As the passage of health care reform becomes more and more likely, the Republican hissy fits have become more and more vehement and more dishonest. First the Republicans were throwing public tantrums about the use of reconciliation, despite the fact that reconciliation had been used multiple times by Republicans (ones currently servng in the Senate). Their latest hissy fit is about the “deem and pass” or self-executing rule the so-called “Slaughter House rule” in which the House would deem the Senate bill passed along with the reconciliation sidecar.
Some Republicans like Mike Pence and Michele Bachmann have been screaming that this is unConstitutional and that they will challenge the law in court if it is passed in this fashion. Now I might have some sympathy for the argument about using an odd procedure – I don’t understand why they just don’t pass both bills, voting on one just seems silly. However, this procedural move is nothing new and was used multiple times when Republicans controlled Congress and has been used multiple times in the current Congress without a peep of protest. I’ll let Norm Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute explain (shrilly):
Any veteran observer of Congress is used to the rampant hypocrisy over the use of parliamentary procedures that shifts totally from one side to the other as a majority moves to minority status, and vice versa. But I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news. It reached a ridiculous level of misinformation and disinformation over the use of reconciliation, and now threatens to top that level over the projected use of a self-executing rule by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 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?
No Norm, there is no shame anymore and the Republican noise machine has made this a front page story in the mainstream media.