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Friday, March 19, 2010

Info Post
Teresamerica and The Naked Ontologist bring you this update.

We just heard this on Rush Limbaugh's show, and time is of the essence.  A constitutional lawyer and former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Justice Department and for the Department of Treasury just called in and spoke to Rush less than an hour ago.  She has been tryign to get through to Republican members of the House to let them know that specific provisions in the Constitution trump the general rules that the House is constitutionally empowered to make for running its own proceedings.  The same article and section that they are using to justify "Deem and Pass" - Article 1, Section 5, which says that they can make their own procedural rules, specifically allows for 20% of the members of the House to demand an up or down vote on "ANY QUESTION", and to have that vote recorded:

"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."

That means that if enough Republicans - and there need only be enough to make up one-fifth of the house, formally demand an up or down vote on the Health Care bill, they cannot, as a procedural move, simply deem that the Senate Bill has passed in a vote on a separate question (e.g. a "reconciliation" vote).

But right now the House Republicans are seriously cowed by Pelosi and do not know that they have this option.  So please, GET THE WORD OUT!  Spread this around - if the Dems don't have enough votes, we can stop this thing!

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