The “Slaughter Solution”

The best sign that the Democrats don’t have the votes on Obamacare is that they are still dreaming up procedural maneuvers to pass it. The latest, as report by The Washington Examiner, is the suggestion that the House will use a vote on the “Rule” to “deem” the Senate version of Obamacare to have been passed. This option is being advocated by Louise “These-Dentures-Sure-Do-Hurt” Slaughter, the Chairman of the House Rules Committee.

The best explanation I’ve seen of this is over at NRO’s Corner blog from Daniel Foster. The whole thing is a must-read, but here is the gist of it:

[E]ach bill brought to the floor of the House is debated under its own “rule” setting the length and structure of debate, including which if any amendments can be considered. A given bill’s rule is created by the — you guessed it — Rules Committee and presented to the whole House for a simple majority vote prior to consideration of the bill itself. In this case, the Democrats would bring a “self-executing rule” to the floor that allowed for the adoption of the Senate bill when, and only when, the reconciliation sidecar is passed, thereby avoiding the need to bring the Senate bill to the floor for a separate up-or-down vote.

This procedure is nearly impossible to stop:

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 Committee can do just about anything if they can get the votes to pass the rule.”

In case anyone was wondering how desperate the Dems are to pass the thing, here’s the proof.

If the Dems are going to ram this through at all costs—and I think that’s where we’re heading—I hope they do it this way. The use of reconciliation is unprecedented and unprincipled, as I explained here, but it has a certain empathic appeal. Dems can argue that they are simply letting the will of the majority prevail, which is always a powerful argument in a democratic-republic. But this is different. This is a pure act of political cowardice. They want to vote for the bill without actually voting for the bill. I think the Slaughter Solution will be a bigger rallying cry against the Democrats in November and 2012 than anything we’ve seen to date. Bring it on.