John Kline: For the 'Slaughter Solution' before he was against it
I’ve written my share of single-source blog posts, so I don’t want to pretend every one must contain a ton of research. But a Strib Hot Dish Politics post touching on the day’s biggest issue — health care reform — let a Minnesota Congressman’s attack go uncontextualized.
The source was John Kline, and the post focused mostly on his defense of federal subsidies to student-loan middlemen such as banks. I would’ve had a bit more fun tweaking the conservative Kline about the his ardor for private-sector giveaways, but reporter Eric Roper did a good job framing both sides of the issue, including Kline’s legitimate complaint about embedding student lending in the health care bill.
The stumble occurred at the end:
Kline also expressed frustration with the latest legislative tactic being proposed to pass the health care bill, the so-called Slaughter Solution. It would involve the House voting on the fixes to the Senate bill without voting on the bill itself, deeming it to have already passed.
Describing the Slaughter Solution to reporters, Kline stopped mid-sentence and remarked, seemingly to himself, "It's incredible to even think about it."
Well, maybe not so incredible. As political analysts had noted throughout the day, Republicans had used the “Slaughter Solution” — also called "deem-and-pass" — repeatedly when they controlled Congress. The American Enterprise Institute’s Norm Ornstein mocked the GOP attacks, pointing to one vote in particular, “a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that … GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration.”
Ornstein told me the bill was House Resolution 653, which passed in 2006 with as bare a majority as health care reform might — 216 to 214. In other words, every vote was critical. Not every Minnesota Republican voted with the 100 percent GOP majority — Jim Ramstad dissented — but among the “aye” voters: John Kline.
As Ornstein wrote of deem-and-pass objectors, “I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news.”
Fairness compels me to note that Ornstein expressed his own disdain for deem-and-pass. Also, as the national media pressed the hypocrisy point, Republican complaints morphed from the tactic itself to using it on something as huge and long-lasting as health care reform.
Still, given how often hypocrisy is a default political position, the Strib should have held Kline more accountable for his own voting record.
More like this
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- Health vote in House: Road from bill to law could be full of procedural twists and turns
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Comments (14)
This Kline comment is typical of the GOP. They have used all of these tactics and more. The welfare reform vote noted above, the house vote on the Medicare drug bill was kept open beyond rules so that the GOP leadership could twist arms and cut deals. Mr. Kline, you always brag about your distinguished service for which I thank you. My question now is where did your honor go? It is apparent that now that conservatives have corrupted the Barry Goldwater saying "Extremism in the pursuit of power is our standard operating procedure."
That thought should be put alongside the article today in the Strib about the GOP strategy in general led by Mitch McConnell. Simply put, it is "let's not do anything to help our country solve any problems in the next two years and then we can blame the Democrats for not solving any problems."
It may work for the GOP but it is sure not working for the USA.
Hypocrisy abounds on both side regarding so-called "deem-and-pass." After all, the president spent a lot of time in recent days demanding an "up-or-down" vote on healthcare reform. Mr. Obama, taking a page from the republicans, emphasized that principled democracy requires an opportunity for a clear, identifiable majority in Congress to act.
But now, as a last-ditch effort to save his misbegotten halfway healthcare reform bill the "up-or-down" vote appears to be on hold...at least until next November.
Maybe it's just me...though I doubt it...but somehow the idea of adding a few more levers and gears to our outmoded private/public healthcare contraption just isn't very inspiring. Surely it's not worth the extremes to which either side is going.
Bill - my personal feeling on deem-and-pass is meh. There will, effectively, be an up-or-down vote on the reconciled bill where everyone in the House will be accountable (and if you don't believe me, wait until the GOP campaign ads coming soon).
Deem-and-pass, as non-intuitive as it is, has been forced by the filibuster, which, let's face it, is truly non-majoritarian. If the Dems could get a true up-or-down vote in the Senate on a fully revised bill (50+), the House would hold an up-or-down on that bill without having to blend the initial bill and the revisions via deem-and-pass.
As for the worth of health care reform, I agree with you about the broken contraption, but there aren't the votes to toss it, so the question is whether this makes it better. With 31 million more insured and costs paid for, I'd say yes.
My point is, Obama and his allies in Congress were...to borrow a famous phrase...for an up-or-down vote before they were against it. At a minimum, deem-and-pass will surely add to the amusement of the rest of the civilized world as it watches us tinker around the edges of a fundamentally broken and unworkable healthcare system. Our inability to contemplate a move to single-payer, government-run healthcare is going to be ruinous in the long-run. But, hey...it's the American way! It just happens to be much more expensive, inherently unfair, and demonstrably less effective.
The issue here is that congressional Republicans are having it both ways. Decrying the majority's use of arcane parliamentary techniques as "breaking the rules" and subversion of democracy is one thing (especially if your party was said techniques' largest user in years and decades past), but you can't point fingers at the Democrats for using them when you're the ones stopping them from going the more traditional route! If they want to give congressional Democrats the chance to drop reconciliation, self-executing rules, etc, then they should drop their unquestionably unprecedented use of the filibuster (another arcane parliamentary technique) and let it happen. Otherwise, the Republicans' advice boils down to, as the computer in War Games so eloquently put it, "The only winning move is not to play."
