Thursday, March 18, 2010

Shredding the Constitution for Fun and Profit

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The House of Representatives has just passed the Slaughter "Solution" to avoid voting on an odious piece of legislation that none of them would have the guts to take an up or down vote on. Many representatives are opposed to individual elements of the Senate bill (such as the provisions on abortion), and this saves the House from putting their names on a piece of legislation that they would have a hard time defending to their constituents, since most of them vociferously dislike it.

This hypocritical attempt at a fig leaf will not succeed. They think that somehow, a vote for Slaughter and an accompanying vote on a "wishful thinking" piece of legislation that has no guarantee and frankly little hope of being passed by the Senate or signed by the president will give them the deniability that they were responsible for the more odious portions of the bill passed.

Exactly the opposite will take place. The Slaughter "solution" will, quite rightly, be viewed as a tacit vote in favor of the Senate bill, exactly as it stands with no further amendments.

They will be seen as having shirked their sworn duties to the people and the Constitution by allowing (or trying to allow) a piece of legislation taking over one sixth of the US economy to become law without an explicit vote in the House.

This law, this phony "deeming" the law to have been passed is poor political theater at best, and should it pass, I believe will be struck down by the Court.

However, I believe the message that needs to be sent to the House of Representatives, is that every member that voted for "deem and scheme" should deem themselves to be civilians and unemployed come November.

H/T The Other McCain
Cross posted at Say Anything

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