Democrats scramble for shortcut to approval on health care

WASHINGTON - Plan B in the Democrats' endgame strategy on health care could be an arcane legislative maneuver that makes the so-called nuclear option sound like a firecracker: National health care reform could pass without a direct vote.

With a still-uncertain vote tally in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she might forgo a showdown vote on the Senate-passed health legislation that has been a tough sell with fellow Democrats.

Instead, in an act of legislative jujitsu, she might have the House vote only on a separate package of amendments that "fix" some unpalatable Senate side deals, such as the infamous Cornhusker Kickback to Nebraska. Voting on those amendments would "deem" the House to have passed the underlying health bill. Democrats are calling it "deem and pass." Republicans call it "deem and scheme."

The aptly named "self-executing rule" has upped the ante substantially in the waning hours of a long partisan duel over health care. Minnesotans in Congress, like everyone else, are increasingly polarized.

"This is nothing more than a method to ignore the will of the American people and eliminate accountability for doing so," said Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn. "If the bill was good policy, this wouldn't be necessary."

"Republicans are objecting because they don't want health reform," said Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. "They are making a procedural argument because they want to thwart the content of the bill."

Either way, it could save the Democrats' health care agenda -- and presumably a lot of wavering Democrats who would rather avoid a vote on a Senate bill that some consider politically toxic.

"Now we are in this unusual position of looking at the so-called Slaughter Solution or Slaughter Rule, where the House leadership is working convoluted parliamentary procedures to make sure that their members don't have to vote," said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn. "It's incredible to even think about it."

If the plan looks like Alice in Wonderland to the Republicans, it's a matter of Realpolitiks to the Democrats.

"Opponents have vowed to use every tactic possible to obstruct reform, protect insurance companies and let Minnesotans fend for themselves while premiums rise and coverage shrinks," said Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. "Because Minnesotans need health care reform so badly, we should use every tool at our disposal to pass it."

Critics have questioned the plan's constitutionality, saying it essentially allows the House to pass a bill without actually voting on it, or worse, approving a bill it doesn't approve of. Hardly the stuff of high school civics classes, they say.

Democrats respond that it still subjects the health care plan to a simple up-or-down vote, if indirectly, through the amendments package expected to come out of the Rules Committee on Wednesday.

Aides to Minnesota Democrats Jim Oberstar and Collin Peterson said they had no comment because no decision has been made yet about whether the tactic will be employed. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Tim Walz, Minnesota Democrats who support the health care legislation, did not respond to requests for comment.

The tactic began in the 1970s as a way to make technical corrections to bills. But over the years it began to be used for more partisan purposes. Both sides acknowledge that both parties have used it before, though never before on legislation of the magnitude of the Obama administration's health care overhaul.

This week's do-or-die predicament for the Democrats is another outgrowth of their loss in the Massachusetts Senate race, which stripped them of the 60-vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate by one vote. Any changes to the underlying Senate bill would trigger another vote in the Senate, which the Republicans would be likely to filibuster. So the Democrats need the House to pass the Senate version intact.

That's why needed changes are being made in a separate amendments package that Senate Democrats plan to pass through a budget reconciliation process that requires only a simple majority. Republicans were already calling that the nuclear option.

"It's legal," Ellison said. "And it's within the rules.