A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the ridiculous attention that the media — cued by the GOP — lavished on process in general and budget reconciliation in particular:
Regardless of the outcome of the Democratic health reform push, one point is obvious: at every turn, they lost the messaging battle to Republicans and the Tea Party. The latest reminder came this morning, as the umpteenth story on budget reconciliation came on the radio. These days, to talk about health care reform is to talk about process — exactly where the GOP wants the conversation to be.
Replace “reconciliation” with “deem and pass” and the same post pretty much applies to today. “Deem and pass” is the procedure by which Democrats are reportedly planning on using to pass health care reform, allowing House members to “deem” the Senate bill passed while voting on the bill fixing it. The reasoning is that this would enable House Democrats to say that they didn’t technically vote for what they see as a flawed Senate bill. Let me repeat that: they’ll be voting for the Senate bill but can claim that they didn’t vote for the Senate bill. Really, what could go wrong with that strategy?
Republicans have pounced, and the media have been right there with them. Today’s Washington Post headline: “House Democrats’ tactic for health-care bill is debated.” From a New York Times on the “controversy”: “Democrats struggled Tuesday to defend procedural shortcuts they might use to win approval for their proposals in the next few days.” Clearly Dems did not think through the politics of this move.
But its head-slapping idiocy notwithstanding, is “deem and pass” really all that controversial? Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, hardly a lefty advocate, calls out Republicans for their hypocritical rending of garments over its anticipated use for health reform:
In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times, and was no stranger to the concept of “deem and pass.” That strategy, then decried by the House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration. I don’t like self-executing rules by either party—I prefer the “regular order”—so I am not going to say this is a great idea by the Democrats. But even so—is there no shame anymore?
Steve Benen sums up my thoughts on the latest demonstration of GOP faux outrage and media complicity nicely:
Let me get this straight — the single biggest story in the political world yesterday was over consideration of a House procedure, used many times before by both parties? Republicans decided they don’t like “self-executing rules” anymore, so the matter dominated the discourse?
As with the moronic furor over reconciliation, the same dynamic is at work: a relentless GOP messaging machine that puts process ahead of substance — canny on their part because it’s the process, rather than the policy, that voters are fed up with; a tone-deaf Democratic caucus (They really thought that adding a layer of complication to the process was what health care reform needed? Really?) and feckless communications operation that seems to perpetually be on the defensive; and a mainstream media expertly played like a piano by the GOP.
