Government Corruption and Treason

House May Try to Pass Senate Health-Care Bill Without Voting on It

The House is laying the groundwork for a decisive vote on the health-care bill this week. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has proposed three possible strategies as Congress gears up to vote.

March 16, 2010

Washington Post - After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

Republicans quickly condemned the strategy, framing it as an effort to avoid responsibility for passing the legislation, and some suggested that Pelosi's plan would be unconstitutional.

"It's very painful and troubling to see the gymnastics through which they are going to avoid accountability," Rep. David Dreier (Calif.), the senior Republican on the House Rules Committee, told reporters. "And I hope very much that, at the end of the day, that if we are going to have a vote, we will have a clean up-or-down vote that will allow the American people to see who is supporting this Senate bill and who is not supporting this Senate bill."

House leaders have worked for days to round up support for the legislation, but the Senate measure has drawn fierce opposition from a broad spectrum of members. Anti-abortion Democrats say it would permit federal funding for abortion, liberals oppose its tax on high-cost insurance plans, and Republicans say the measure overreaches and is too expensive.

Some senior lawmakers have acknowledged in recent days that Democrats lack the votes for passage. Pelosi, however, predicted Monday that she would deliver.

"When we have a bill, then we will let you know about the votes. But when we bring the bill to the floor, we will have the votes," she told reporters.

Pelosi said Monday that House Democrats have yet to decide how to approach the vote. But she added that any strategy involving a separate vote on the Senate bill "isn't too popular," and aides said the leadership is likely to bow to the wishes of its rank and file.

As Pelosi and other congressional leaders pressed wavering lawmakers, President Obama highlighted how close the result may be as he focused his attention Monday on Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who has been a stalwart no vote on health-care reform.

Kucinich, an uncompromising liberal, has rejected any measure without a government-run insurance plan. Obama invited Kucinich to join him aboard Air Force One for a trip to suburban Cleveland, where the president made a plea for reform, the third such pitch in eight days.

As he addressed a crowd of more than 1,400, Obama repeatedly called on lawmakers to summon the "courage to pass the far-reaching package." He painted the existing insurance system as a nightmare for millions of American who cannot afford quality coverage.

The president lashed out at Republican critics who have argued that the health-care initiative would undermine Medicare, and he argued that the measure would end "the worst practices" of insurance companies.

"I don't know about the politics, but I know what's the right thing to do," he said, nearly shouting as the crowd cheered. "And so I'm calling on Congress to pass these reforms -- and I'm going to sign them into law. I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing."

Asked whether he was reconsidering his position, Kucinich demurred. But Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Kucinich is coming under intense pressure from Ohioans who want Congress to act, and from his colleagues in Washington.

"All of us -- the governor, the congressional delegation, the president -- are making clear to Dennis that we won't have another chance for a decade if this doesn't happen," Brown said.

Persuading liberals such as Kucinich to support the Senate bill is critical to the Democratic strategy, which has been rewritten since January, when Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. The Senate Democratic caucus, reduced to 59 seats, lost its ability to override Republican filibusters and soon abandoned plans to pass a revised version of the health-care bill that would reflect a compromise with House leaders.

As House leaders looked for a path that could get the Senate legislation through the chamber and onto Obama's desk, conservatives warned that Pelosi's use of deem-and-pass in this way would run afoul of the Constitution. They pointed to a 1998 Supreme Court ruling that said each house of Congress must approve the exact same text of a bill before it can become law. A self-executing rule sidesteps that requirement, former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Democrats were also struggling Monday to put the finishing touches on the package of fixes. Under reconciliation rules (see following articles), it is protected from filibusters and could pass the Senate with only 50 votes, but can include only provisions that would affect the budget.

Democratic leaders learned over the weekend that they may not be able to include a number of favored items, including some Republican proposals to stem fraud in federal health-care programs and a plan to weaken a new board that would be empowered to cut Medicare payments.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the Democratic leader tasked with protecting politically vulnerable incumbents, said Republicans would twist the nature of the health-care vote, no matter how the leadership proceeds. He defended the deem-and-pass strategy as a way "to make it clear we're amending the Senate bill."

