Republicans are up in arms over the possibility of the Democrats using a "deeming resolution" to pass health care reform "without a vote." Now my knowledge of congressional procedure is very limited, but my understanding (with some help from Mark Schmitt) is that the Democrats would "deem" the health care bill to have been passed in the House for the purposes of the Senate reconciliation process, because it's not clear that reconciliation can be used to make adjustments to a law that doesn't exist yet. After the Senate makes those adjustments, then the health care bill would still have to be passed in the House before going to the president's desk. So what "deeming" would do is allow Democrats to get around the political hurdles they're facing in terms of passing the House bill before the Senate fixes, but they wouldn't actually be "passing health care without a vote." Deeming resolutions have been used several times in the past.
In any case, Republicans are really nervous health care is going to actually pass, so they've gotten a bit desperate. Matt Lewis and Michelle Malkin approvingly tweeted this post from David Freddoso quoting Georgia Congressman Tom Price, who says "We’re pretty sure there’s no verse about 'deeming' in Schoolhouse Rock."
Well here's the Schoolhouse Rock video.
It doesn't say anything about filibustering either. I guess the filibuster is unconstitutional. Or maybe you can't fit everything there is to know about congressional procedure in a three-minute cartoon video for kids.
-- A. Serwer
