House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday.
Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.
Slaughter has not taken the plan to Speaker Pelosi as Democrats await CBO scores on the corrections bill. "Once the CBO gives us the score we'll spring right on it," she said. . . .
House members are concerned the Senate could fail to approve the corrections bill, making them nervous about passing the Senate bill with its much-maligned sweetheart deals for certain states.
"We're well beyond that," Pelosi said Tuesday, though she did not clarify.
It is even theoretically legal, although it stinks to high heaven.
Unlike in the Senate, where individual Senators have broad discretion to steer debate and introduce amendments, the legislative process in the House is rigidly governed by the Rules Committee. This limits the Republicans' options in fighting a self-executing rule for Obamacare. As one Republican House staffer put it to me today, “the Rules Committee can do just about anything if they can get the votes to pass the rule.”
This is an exercise in raw political power. Is it any wonder that a recent Rasmussen poll showed that only 21% of American voters consider the federal government to have the consent of the governed?
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