Without that approach, Van Hollen warned, "people are going to try to create the impression that the Senate bill is the final product, and it's not."

Undecided Democrats appeared unconcerned by the flap. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), a retiring lawmaker who opposed the original House bill and is undecided on the new package, mocked Republican criticism of the process. Ultimately, he said, voters will hold lawmakers responsible for any changes in law.

"I don't think anybody's going to say that we didn't vote for the bill," he said.

Obama to Ram Through Healthcare Plan Using Reconciliation Process

* Democrats to use process that bypasses Republicans
* Obama blasts Republicans for opposing sweeping overhaul

February 19, 2010

Reuters - U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to publish his healthcare plan as early as Sunday or Monday, combining features of the two Democratic bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, congressional aides and healthcare advocates said on Friday.

The administration's bill will aim to jump-start the stalled healthcare overhaul and comes just days ahead of a planned televised White House summit with congressional Republicans, who are calling on Democrats to scrap the bills and start over with a far less sweeping proposal.

Democrats are struggling to push healthcare legislation over the finish line in the face of sagging public support and solid Republican opposition bolstered by recent election victories in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey.

The legislation the White House will post on its website is expected to reflect common ground negotiated over the past several weeks by House and Senate Democratic leaders.

Those agreements are likely to be combined as a privileged budget reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple 51-vote majority to pass the 100-member Senate instead of the 60-vote supermajority that has become routine in the Senate and gives Republicans power to block the healthcare bill.

"I believe that's the path we are going to take," a senior congressional Democratic aide said.

But it is not clear, even to congressional Democrats, what the White House will include in its legislation and whether Obama will try to add proposals aimed at attracting at least some Republican support.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have not signed off on any final agreement, several Democratic aides have said.

"We are still waiting for the president to present to Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi his plan," a Democratic leadership aide told Reuters.

Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama's closest advisers, said the president would post his draft healthcare bill on the Internet in "the next couple of days."

"The president is going to craft what he thinks is a good bill. It's not going to be a perfect bill but it's going to be a good bill," she said at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

FACE-OFF WITH REPUBLICANS

A move to use the budget reconciliation process would fuel Republican opposition even as Obama has called for more bipartisanship in the process.

"If the president is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan fashion, he must take the reconciliation process -- which will be used to jam through legislation that a majority of Americans do not want -- off the table," said Representative Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican.

The Obama face-off with Republicans will give Democrats an opportunity to try to sell their plan to the public and explain why a sweeping, comprehensive proposal is needed instead of the go slow, step-by-step approach advocated by Republicans.

At a campaign event on Friday for Reid in Nevada, Obama blasted Republicans for opposing his healthcare overhaul.

"The Republicans say that they've got a better way of doing it. So, I want them to put it on the table," he said.

"We're going to move forward the Democratic proposal -- we hope the Republicans have one too," Obama said. "And we'll sit down and let's hammer it out. We'll go section by section. America can't solve our economic problems unless we tackle some of these structural problems."

Healthcare advocacy groups are looking to the White House proposal and next Thursday's summit to shore up public support, and Democratic votes, in the push to get comprehensive legislation to Obama this year.

"As soon as the president and (congressional Democratic) leadership are totally together on substance and a strategy, I think the votes will be there," said Ron Pollack, who heads the Families USA healthcare advocacy group.

The administration, congressional Democrats and advocacy groups have been turning up the rhetorical heat on health insurers that have in recent weeks announced huge premium increases against the backdrop of sizable profits and growing numbers of uninsured people.

"The premium increases are a powerful reminder that the healthcare problems are not going away," said David Kendall, a senior health policy advisor at centrist think tank Third Way.

Obama Won't Drop Potential Use of Budget Reconciliation Process to Ram Through Health Care

February 10, 2010

Huffington Post - President Obama wants to keep the option of using reconciliation to pass health care reform despite calls from Republican lawmakers that he agree to drop the parliamentary maneuver as a "good faith" gesture" before their bipartisan health care summit.