William, I agree with your thoughts on that adding more gears and levers to the broken contraption that is our health care industry is inadequate. It is unfortunate that these minor changes are being demonized by the GOP. All to my point above.
In fact, starting with a clean sheet of paper and rational decision-making and looking at best practices around the world would probably result in a system that totally disrupts our existing for-profit system. We would not have companies like United Health Group, for-profit clinics owned by doctors who profit from ordering procedures rather than keeping citizens healthy, or pharmaceutical companies whose main concern is marketing high profit drugs, keeping their patents in place and keeping profits high.
This radical change might truly restructure 16% of our economy so that it only takes 10 or 12 percent of our income, not 16% of our economy as it does now. We know that the entrenched interests will not allow that.
So I do not care what mechanisms are used to pass these changes. According to the CBO, more people will be covered, the deficit will be lower and that is a good thing.
David, you know it miiight be a better idea if you found a happy medium between "a ton" and "none" for researching your screeds.
This isn't "the Glean"...you're supposed to put some effort into this.
For instance, the link you provided as an example of how teh evil Republicans squelched the democratic process, well, it isn't.
From *your* link:
==========================
Question: On Agreeing to the Resolution
Bill:H RES 653
Vote description: Relating to Consideration of the Bill (S. 1932) to Provide for Reconciliation Pursuant to Section 202 (a) of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2006 (H. Con. Res. 95)
Vote type: Yea-and-Nay (Help)
A standard vote that requires a simple majority for approval or passage of the legislation.
Result: Passed, 216-214, with 3 not voting.
Date/time: February 1, 2006, 5:11 p.m.
Republican majority opinion: Yes (Help)
The position of more than 50 percent of voting Republicans. "None" means an equal split between "Yes" and "No."
Democrat majority opinion: No (Help)
The position of more than 50 percent of voting Democrats. "None" means an equal split between "Yes" and "No."
===============================
Yeah. That says everyone got to vote. You *do* know what a vote is, don’t you?
Or maybe you just don't understand what the Democrat party is proposing to do this time around.
The Pelosi & Co. plot is to pass a bag full of amendments to the Senate bill to keep the base happy, then trot it up to P-Bo's office and claim that since it's the same bill the Senate passed, they “deem” it passed by everyone.
The GOP never did that.
And that's something else your lack of research has cost you. The Dem's took the GOP to court over their use of "deem and pass", but unfortunately, the SCOTUS sided with the GOP because...and this is important...both bills contained exactly the same language. Now personally, I’m just as tic’d off that the GOP pulled this stunt as I am with the Dem’s…well, not quite, but this is infamy X10.
Because San Fran Nan and her Merry Pranksters are not just forcing this through against the will of the majority of the House of Rep's, but against the majority of the American people.
"Self executing" legislation....very nicely put.
Tom - not even Eric Cantor is seriously arguing the Constitutionality of this (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/HealthCare/health-care-steny-hoyer-eric-cantor...), only the efficacy of the move. As Hoyer notes, voting on the rule -- which everyone will get to vote on just like H.Res. 653 -- will constitute voting for the Senate bill, within the bill that includes reconciliation changes sent to the Senate.
As for the applicability of self-executing rules between this situation and the 2006 vote, I defer to Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar ... and Braublog source.
One other note about Kline's record on this stuff ...
According to a former Rules committee chief of staff under the GOP, the party executed "the mother of all self-executing rules" in 2006; there were three self-executing provisions, including adding a completely separate bill that forced a Senate conference committee.
http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1412&fuseaction=topics.public...
The House had to hold up business for five hours to push this one across. Of course, Kline voted for *that*, too:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll110.xml
Precisely exactly the same as the health bill? No; for one thing, the Dems weren't filibustering everything so there could be a conference committee. (Reconciliation effectively provides a more limited version of that, since the Senate has to vote on identical changes contained in the House bill.) But a triple backflip with a two-bill-in-one degree of difficulty shows the incredible lengths our incredulous Congressman has been willing to go when his party was running things.
"Precisely exactly the same as the health bill? No; for one thing," the Rep's weren't pushing through a bill that affected 1\6th of the US economy, or that the majority of the House and 53% of the (likely voting) American public opposed....probably that's why no one made a peep in '06.
But you keep those stat's handy, Dave...I'm *sure* that they'll be *real* important to that 53% come November.
David: I'm really disappointed in your tack on this. Anyone who has looked at the circumstances at all, knows we're looking at an entirely different situation now. Going to Orenstein for your primary source told me what direction you were going.
Hal - I'm having trouble understanding when Ornstein is not a credible source. The American Enterprise Institute is hardly a hotbed of Democrats, or liberals.
Is there something about *what* he said, rather than who you perceive him to be?
Also, I respectfully disagree that Kline's record of supporting similar maneuvers should not be included for context. He's not a virgin on this stuff, and the public should know that.
Thanks Dave, I appreciate seeing a journalist engage on this point.
It is absolutely amazing that only a few years ago it took underhanded methods to pass a "40 billion dollar deficit reduction package". What were those people thinking?