We’ve Moved From Passing Bills Without Reading Them to Passing Bills Without Voting On Them.

Let me explain the less than honest way the Democrats are trying to pass Obamacare.

Newt Gingrich, who certainly knows the rules, explains it here. The problem the Democrats are having is bringing the pro life Democrats on board. They don’t want to vote for a bill with abortion funding in it. So House Democrats have come up with a way to structure a vote that avoids the House voting on the legislation before it goes to the President!

Yes, you read that right.

“The House rules committee will report out a rule that will allow the Senate passed Obamacare bill to pass the House without a vote. The rule will be self-executing in the sense that the House will have been deemed to pass the Senate Obamacare bill if the House can muster the votes to pass the reconciliation measure.”

Why is this a problem?

There is a constitutional issue raised by this procedure. Article 1, Section 7, of the Constitution states in part “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the United States.” If the House does not vote on a bill, is it considered to “have passed the House of Representatives?”

How would this work?

Procedurally, this would happen in the following order. The House Rules Committee would approve this self-executing rule. The House would vote on the rule that allows this scenario. Then the House will vote on the reconciliation measure. Upon passage of the reconciliation measure the Senate Obamacare bill will be deemed to have passed the House and the reconciliation measure will be sent to the Senate. This so called “Deeming Resolution” is a trick that allows the House to pass a bill they never voted upon. Therefore, the real vote on the pro-abortion Senate passed bill will be the vote on the rule to allow this scenario to roll out on the House floor.

This is all backroom stuff. It’s despicable.

Sound complicated? Yes and it is supposed to so the American people can’t understand that the House is on the verge of passing an unpopular Obamacare bill, yet they are reserving the right to claim that they did not vote for the Senate passed bill.

This is all about “the end justifies the means” that Obama derided.

On Dec. 5th, 2008 Obama said this:

“In order for us to reform our health care system, we must first begin reforming how government communicates with the American people.These Health Care Community Discussions are a great way for the American people to have a direct say in our health reform efforts.”

But instead of reforming how the government communicates with the American people, Obama seeks to commit this “procedural fraud” on the American people.

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