Research

In a briefing with bloggers yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) talked about her support for Rep. Louise Slaughter’s “deem and pass” scheme to pass the Senate Democrats’ government-run health care experiment, bending the rules in an attempt to shield her fellow Democrats from directly voting for the Senate bill:

“It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know,” the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. “But I like it,” she said, “because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill.”

Yet four years ago, Public Citizen wrote a brief in a case in the DC Circuit Court Of Appeals against the “deem and pass” scheme, calling it unconstitutional:

Some constitutional provisions are open to interpretation. One constitutional requirement that is not ambiguous, however, is the requirement that every bill pass both houses of Congress before it can be presented to the President and become law. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (“DRA”) was presented to the President in violation of that requirement: The Senate passed one version of a bill, the House another, and then the Senate’s version was presented to the President, who signed it. Under the Constitution, that bill has not become a law.”

And guess who joined Public Citizen in this brief as “friends of the court”: Nancy Pelosi, along with Reps. Louise Slaughter, Henry Waxman, John Dingell, Charles Rangel, Pete Stark, Jim Oberstar, and Bennie Thompson.

Just more hypocrisy from Washington Democrats, willing to do anything to pass their government takeover of health care.