Pelosi wants to pass Senate health care bill without a vote!

It's come to this. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) wants to pass the Senate health care bill without a vote on the House floor. According to a story in the Washington Post today, Pelosi is trying to figure out how to use an obscure parliamentary maneuver called "deem and pass" that even the Post describes as "a procedural sleight of hand."

The House would vote on the reconciliation bill that makes changes in the Senate bill and by so doing the Speaker would rule that "passage would signify that lawmakers 'deem' the health care bill to be passed."

The procedure has been used frequently in the past to deal with technical corrections and bills already passed by the House that are sent back by the Senate with amendments. In 2005, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen group unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the use of "deem and pass" to make minor technical corrections. For those who have followed Pelosi's career, it should perhaps not be surprising that a friend of the court brief supporting Public Citizen's suit was filed by Rep. Pelosi.

Here is Pelosi said, according to the Post: "'It's more insider and process-oriented that 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.'"

Using this maneuver to pass a major bill that has never passed the House should be unconstitutional. Article 1, Section 5 requires that, "Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require
Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question
shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the
Journal.

But whether unconstitutional or not, using this sneaky procedure would undermine one of the key foundations of representative government--accountability by elected officials to the citizens. Our elected Members of Congress are able to do many things behind close doors, but one thing that they cannot hide is how they vote on the House and Senate floors. Until now.

Members of the House of both parties should reject this outrageous sneak attack on the Constitution. And perhaps in the November election, voters will want to toss out any Member who goes along with it.