Self-Executing Health Care in the House

The criminally-under-venerated, now-defunct indie rock group Grandaddy said it best: now it’s on.

Nancy Pelosi is telling House Democrats that there will be no last-minute fixes to the health care bill, and that the House might pass health care without voting for it–by instituting a “self-executing rule.”

Yes, you read that last party correctly.  Politico explains:

Under this scenario, the Senate bill would be automatically attached to the reconciliation package, if the House passes reconciliation. In other words, Bill A would just become part of Bill B if the House passes Bill B, and the Senate could then vote on a reconciliation package before sending it to the president. This allows House members to approve the broader measure without actually voting on it.

All clear? No? Let’s turn to Byron York, conservative commentator extraordinaire, who actually describes the self-executing rule pretty effectively:

Whenever a bill goes to the house floor for debate and a vote, the Rules Committee is required to write, and the House must pass, a rule setting the terms of debate: how many amendments will be offered, how long debate will run, etc.  The rule is normally a limited measure that applies only to the particular bill in question.  And it covers only the process; the bill itself is passed separately.  But it is possible for the Rules Committee to put in language stipulating that if the rule is passed, then a separate, unconnected piece of legislation will also be considered, or “deemed,” to have passed.  “It embodies a ‘two-for-one’ procedure,” says a 2006 Congressional Research Service report on self-executing rules.  “This means that when the House adopts a rule it also simultaneously agrees to dispose of a separate matter, which is specified in the rule itself.”

Using the self-executing rule strategy, Democrats could conceivably pass the rule, the Senate bill, and the House reconciliation “fixes” to the Senate bill all in one vote, without a single House member voting for any specific health care measure.

The obvious follow up question: isn’t this kind of sketchy? York certainly seems to think so, and I can’t really blame him. Passing health care as twofer seems somehow hollow, the equivalent of going to a great restaurant with a friend and having him shrug and say “I’ll have what he’s having.” This is supposed to be an experience, man! Can’t you even look at the Daily Specials?!

I digress, but you get the picture: the self-executing rule comes across as kind of weak sauce. But–and this is a big but–it’s not trickery and it’s not unprecedented in either party. As with reconciliation, Republicans have traditionally been pretty gung-ho about self-executing rules, even though they now poo-poo both measures. Yesterday, Media Matters highlighted an interesting 2006 column from Roll Call that gives some additional context:

From the 95th to 98th Congresses (1977-84), there were only eight self-executing rules making up just 1 percent of the 857 total rules granted. However, in Speaker Tip O’Neill’s (D-Mass.) final term in the 99th Congress, there were 20 self-executing rules (12 percent). In Rep. Jim Wright’s (D-Texas) only full term as Speaker, in the 100th Congress, there were 18 self-executing rules (17 percent). They reached a high point of 30 under Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.) during the final Democratic Congress, the 103rd, for 22 percent of all rules.

When Republicans took power in 1995, they…proceeded to set new records under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). There were 38 and 52 self-executing rules in the 104th and 105th Congresses (1995-1998), making up 25 percent and 35 percent of all rules, respectively. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) there were 40, 42 and 30 self-executing rules in the 106th, 107th and 108th Congresses (22 percent, 37 percent and 22 percent, respectively).

Still, the self-executing rule has never been applied to something as big as health care reform, and it’s true that this rule is clearly a last resort–which, depending on your interpretation, could be seen as proof that health care reform is unpopular or that Congress is corrupt and incompetent.  The bad news is that either of these scenarios will have political implications: if health care really is as unpopular as conservatives say (and for the record, I don’t think it is–transformative legislation is always controversial until it’s passed, at which point we all absorb its measures into the fabric of our lives) or if liberals are angry that Congress couldn’t get its act together to pass the right health care in the right way, it could be a bad election cycle for Democrats.

Indeed, it may be that in our current political environment, brimming with populist discontent and a disillusionment over the fact that Obama-ism didn’t breed widespread open and honest collaboration, something like the self-executing rule will be viewed as particularly loathsome to voters. On the whole, I’d venture that passing health care is worth the risk, but make no mistake–there is a risk.