This is something Republicans condemned when Democrats tried to use it to pass health care reform legislation, and Ed Morrissey quite appropriately calls them on it:
Republicans screeched when Louise Slaughter attempted to push a “deem and pass” strategy for ObamaCare a little over a year ago, arguing that the notion of deeming the bill as passed in the House without a direct floor vote was an affront to democracy and the Constitution. Democrats agreed — in 2003, when Republicans tried the same thing on a tax-credit measure. In the end, Democrats abandoned “deem and pass” as a strategy after less than a week and held a floor vote on ObamaCare instead, which passed.
Republicans swore to restore Constitutional processes if returned to the majority in the House. They’re not off to a great start. They have revived deem and pass, with a twist — instead of claiming that a bill has passed, the GOP voted that a House bill would be deemed as effective law if the Senate failed to act (via David Brauer):
The House narrowly passed legislation on Friday that calls for a House-passed FY 2011 spending bill to become law should the Senate fail to approve a spending bill by April 6. It would also prevent members of Congress from being paid during a government shutdown.
The bill, H.R. 1255, was approved over bitter Democratic opposition in a 221-202 vote in which no Democrats supported it, and 15 Republicans opposed it.
Several Democrats argued that the measure is unconstitutional, charging that it would “deem” that the 2011 spending bill, H.R. 1, has the force of law if the Senate fails to act. Some Democrats seized on the floor comments from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who broke with his party and said on the floor that this aspect of the bill “violates my conscious and the Constitution, and I cannot vote for it.”
More at Hot Air, link above.
Thank you to Leonidas in District TMV for alerting me to this story.
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