Democrats will do anything to pass health insurance reform, even, it seems, subvert the constitution. Knowing that they still lack the votes to pass the kickback-filled Senate health reform bill word-for-word, Democrats in the United States House of Representatives have concocted what they think may be a way around having an up-or-down vote on the legislation. Sane individuals would pause and look for a means to start over, or would move on to another issue. Instead, however, these Democrats want to hold a vote accepting the Senate bill without actually voting on the legislation itself. Sadly, President Obama seems content to accept such absurd behavior.
In two separate U.S. Supreme Court cases (here and here) the majority has held that the federal constitution requires a specific process for the passage of legislation; and identical text must pass in each house of Congress prior to going to the president for signature. What has been called the Slaughter solution in press accounts, for Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), would deem the Senate bill to be accepted by the House as is without a formal vote on the text of the bill itself. Democrats, in effect, are proposing to use a stunt to pass legislation while being able to claim that they did no such thing. In reality, legislators sworn to uphold the constitution will be remaking one sixth of the U.S. economy through parliamentary gimmickry. Yet, it was precisely this sort of thing that the framers of the United States Constitution opposed.
There are now, and will forever, be disputes over what precisely is allowable or not under the federal constitution. However, rational people on the left and the right generally agree that its provisions offer broad support for personal liberty. For this reason, the first and fourth amendments to the U.S. Constitution are well known. The broad interpretations offered over many years of the fourteenth amendment to said constitution define rather broadly its guarantee of due process of the laws. The amendments to the U.S. Constitution, usually crafted to defend one’s rights against excesses of government power, are not the only portions of the world-renowned ocument safeguarding personal liberty.
Disputes over due process often arise in instances if criminal law. However, its pertinence applies to the law generally, and the framers of the U.S. Constitution had a precise reason for establishing two legislative chambers to comprise the Congress. Nearly any student of the U.S. political system knows that the two houses of Congress are apportioned differently to prevent any one state from dominating the national government. Inferring though that such is the reason why the Congress is bicameral would be inaccurate. Indeed, James Madison’s Virginia Plan called for a bicameral Congress wherein both chambers were elected on the basis of population. The formation of the United States Senate resulted from a compromise between that Virginia Plan and one offered by William Paterson of New Jersey which would have given each of the thirteen states equal representation regardless of population. The purpose of bicameralism on the federal level was to better secure the liberties of individuals and the states within the Union. To pass health insurance reform through the Slaughter solution, or its proper name, the “self-executing rule” would undermine bicameralism and fundamentally go against the best values of the U.S. political system.
One thing was actually correct in the justly maligned changes proposed to the Texas school curriculum; the government of United States of America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. While this constitutional republic functions democratically, unbridled democracy can produce the greatest of human tragedies. The pure democracy affirms the interest of the collective over that of the individual in every possible instance. A purely democratic system is one in which the leader can be voted more power without checks on his new authority.
Civil libertarians were correct to criticize the excesses of the previous administration in its efforts to combat terrorism. Yet, there has been little more than silence from them now that the party and president in power are engaged in every activity imaginable to grow the power of the state in another area of public policy. This is particularly disturbing when considering the expanse of the present measure and its lack of any real fiscal constraint. The use of the self-executing rule in the House and budgetary reconciliation together to pass health reform would be the largest single abuse of federal authority since FDR proposed packing the Supreme Court with sycophants in 1937 to further his partisan agenda.
Democrats, to defend their legislative shenanigans, have argued that Republicans have used the budget reconciliation process numerous times in the past. Quality, however, matters more than quantity; adjusting rates of taxation or adding a prescription drug benefit to an existing program is substantively different from overhauling the entire health insurance system. Using reconciliation, as has been proposed, for health care reform would go against the fiscal policy nature of the process. Senator Byrd (D-WV) opposed using reconciliation for the aborted 1993 health reform plan precisely because of its substantive reach beyond short-term fiscal policy, and the constraints on debate imposed by such a process.
The Tea Party movement has been widely criticized. For the record, this author has shown concern over its excesses in the past. Speaker Pelosi in recent weeks suggested that Democrats share some sentiments with the Tea Partiers. Unfortunately, it seems the sentiments shared aren’t those pertaining to personal liberty, but rather those disdaining good governance and blind partisanship.