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday that Republicans coming to the West Wing for the much-anticipated February 25 meeting would be better off arriving "without preconditions." Asked whether Obama would commit to not using reconciliation -- which would allow aspects of health care legislation to be considered in the Senate by an up-or-down vote -- Gibbs replied:

"The president is not going to eliminate things based on preconditions. And if that's one of their preconditions, the president doesn't agree to limiting the way we are going to discuss this."

The day before, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) penned a letter to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel expressing their reluctance to participate in the health care summit and asking that ground rules be set before talks begin. Among those rules: agreeing to not use reconciliation to make amendments to the Senate health care bill.

"Eliminating the possibility of reconciliation would represent an important show of good faith to Republicans and the American people," the two GOP leaders wrote.

Both Boehner and Cantor pushed for Obama to scrap the legislative language in its entirety and start the process over from scratch.

During a surprise appearance before the White House press corps, President Obama was asked whether he could live with bipartisanship by this definition. He could not.

"I am going to be starting from scratch in the sense that I will be open to any ideas that help promote these goals," he said. "What I will not do, what I don't think makes sense... will be another year of partisan wrangling around these issues, another six months, or eight months, or nine months worth of hearings in every single committee in the House and Senate in which there is a lot of posturing... Let's get the relevant parties together... My hope is we can find enough overlap that we can say, 'This is the right way to move forward," even if we don't get every single idea that I want."

What’s the Deal with Budget Reconciliation?

March 19, 2009

Tim Foley - Until such time as there’s an actual health care bill in Congress, or a more specific game plan than Obama’s nearly two year-old campaign paper, we have no choice but to sift through the cryptic statements that come from the president or his advisors. Those on the left are concerned that he doesn’t insist in every public utterance that a public option, based on Medicare, is a must in order to have real reform. But those on the right are equally concerned that Obama won’t rule out using budget reconciliation to pass health care reform.

What’s the big deal about something that sounds as completely boring as budget reconciliation?

In the House, you only need a simple majority to pass any bill. But the Senate needs 60 votes to cut off debate – the remnants of the filibuster rule and the prerogative for unlimited debate on any topic. So although a simple majority can pass a bill, you need 60 votes to even get to a vote on it.

There’s one exception to this rule – if it’s a vote on the bill that reconciles the House version of the budget with the Senate version. That just needs a simple majority – and Democrats already have 58 Senate seats. Because of this special circumstance, the Obama administration and even some Senate Democrats have refused to rule out the budget reconciliation process as their path to getting health care passed.

The Senate is the graveyard of reform movements, so why doesn’t the budget reconciliation process get used all the time?

• Well, for one thing, there’s usually only one budget reconciliation bill per year – you can only cram so much into it.
• For another, it’s inflammatory – no matter which part is in the minority, you can bet that they’ll rail against the abuse of power. It’s pure bullying.

And indeed, the budget reconciliation process has been used to muscle through some pretty progressive-hostile legislation, including parts of the Contract with America in 1995 (vetoed by President Clinton), the first round of the Bush tax cuts, and opening up land in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve for oil drilling – all of which were met with howls of protest from Democrats. And all those howls did diddly.

From the moment Obama was elected, we began to hear whispers that budget reconciliation was on the table as a fallback. It wouldn’t be for Obama’s ambitious energy plan, nor for education, nor for appropriations for Afghanistan, nor for any of the other worthy issues he talked about during the campaign. Just health care. Max Baucus hinted at it. Tom Daschle took a number of questions during his confirmation hearing which he answered collegially – even jovially – but refused to take the option off the table. Peter Orszag, more recently, has been asked point blank and declined to take the option off the table. They’ve had every chance to say, “We don’t think that will really happen” or “We want this bill to be bipartisan, so no,” and they’ve passed it up at every chance.

Of all the mixed and muted signals, this has been the clearest. When it comes to health care reform, they seem to say, we can either work with you or run you right over. If there’s only one hint I want to pierce through the vagaries and be clearly understood by potential enemies of reform, that would be the one!