WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIALIZES ON THE “SLAUGHTER HOUSE RULES”

From WSJ.com: “We’re not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely ‘deem’ that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway…[A]t the Speaker’s command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what’s known as a ‘self-executing rule,’ also known as a ‘hereby rule.’ Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill….Democrats are, literally, consuming their own majority for the sake of imposing new taxes, regulations and entitlements that the public has roundly rejected but that they believe will be the crowning achievement of the welfare state.” By Code Red