Another day, another procedural trick. Typically, when the House and the Senate pass two bills on the same issue, they reconcile the differences in a conference committee comprised of Democrats and Republicans.
However, in their never-ending quest for “transparency,” the Dems plan to bypass this process to make sure they don’t have to deal with any pesky dissent from those evil Republicans:
According to a pair of senior Capitol Hill staffers, one from each chamber, House and Senate Democrats are ‘almost certain’ to negotiate informally rather than convene a formal conference committee. Doing so would allow Democrats to avoid a series of procedural steps–not least among them, a series of special motions in the Senate, each requiring a vote with full debate …
A “full debate”? Heaven forfend! That’s so “founding fathers.” How gauche! What a bunch of hypocritical crooks. NRO provides the following quote from a Senate insider:
There won’t be a conference, at least not in the sense that most of us think of a conference, with public debate and amendments. This will be written like most of the health-care legislation has been written — in a Democrat’s conference room with a handful of members and White House staff.
These people are absolutely determined to defy the will of the public. It’s difficult to believe that the voters will be stupid enough to send these crooks back to Congress in November.
UPDATE:
Ed Morrissey adds the following:
Given the bill’s increasing unpopularity, it doesn’t surprise that Democrats want to hide themselves while trying to get it out of Congress. However, that kind of approach will not build support for ObamaCare. It will undermine whatever support it has left except as a purely partisan exercise — which explains why its support among likely voters closely mirrors the percentage of Democrats among that sample.
The Dems are obviously under the impression that they can get away with this. It’s certain that the bill’s popularity among the electorate is of little concern to them. We’ll see soon enough if their calculations are correct.
Comments 2
I recently received an email from my Senator (Jim Webb D VA) explaining his position on the health care bill. He stated that the bill had to be a clear, detailed proposal that Americans could understand. Further the process should be transparent and open, and the product should not further burden our country economically nor create a cumbersome overly bureaucratic system. He then went on to say he would vote his conscience and not bow to party politics in his final vote. I suggested to Senator Webb that rather than vote his conscience, he should vote his principles, which he clearly defined above. We’ll see which one, conscience or principle, wins.
Posted 04 Jan 2010 at 4:44 pm ¶President Obama promised during his campaign that the health care reform would be transparent and that C-Span would televise it…Nancy Pelosi, Reed, Slaughter etc. should be well advised that to not televise, on C-Span, the reconcilliation of the 2 bills could cost them dearly at the polls. The citizens of this country have the right to know what exactly the Health Care Reform Bill will contain. We demand live coverage.
Posted 05 Jan 2010 at 4:29 pm ¶Post a Comment