[StBernard] House Dems Try to Pass Obamacare Without a Vote

[Westley Annis]

House Dems Try to Pass Obamacare Without a Vote 

The Slaughter Solution 
Posted by Leon H. Wolf (Profile) 

Wednesday, March 10th at 4:01PM EST 

57 Comments 
We are hearing word that House Democrats, led by House Rules Chairman Louise
Slaughter (D-NY) are attemping an end-run around one of the most basic
Constitutional principles taught in Junior High Civics - the mechanism by
which a bill becomes law. Article 1, Section 7 of the constitution is clear:

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the
Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the
United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return
it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who
shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to
reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall
agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to
the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved
by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases
the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names
of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the
Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the
President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been
presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had
signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in
which Case it shall not be a Law.

This mechanism, of course, is referred to in Constitutional and legal
shorthand as "bicameralism plus presentment," which stands for the basic
premise, stated above, that before a bill can become law, that bill must be
passed by BOTH chambers of Congress and be presented to the President for
either his veto or his approval. It is obvious to any thinking person (and
indeed even to members of Congress) that if the House passes one bill and
the Senate passes a different bill touching on the same topic, this does not
equate to the same bill having passed both the House of Representatives and
the Senate, per Article 1, Section 7. Which is why, as they teach you in
junior high, when the Senate and House pass different versions of a bill,
they must hammer out their differences in a conference committee, and then
the compromise bill (to the extent it contains changes from the bill passed
by both chambers) must be sent back to *both chambers* for a vote, so that
both chambers of Congress will have in fact passed the same bill. This is
also why, after the election of Scott Brown, Democrats have found it
necessary for the House to pass the Senate bill exactly as-is, knowing that
compromise bill between the two will be defeated after it returns from the
Senate.

Having determined that they lack the votes in the House to pass the Senate
bills as-is, House Democrats are attempting one of the most breathtakingly
unconstitutional power grabs ever witnessed - a maneuver to deem the Senate
bill ALREADY PASSED by the House by rule, despite the fact that it clearly
has not. Now, as we have constantly reminded our ahistorical liberal friends
who have already forgotten all of 2002-2006, the filibuster is
constitutional because it is a Senate rule of debate, which is expressly
authorized by Article I's delegation of power to each house of Congress to
set its own rules of debate. Apparently, some Democrats can't seem to tell
the difference between a rule of debate and just declaring by rule that the
House has passed a bill that they have not, when the Constitution itself
expressly states that "in all [] Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be
determined by Yeas and Nays[.]" What Slaughter and Pelosi here are
attempting here is a blatant violation of the principles of bicameralism and
presentment.

And unlike other Unconstitutional things Congress does, there's caselaw here
suggesting pretty clearly that when Congress attempts to pass a law in the
absence of proper bicameralism and presentment, a person negatively affected
by Congress's action (e.g., a person required to pay a fine for not having
health insurance) has standing to challenge the law's validity in the
Courts. This farce is illegal and unconstitutional on its face, and someone
has to be advising the Democrats in the House of this fact. They already
know the American people don't want this bill. They know by now that what
they're trying to do is illegal. The question now is whether they still have
the shame to care about either.