Quote:
|
However, the one overriding difference is that in the past, such a procedural move never encompassed legislation that will effect every single person living within the United States. Nor has any prior procedural move encompassed legislation that attempts to give the federal government control over one-sixth of the entire GDP of the nation.
|
I don't quite get how this has Constitutional significance. The Constitution makes no procedural distinctions based on the scope of legislation... if it would be Constitutional for Congress to use this exact process to rename the Post Office in Frog Balls, Arkansas, it's Constitutional for them to use to pass the health care bill. From the perspective of the Constitution, a bill is a bill.
This has come up a lot on talk radio in the last few days... first it was "this process has never been used before!!!", and then it became widely known that it in fact has been used, hundreds of times, by every Speaker in every Congress in living memory. So then the objection switched to "this process has never been used to pass legislation of this scope", which is, even if true, irrelevant to any discussion of whether it's
permissible.
They have done it in the past, and been challenged in Court, and they won those challenges. Ergo, they can do it again now.
--Shannon