Another dirty Harry Reid trick: 67 votes – the super-majority will be need to ever repeal Obamacare

reid-grimAs the days go by, and the bits of pieces of the 2,700+ page Harry Reid/Senate/ObamaCARE monstrosity seep out into the public people are going to realize even more than they already have, what a disaster they created with the past two elections. The latest gem discovered by RedState is from the Senate version of ObamaCARE voted on for cloture along a purely party line vote. Basically Harry Reid decided to add a last second amendment to the bill that changes the rules of the United States Senate.

Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment requires that “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” The good news is that this only applies to one section of the Obamacare legislation. The bad news is that it applies to regulations imposed on doctors and patients by the Independent Medical Advisory Boards a/k/a the Death Panels.

Section 3403 of Senator Reid’s legislation also states, “Notwithstanding rule XV of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a committee amendment described in subparagraph (A) may include matter not within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Finance if that matter is relevant to a proposal contained in the bill submitted under subsection (c)(3).” In short, it sets up a rule to ignore another Senate rule.

How is that constitutional? It is just like the filibuster. Only 51 votes are needed to pass the amendments, but internally, the Senate is deciding that it will not consider certain business. The Supreme Court is quite clear that it won’t meddle with the internal operations of the House and Senate. To get around the prohibition on considering amendments to that particular subsection of the health care legislation, the Senate must get two-thirds of the Senate to agree to waive the rule. In other words, it will take a super-majority of the people the citizens of our Republican elected to overrule a regulation imposed by a group of faceless bureaucrats and bean counters.

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December 21, 2009 · Filed Under Harry Reid, ObamaCARE


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