House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be creating new grounds for a court challenge to the proposed U.S. health-care overhaul as she considers using a mechanism [!] that would avoid a vote [!] on the full legislation. Pelosi said this week she might use a [NEW! IMRPOVED!] parliamentary technique that would "deem" House members to have passed the Senate's health-care plan by voting for a more politically palatable package of changes. Some legal scholars question whether that approach can be squared with the Constitution and the Supreme Court's 1998 declaration that the two houses of Congress must approve "precisely the same text" before a bill can become a law. "Any process that does not result in the House taking of yays and nays on statutory text identical to what passed the Senate is constitutionally problematic," said Jonathan Adler, a professor who runs the Center for Business Law & Regulation at Case Western Reserve University's law school in Cleveland. The greatest obstacle to any challenge may be getting a court to consider the issue. In 2007, a federal appeals court in Washington rejected a similar attack on a Republican-backed package of tax and spending cuts, which because of a clerk's error had passed the House and Senate with different wording. The three-judge panel said that, under an 1892 Supreme Court decision, courts can't second-guess [read: arrogate] congressional leaders [sic; quorum vote] when they certify that both houses have passed the same legislative language.... "There are a lot of people who don't want to vote for it [Baucus bill]," Pelosi said this week. "We will do what is necessary to pass a health-care bill [sic]." Read more...
Pelosi said this week she might use a [NEW! IMRPOVED!] parliamentary technique that would "deem" House members to have passed the Senate's health-care plan by voting for a more politically palatable package of changes.
Some legal scholars question whether that approach can be squared with the Constitution and the Supreme Court's 1998 declaration that the two houses of Congress must approve "precisely the same text" before a bill can become a law.
"Any process that does not result in the House taking of yays and nays on statutory text identical to what passed the Senate is constitutionally problematic," said Jonathan Adler, a professor who runs the Center for Business Law & Regulation at Case Western Reserve University's law school in Cleveland.
The greatest obstacle to any challenge may be getting a court to consider the issue. In 2007, a federal appeals court in Washington rejected a similar attack on a Republican-backed package of tax and spending cuts, which because of a clerk's error had passed the House and Senate with different wording.
The three-judge panel said that, under an 1892 Supreme Court decision, courts can't second-guess [read: arrogate] congressional leaders [sic; quorum vote] when they certify that both houses have passed the same legislative language....
"There are a lot of people who don't want to vote for it [Baucus bill]," Pelosi said this week. "We will do what is necessary to pass a health-care bill [sic]."
Read more...
That's what all the pretty autocrats say.
Possibly related posts:
ppt demagogery legitimate "process arguments" "illigitimate" process arguments reconciliation tactics, reconciliation law Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
I mentioned the other day, reconciliation "pass-and-deem technique" would lock-in budget, i.e. appropriations, for a decade.
But this is my favorite, a leitmotif throughout the bill:
(5) RELATION TO STATE LAWS.-The standards 4 established under this section shall supersede any 5 State law or regulation (other than State licensing 6 laws or State laws relating to plan solvency) with re 7 spect to qualified high risk pools which are established 8 in accordance with this section.
Now. Is there a something-not-nothing advocate in the house? I need to know again how Congress is going to improve, correct, or modify such provisions after the bill is passed. Or how instead can I qualify for Medicaid until I'm eligible for Medicare? Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
