Political Commentary

So Much For The “Dual Bill”

8 Comments

The Senate Parliamentarian says first pass it, then fix it. And Yuval Levin notes the surreality of the Democrats’ position:

Democratic leaders should be asking themselves just how they have gotten to the point that their strategy is to amend a law that doesn’t exist yet by passing a bill without voting on it.

They may be, but the answer doesn’t really matter at this point.

8 thoughts on “So Much For The “Dual Bill””

  1. …and right after that, they’ll set fire to the Reichstag, blame the Tea Party and outlaw conservatives owning property.

  2. Yes they should be, but you and I know they won’t. Instead they will be trying to find other means to get this monstrosity passed; so they can claim victory.

  3. Instead they will be trying to find other means to get this monstrosity passed; so they can claim victory.

    I hear that the Democrats just need enough votes to break a filibuster in the Senate. How about they do some horse trading and get enough votes so that they can pass their legislation? You know, just like how most legislation is passed in the US?

  4. In case you haven’t noticed, they don’t live in the US. They inhabit an alternate universe called “DC,” as divorced from the world we live in as, oh, Tatooine. And as relevant. Unfortunately, while what we do in our reality doesn’t concern them, what they do concerns us very much indeed.

  5. “How about they do some horse trading and get enough votes so that they can pass their legislation?”

    Karl,
    Health care is MUCH TOO IMPORTANT to let a thing like democratic process get in the way.

  6. They don’t need a Reichstag to burn. They’ll blame every crime on right-wing extremism. If Bill Ayers were to go back into the IED business, they’d find a way to blame Glenn Beck for it.

  7. Reconciliation means you have to sign the bill into law first? How did the House and the Senate miss that important point? Or is the parliamentarian wrong? Wikipedia has a fairly good article that discusses the reconciliation process:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_%28United_States_Congress%29

    However, the article in Wikipedia consistently uses the word bill and not the word law which would appear to contradict what the parliamentarian has said.

    This is tragic. I perceive that lawyers have so screwed up our system of government that only lawyers can interpret how to navigate our increasingly arcane method of governance.

    Yuval Levin said it best: When your strategy is to amend a law that doesn’t exist yet by passing a bill without voting on it, it is time to start over.

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