Setting This Straight

Byron Tau from The New Republic explains why the House "deem and pass" is not so damn awful as everyone says:

Okay, so here’s how the “deem-and-pass” procedure would actually work. The House Rules committee is often called the “traffic cop” of the House – controlling what bills come to the floor and how much debate is allowed on each one. On each bill, they pass what is called a “rule” – a resolution determining what kind of debate is allowed on each bill. The whole House must first pass the rule, then the underlying legislation. In the case of “deem-and-pass,” the vote on the rule would also have the effect of passing the Senate bill. According to the CRS report linked above, the House has used this procedure at least six times between 1989 and 2005 with both parties in charge.

To be sure, this isn’t the most straightforward of parliamentary procedural processes to explain to the average American. At the same time, most of the news reports dealing with the procedure don’t even attempt to explain either the process itself or the context of its use. Very few of the news stories or editorials even mention the Rules committee’s complex role in shaping bills and managing votes.

If the GOP insists on having a debate over process instead of substance, Beltway scribes should at least inject a little more nuance and a lot more context in their reporting.

And Josh Marshall catches Eric Cantor taking the cake. There is a lot of nonsense out there, but why would anyone fault Pelosi or the White House on actually trying to get the bill passed by any means necessary? I know, I know this is not tax cuts for the rich, this is a health care giveaway to free-loaders and degenerates, however it is pretty clear all the huff and puff isn't about much. The GOP hasn't played fair since day one, it is about time the Dems show mettle.

Health care reform is vital to the health of the Nation. No one outside the Beltway and Capital journalists will remember how it was passed. So, I Frank Chow deem this part of the debate over.

I am Frank Chow and I approved this message


Update: Paul Krugman ads this sentiment:

A Choice of Headlines

By this time next week we’ll have seen huge headlines about health care. These headlines will either read “Democrats do it!”, followed by various Republicans and their apologists complaining that what the Dems did wasn’t nice, or “Democrats — losers again”, followed by Republicans going bwahahaha.

And it’s up to a handful of Democrats to decide which headlines we get. They’re out of their minds if they don’t choose door #1.