Republicans are flailing away about procedural maneuvers involved in passing health care reform because polling shows that the public doesn’t have a clue how bills are passed and they hate seeing how legislative sausage gets made.
Republicans also don’t care when their own rank hypocrisy is revealed in the “liberal media” — when there are balanced reports, for example, that they used the same arcane rules with wild abandon when they controlled Congress. The Republican base will never learn about their own pols’ hypocrisy because these voters have been trained to get their “news” exclusively from right-wing propaganda outlets like Fox News and hate radio, where untidy facts like these will never be mentioned.
But independent voters, who are not averse to exposure to a variety of points of view, still control the outcomes in many congressional districts, so it is important to set the record straight.
The GOP’s latest flog is the “self-executing rule,” also known as “deem and pass,” which they have cleverly branded the “Slaughter Rule” after Rep. Louise Slaughter, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Rules Committee.
(Marc Ambinder has more about Republican lies about deem and pass — they’re also saying it means there won’t be a vote; there will — as well as explanation of how the rule works, at the Atlantic.)
Here is a rundown of Republicans’ use of deem and pass when they controlled the House:
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.
Republicans pulled this same nonsense earlier this month when they deliberately mislabeled “reconciliation” as “the nuclear option” — a term coined in March 2003 by GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to describe a procedure for overcoming Democratic fillibusters of George W. Bush’s extreme right-wing judicial nominees.
In fact, Republicans had used reconciliation three times as often as Democrats over the course of congressional history.
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There are times and places in which the use of this method is not only appropriate but also Constitutional. Without supporting evidence that it was illegally or unconstitutionally used I find your report to be less than credible. I could be wrong you only need post the evidence, sorry but your word is insufficient.
Got it. When Republicans do it, it’s A-okay. When Democrats do precisely the same thing, it’s wrecking the country.
Sadly, this hypocrisy is nothing new.
Closed door meetings and shoving this crap down our throats isn’t how it should be done. I guess you think left radical media is balanced???? Best place to get your info huh? LMAO
gotta laugh whenever stating the truth is deemed radical. speaking of deeming:
Cantor Admits “Deem and Pass” Is Legitimate http://bit.ly/aWtNDd
and another bit of truth:
McConnell admits #GOP decided to just say No at all costs b4 #HCR process even started http://nyti.ms/ayaJX9
…just a little something to ponder.
Colorado:
<<<Closed door meetings and shoving this crap down our throats isn’t how it should be done. I guess you think left radical media is balanced???? Best place to get your info huh? LMAO<<<<
Spoken like a true brainwashed right winger, no substance, no backup, no anything.
Colorado, you must have amnesia. What you’re describing is exactly how the Republican Congress goosestepped in lockstep with Bush. They could have stopped the crisis before it got so huge, but they did nothing. For that matter, the private insurance companies could resolve this crisis right now — by covering everyone — but they won’t because they are greedy.
Republicans have made it clear this year that they believe that corporations are more important than American citizens. That obviously has not sunk through to their half-witted followers but it will one day.
So the answer to the question is, according to Congressional records, this is a true story. No name calling, no lying, just facts. If it isn’t true, then show me. I could care less what you watch, but if they purposely mislead you and you allow it, it’s YOUR fault.
Funny. I read this WHOLE article, and the linked one… NOT ONE SINGLE BILL # — Not one single instance of a specific bill that “deem and pass” has been used on previously. Golly Gosh. Wonder why?
Could it be that previous uses were on mainly PROCEDURAL bills? Feel free to cite those that approached the gob smacking price tag of this whopper! And if it was wrong before, you’ll have do difficulty citing articles reporting all the outrage, right?
(the linked article doesn’t even include the WORD ‘deem’)
And for all the back-peddling about reconciliation being an “up or down vote”, you conveniently ignore that it was Robert Byrd’s rule, and don’t cite any Senate bills it was used on previously that weren’t budget-related. The Senate is supposed to be the more deliberative body in Congress; it is supposed to TEMPER the activities of the House. That is why such a majority vote is appropriate there.
If you can’t research BEFORE you report, get a real job, because you aren’t DOING this one.
Thanks for dropping by, Hugh_H. In this piece, which is clearly about the politics of the process, not the mechanics, I cited and linked to an article by Marc Ambinder, the political editor of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, which was founded in 1857. Ambinder is good enough for me, however, if there’s additional research you need on bill numbers and the like, please feel free to look it up yourself.
As it turned out, deem and pass was not used to pass the health care reform bill last night. However, I will point out that had it been used last night, it would have been used on the fix-it bill which was a PROCEDURAL bill.