Pelosi is the government We the People deserve

Both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are reporting today that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may use a legislative trick to make the Democrat’s healthcare reform the law of the land.

WaPo writes, “Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.”

The procedure is called the self executing rule, and it is, according to WaPo, used frequently though not on legislation with the economic and political impact of healthcare reform.  Of course, few pieces of legislation in U.S. history have had the potential impact of this bill.

The Speaker’s goal is to help Democrats avoid the difficult decision of having to vote for this bill.  “I like it,” she said, “because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”

“Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill. They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote,” writes the WSJ.

This self executing rule may be a brilliant way for Democrats to dodge responsibility.  Democrats will get their ObamaCare along with an excuse to give to angry voters in the fall; they can take credit with favorable audiences and deny voting for it with angry voters.  And most important, little in our healthcare system will change by November, good or bad, to remind voters that they were angry way back in March.  Stated simply; Pelosi knows that by the fall election campaign voters will have forgotten that they were angry about healthcare.  We the People have short memories.  Painfully short memories.

We the People have the government we deserve.

Tagged as: democrats, healthcare, healthcare reform, judiciary committee, obama, Obamacare, Pelosi, self executing rule