A recent memo from Ranking Republican of the House Rules Committee David Dreier (R-San Dimas, CA) asserted how “the Democratic Majority has a problem with their efforts to pass healthcare legislation, and it’s political: they simply do not have enough Members in the House willing to vote for the Senate-passed healthcare bill.” As a result of this predicament, the so called “Slaughter Solution” was offered as a way for Democrats to move the Senate-passed healthcare bill and a reconciliation “fix-it” package by “seriously bending the rules.”
Consequently, the Democratic Majority’s strategy is to get the 2 bills to the President’s desk: (1) the Senate-passed healthcare bill and (2) the reconciliation “fix-it” legislation colloquially referred to as the “sidecar.” This week, the House Budget Committee is beginning the process by marking up the “fix-it” bill. Once the markup is complete, the text will be replaced in the Rules Committee with the still unseen text of the reconciliation bill.
This situation leads Republicans to believe that Democrats will use the rule providing for consideration of the Senate and sidecar bills to minimize the number of difficult votes they will have to force their Members to take.
The Slaughter Solution
Chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, Representative Slaughter (D-NY), proposed that both the Senate and sidecar bills are “deemed” the Senate bill as passed. This solution seeks to avoid the political problems that stem from taking a true up or down vote on the “horribly unpopular legislation.” There are three options:
1) The rule simply self-enacts the Senate bill and sends it along to the President for his signature;
2) The rule deems the Senate healthcare bill adopted only upon House passage of the reconciliation package; and the third, “most egregious option”
3) The rule conditions adoption of the Senate healthcare package on the Senate passage of the reconciliation sidecar. Only then would the Senate-passed healthcare bill be approved by the House.
In all three of these scenarios, the Senate-passed healthcare bill wouldn’t be given an up or down vote on its own. In addition, the third option has already been essentially eliminated by the Senate parliamentarian, who asserted that the House must approve and the President must sign the Senate-passed healthcare bill before the Senate can even begin the reconciliation process. This is because reconciliation instructions contained in the Budget Resolution require changes in law, and changes to a yet-to-be-enacted bill don’t count.
Another last case scenario would involve a motion to recommit, which means that the Rules Committee is prohibited from reporting a rule which eliminates the minority’s ability to offer a final amendment to a new bill before the House. Essentially, the Democratic Majority could first pass a rule “turning off” the motion to recommit, and then enact a rule that could self-enact both the Senate health care package and the reconciliation sidecar. This would mean that with one vote, the Democrats could pass both bills without anyone having ever actually voted up or down on them.
What Happens Next
With March 18th only days away, the Budget Committee will first need to finish its markup, and then the Rules Committee will meet to report a rule matching one of the 3 Slaughter solutions described above. If Democrats get a vote on the Senate bill, if approved, it would be sent to the President, while the Senate will have the reconciliation sidecar in its hands.
The House-passed sidecar bill then must meet the Senate’s tests for reconciliation, and the individual provisions in the bill must avoid running afoul of the “Byrd Rule,” which prohibits inclusion of non-budget related items in a reconciliation bill.
A vote in the House however could be delayed until as late as Easter, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Tuesday. In fact, Clyburn said in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers that “it is possible that the House vote on healthcare reform could take place long past the vote Democratic leaders had hoped for this week.”
In addition to all of these “ifs,” there are also some lingering questions as to what could happen, for example:
– Does the “sidecar” qualify as reconciliation legislation in the eyes of the Senate?
– Are any of the provisions subject to strike under the Byrd Rule?
– Will any amendments be adopted?
In the end, “the one thing that history has demonstrated is that the reconciliation process in the Senate is unpredictable.” This summary demonstrates how the Democratic Majority is “turning the process of our democracy on its head in an effort to achieve a highly unpopular, partisan objective.” Such a “leap of faith” is misplaced, and Americans should call their Representatives to express their concerns.