Symposium: Deem & Pass

Whether you support the President's overhaul of the nation's insurance system or not, I would hope that everyone can agree that how it gets done is almost as important as the thing itself. But now, after side deals and special elections, and any number of ugly meat grinding processes, they've simply decided to unravel our republic at its very core. It was bad enough when they were going to use the archane tool of reconciliation, but now they've gone into a whole new territory with "Deem & Pass".

So, for those not closely following the ins and outs of the procedural aspects of the healthcare situation, here's a brief primer: The House passed a bill. The Senate passed a bill. The normal process is for there to then be a conference, where the two bills are merged into a single piece of legislation which then returns to both houses of congress for a final vote. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the people got in the way and elected Scott Brown to fill Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate... They no longer had the votes. Their solution to only having 59 votes was reconciliation, a procedural budget tool. That was a clear bastardization of the process, the same sort of tool the Democrats referred to as the "nuclear option" when Republicans threatened a simple majority vote when they were blocking Federal judges en masse during the last administration. No longer nuclear, apparently, they still couldn't do it. Democrats themselves still couldn't pull it together because to do this the House Democrats would have to wholly accept the Senate bill, pass it, and then rely on both houses to pass corrections after the fact. And if there is anyone that distrusts the Democrats in the Senate more than the American people, it's the Democrats in the House. Enter "Deem & Pass".

So, what is deem and pass? Basically, the House is going to skip ahead and work only on the amendments to the bill. When they have that, they will pass the amendments. They assert that passage of the amendments inherently deem that the previous bill had been passed. Thus, House Democrats don't have to actively vote through the Senate bill, don't have to go on record with that vote, and can simply vote for the corrected bill, which grandfathers in the Senate bill.

I have two inherent problems with all of this. First, I wasn't in favor of a simple majority for Federal judges under Bush, and I'm certainly not in favor of it here. The Senate has traditionally codified the ability of any member to fillibuster. It used to require a full super-majority of 67 votes to break it. That was reduced to 60. The whole point isn't to frustrate the process or the people. Its purpose is to protect the minority. The protection of the minority is one of the most fundamental bedrocks of our nation. When the Founders were crafting the Constitution they specifically intended the Senate to function as a filter. The Federalist Papers talked extensively about this. The use of reconciliation to avoid a basic threshold is impossible to support or condone. The tyranny of the majority has officially taken a foothold... which, if you're a liberal should keep you awake at night, because this moment represents the largest representation of Democrats in power for a generation. The vast majority of this country is independent and principly conservative leaning. This breakdown won't end here, and neither extreme is good for us. Madison's great fears are now being realized.

My second objection is to this deem and pass rubbish. Amendments must be to a bill or to a law. They are attempting to amend a bill as though it were law. This is a slippery slope if ever there were one. So, in order to codify anything we merely need to reference it in a later piece of legislation? What? Congress is there to draft and either pass or not pass legislation. The Democrats cannot pass this with votes under their own rules. So, they're going to cheat.

Folks, we're drifting into Roman Empire territory here. There is corruption like Charlie Rangel, and then there's the full corruption of the system where our legislature no longer even votes! So, with reconciliation we destroy the protection of the minority. With deem and pass we remove Congress as a legitimate body... Ever wonder what the Roman Senate did during the Imperial period? They deemed and passed the whims of the Emperor.

This has all happened before and will happen again.