Okay, so you won’t be able to actually watch the ObamaCare ping pong because it will done in private.
It looks like the democrats have decided to forgo the the House-Senate conference process on the health care bill. That would make it more difficult to ram it through. Instead they’ll work behind closed doors, with changes to the bills crafted in private and then bounced back to the other chamber.
You didn’t really believe their promises for more transparency, did you?
TNR: Now that both the House and Senate have passed health care reform bills, all Democrats have to do is work out a compromise between the two versions. And it appears they’re not about to let the Republicans gum up the works again.
According to a pair of senior Capitol Hill staffers, one from each chamber, House and Senate Democrats are “almost certain” to negotiate informally rather than convene a formal conference committee. Doing so would allow Democrats to avoid a series of procedural steps–not least among them, a series of special motions in the Senate, each requiring a vote with full debate–that Republicans could use to stall deliberations, just as they did in November and December.
“There will almost certainly be full negotiations but no formal conference,” the House staffer says. “There are too many procedural hurdles to go the formal conference route in the Senate.”
One reason Democrats expect Republicans to keep trying procedural delays is that the Republicans have signaled their intent to do so. On Christmas Eve, when the Senate passed its bill, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell memorably vowed in a floor speech that “This fight isn’t over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law.”
“I think the Republicans have made our decision for us,” the Senate staffer says. “It’s time for a little ping-pong.” ….
Michelle Malkin recalled the democrats’ 2006 report, Death of the Deliberative Democracy, AKA Hypocricy Document.
Flashback: There was a time when Democrats fiercely guarded the formal conference process. Remember that 2006 report from Democrats on the “death of deliberative democracy” that I told you about in November?
Quoting from page 36:
The conference process in the 108th Congress is a case study in how the Republican leadership abused the Rules of the House to block Members, both Republicans and Democrats, from legislating in an informed and thoughtful manner. House-Senate conferences are a critical part of the deliberative process because they produce the final legislative product that will become the law of the land.
Do as they say…
More here.
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