worse.
Jazz – shhhhhh ! It’s close to David K’s naptime – don’t worry his little head with such details and facts …
Personally – I find the most accurate definition of democracy to be “5 Wolves and 4 Tiny Succulent Lambs deciding what to have for the next meal” – which is usually eventually followed, 4 meals later, by “5 Wolves deciding what to have for their next meal” …
One of the things I most respect about the US is the whole setup of checks and balances built into the US system by the Founding Fathers … and they did it *precisely* to try to prevent the “Tyranny of the Majority”, specifically of the simple majority whereby 50% + 1 dictates to 50% – 1 …
So – even when it’s the idiot Dems using the filibuster, I prefer that they be able to do so, so that it remains available to all sides …
Of course, when it’s Madame Idiot-Speaker of the House effectively filibustering to prevent an up-or-down vote by her own majority in the House, it *does* look more than a tad ridiculous, dontcha think ?
Her performances recently (and those of Senator Reid in the Senate) remind me of the joke whose punchline is “It’s a TRAP ! There are TWO of them !”
It does speak to the *amazing* competence of the current Democrat leadership of White House, House, and Senate, that they are managing to be so spectacularly ineffectual …
Alasdair,
I’m probably more of a “there’s blame to go around”-type than “those Damn Demoncats”-type, but otherwise you’re preaching to the choir regarding the tyranny of majoritarian government.
Was thinking today that, if the Fathers knew that the world would change as it has, with the unimaginable ease of modern travel and communication, as well as a public taste for term limits (resulting in single issue nobodies ascending to Congress), they likely would not have discarded the filibuster, but rather strengthened it.
YMMV.
@Jazz
The filibuster is the root cause of this problem, it is the reason that an up and down vote can’t happen in the first place. It’s the primary cause. Alasdair and gahrie want to place all the blame on the democrats, read gahries most recent comment, for avoiding an up and down vote, but the only reason we aren’t seeing a vote to begin with, the only reason they are trying further procedural bullshit is because of the filibuster.
@Alasdair
The checks and balances put in place by the founding fathers to avoid a simple tyranny of the majority involved:
1) The Constitution
2) Seperation of Powers
3) A bicameral legislation
The filibuster was NOT there to do that. The filibuster is an ABUSE of power by the minority, and whether or not you think the end result is good (I imagine you only think so for situations like the present when your party is in the minority) the fact of the matter is the precedent of using it the way it is now does not stand up to history. This is NOT what was intended by the founding fathers, and is NOT a limitation of power, its an abuse of power by the minority to force THEIR will. We are not a pure democracy, but at some point the majority DOES get their way, thats kinda the point, and having a majority in both houses AND the presidency is a less common event which signals that the public supports strongly enough their goals, so um, why SHOULDN’T they be able to pass the agenda before them. Thats kinda the whole point.
We are not a pure democracy, but at some point the majority DOES get their way, thats kinda the point, and having a majority in both houses AND the presidency is a less common event which signals that the public supports strongly enough their goals, so um, why SHOULDN’T they be able to pass the agenda before them. Thats kinda the whole point.
The Democrats could have passed Obamacare at any point last year. A version passed in the Senate and the House. The House is currently trying to pass the Senate bill, and Pelosi can bring it to a vote any time she wants.
The reason why Obamacare could not pass in the Senate again is because in one of the safest Democrat seats in the country, a Republican ran on a platform that centered on his explicit promise to defeat Obamacare and won.
Obamacare is not supported by a majority of the American people, even if the Democrats enjoy a majority in the Congress.
gahrie – whatever else the Deemocrats are doing, they sure ain’t enjoying their majorities in *both* Houses of Congress !
David K – if the Constitution is such a strong protection, why is “Deem and pass” even being considered ? If “Seperation of Powers” (sic) is such a strong protection, why is the current Executive Branch DOJ protecting ACORN and the New Black Panthers ?
And as for “bicameral” legislation, the whole reason why Evita Pelosi is try8ing for “Deem and pass” is to avoid having to have one of the two Chambers (that’s what “bicameral” means) vote on the legislation that Her Maj wants to pass …
The Founders would have been impressed with the concept of the filibuster, since it is designed to rein in the tyranny of the majority … what La Pelosi is trying to do is designed to reign in the tyranny of the majority … I know, I know, that sounds the same as the intent of the Founding Fathers, but its meaning is *entirely* different, no matter what Madame Speaker claims …
Brendan – I apologise for not closing my bolding in the prior post …
Alasdair: I deem it closed. 🙂