Thursday, March 18, 2010

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chairwoman of the House Rules Committee Louise Slaughter have plotted to use a parliamentary procedure to prevent a recorded vote on the Senate Obamacare bill in the House because at this time they are still short a few votes to pass the bill in a legitimate manner. It is a shameful scheme that denies the House members a vote and simply "deems" the bill into law. Black's Law Dictionary defines the word deem as to hold, consider, adjudge, believe, treat as if and construe. There is nothing in that definition that fits within our Constitutional way of getting bills passed. This scheme violates Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitutional which states, "Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States."

Phyllis Schafley and Eagle Forum have presented the following points in requesting action on this absurd plan to circumvent the Constitution:

1. The Slaughter Solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote.

2. The Senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill, but this means that no single bill will have passed both
houses in the same form.

3. As the Supreme Court wrote in Clinton v. City of NY (1998), a bill containing the "exact text" must be approved by
one house and the other house must approve "precisely the same text."

4. What the House is aiming to do is attach a new bill to an existing bill in order to create the illusion that only half of
this bill is receiving a vote.

5. Arthur Ferguson, a constitutional law expert and the lawyer who litigated Buckley v. Valeo- the case which enshrined
campaign spending as a form of constitutionally protected speech-attests that a bill must be the same item, not a
collection of multiple bills.

6. The bill receiving a vote in one chamber must be the identical piece of legislation that receives a vote in the other
chamber in order to become law.

7. If the Senate bill does not receive a direct vote in the House, then it is understood that the "fixer" bill is only being
agreed to because it contains changes, adjustments, or fixes to an existing piece of legislation.

8. The Senate has never voted on this exact package, or pairing of Obamacare bills. This means that if President
Obama
were to sign such a package, the presumed law would be a nullity.

9. Thus, a vote for the Slaughter Solution rule is a vote for the Senate Obamacare bill.

The House GOP Leadership plans to force a vote on a resolution today, Thursday, March 18, to block the Slaughter Solution. In the meantime, make telephone calls and send e-mails and urge the Democrat representatives (particularly Blue Dogs) to support the GOP's resolution. Also, continue to target undecided Democrats to vote "NO" on the bill. It is critical to our nation's future that we don't give up our fight against this bill.

Respectfully requested by,

Roberta Gick, J.D.

Pittsburgh Tea Party Movement

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