Pelosi ignores congressional rules and Constitution -- Founding Fathers spin in their graves

Last week we declared health care reform dead after the parliamentarian ruled that the president had to sign the Senate bill. This week, we're not so sure. The Democrats have wiggled their way around congressional rules and the Constitution, and may very well be able to ram this monstrosity through.

Despite the ruling of the Senate parliamentarian, House Democrats are still planning to vote on the reconciliation sidecar rather than the Senate bill itself, called the Slaughter Solution. This allows jittery Blue Dog Democrats to vote for health care without technically supporting the pork-laden Senate legislation. It's technically legal -- called a "self-executing rule" in Congress-speak -- but it's never been used to pass a bill this sweeping. All it needs to be approved is a majority vote in the House Rules Committee, which Democrats control 9-5. In 2005, Republicans used a self-executing rule to pass a national debt limit increase. Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and Louise Slaughter all filed briefs in court to have the vote ruled unconstitutional. Today Pelosi says of the Slaughter Solution, "I like it because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill." ObamaCare is so toxic at this point that the Speaker of the House is openly admitting she's happy her troops don't have to vote for it.

All this still doesn't mean that the bill will pass the House. Thanks to the parliamentarian, Congress can't pass the bill and the sidecar simultaneously. If the House does approve, the legislation will coast through another Senate vote and then land on the president's desk. After this, the Senate will have to take up the reconciliation sidecar. After the bruising legislative battle over the past year, many House Democrats are suspicious of the Senate's ability to get anything done. If the Senate doesn't make good on its promise to amend the bill with a sidecar, special deals like the Cornhusker Kickback will become law. That will mean many Blue Dogs will be toast (if they're not toast already).

But things are unquestionably worse than before. Perennial optimist Jim DeMint said he's less confident about ObamaCare dying than before. Rep. John Larson, vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said yesterday that Democrats have the votes (though that hasn't been confirmed by Pelosi or Clyburn).

If the bill passes, there will almost certainly be a court challenge. Yesterday a former appellate court judge wrote a scathing op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling the Slaughter Solution unconstitutional. But with plenty of progressive judges scattered across the judiciary, nothing is certain at this point.

Democrats defy Constitution on health care

Last week, the Senate parliamentarian, Alan Frumin, ruled that Democratic leaders couldn't amend the ObamaCare bill partway through the process with a reconciliation sidecar. The president would have to sign into law the wildly unpopular Senate bill before any changes could be made. This was a blow to the House where Democrats are divided against the Senate legislation for a number of reasons, including abortion and special deals like the Cornhusker Kickback. We predicted that the only route for success would be for Harry Reid to fire the parliamentarian. Instead Democrats have decided to just ignore the parliamentarian's ruling entirely.

[Congressional Democratic] Leaders appeared to be favoring a maneuver that would allow lawmakers to approve the reconciliation package without taking a separate vote on the politically dicey Senate bill. Under this scenario, the Senate bill would be deemed to have cleared the chamber once the House approved the package of fixes.

In other words, the House doesn't even have to vote on an actual bill. They can just approve a list of changes -- the reconciliation sidecar -- which will then amend a bill that, again, they haven't actually approved. It's called the Slaughter Solution (after Rep. Louise Slaughter) and the parliamentarian ruled it out. Another panel of experts would agree with Frumin: the Founding Fathers.

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

That's Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution. Under the Slaughter Solution, ObamaCare wouldn't originate in the House since the House won't have even voted on the actual legislation. Even then the bill still looks doomed to fail. With House Democrats lining up against the president on a variety of issues, Rep. James Clyburn admitted yesterday that ObamaCare still doesn't have the votes to pass. But if it does, Obama's signature piece of legislation will become law unconstitutionally and in defiance of Senate rules.

Health care's last battle

After months of debate and demagoguery by the president, it all comes down to next week.

What's going on? The final push for Obamacare is about to begin. It starts on Monday, when the House Budget Committee will insert reconciliation instructions into the November House health care bill. By late Monday/early Tuesday, Budget will pass this bill and send it to the House Rules Committee, where Pelosi will change the language so that it matches the Senate bill. This is the final compromise legislation that may come to a vote on the House floor within weeks. "They're creating the shell," says Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Why move ahead when the votes aren't there? Pelosi hopes that launching the process will create enough momentum to flip Democrats her way. The clock is ticking. The speaker has two weeks before Congress breaks for Easter Recess. And the recess could kill off health care reform, since many of the wavering Democrats will get an earful from their constituents when they return home. Republicans expect Democrats to lose votes over the break.

This is health care harakiri and Pelosi has to know it. Yesterday the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the president must sign the Senate bill before any changes can be made. With their reconciliation sidecar derailed, dozens of Blue Dog House Democrats will have to vote on a bill larded up with wildly unpopular deals like the Cornhusker Kickback. The latest whip count by the progressive blog FireDogLake has 189 aye votes, 202 nay votes, and the rest undecided. With the public as outraged as they are, it's unlikely very many, if any, of those reps will swing yes. Pelosi is already facing an unlikely alliance of pro-choice Democrats, Hispanic Democrats, a couple of progressives, Blue Dogs, and unified Republicans. The only other solution is if Pelosi has one last procedural trick up her sleeve, but at this point it's hard to imagine what she could do.

Meanwhile Obama is barnstorming around the country trying to close the deal, but it isn't working. Last week Obama gave speeches in Pennsylvania and Missouri, but vulnerable Democratic congressmen refused to show up. This debate has raged for a year and the expenditure of political capital has been great. Next week the President will discover whether it was capital well spent.

Did this man just kill ObamaCare?

It's always hard to tell given how dense and arcane congressional procedure is, but right now it looks like ObamaCare is officially dead.

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.

House Democratic leaders have been searching for a way to ensure that any move they make to approve the Senate-passed $871 billion health care reform bill is followed by Senate action on a reconciliation package of adjustments to the original bill. One idea is to have the House and Senate act on reconciliation prior to House action on the Senate’s original health care bill.

The House doesn't have enough votes to pass the Senate bill for a number of reasons. The Senate bill covers abortions, which has pro-life Democrats united behind Bart Stupak pledging to vote no. The Senate bill bars illegal immigrants from health care coverage, which has members of the House Hispanic Caucus threatening no votes as of this morning. The Senate bill doesn't include a public option, which has turned off a few progressives. And most damaging of all, the Senate bill is loaded with special deals for senators like the Cornhusker Kickback that spell political suicide for Blue Dog congressmen from fiscally conservative states.

The House and the Senate need to approve the same bill, since the Senate legislation differs from the House's. The idea was to use what's called a "reconciliation sidecar" -- a package of changes to the Senate bill passed with a simple majority vote -- to make the bill agreeable for House members. The sidecar was written by the White House and would have made several changes, most notably the elimination of the Cornhusker Kickback.

The parliamentarian's ruling means that the House can't pass the sidecar. Both houses must pass the Senate bill and the president must sign it before any changes can be made. Pelosi already doesn't have the votes to do that and is losing more every day.

The Senate parliamentarian's name is Alan Frumin. He was appointed in 2002 after Republicans fired the previous parliamentarian...for forbidding them from using reconciliation on a bill. Barring something completely unforeseen, another Saturday Night Massacre in which Frumin gets shown the door might be Obama's only remaining move.