The Slaughter Solution

Steve M. has an excellent point on the House use of deem-and-pass to try to spare vulnerable Dems from actually having to take a recorded vote.  It's a tactic both sides have used before, most recently on Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation, but Steve smells a massive backfire here.

Look, Republicans are going to try to turn health care reform into a constitutional crisis no matter what. As it is, lawmakers in more than two thirds of the states are trying to challenge the health care mandate or other provisions of the bill. But using this procedure -- which Republicans say is unconstitutional ...

...conservatives warned that Pelosi's use of deem-and-pass in this way would run afoul of the Constitution. They pointed to a 1998 Supreme Court ruling that said each house of Congress must approve the exact same text of a bill before it can become law. A self-executing rule sidesteps that requirement, former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

... just makes the task of ginning up a constitutional crisis infinitely easier -- and not just because far-right Republican presidents have appointed most of the federal judges who'd hear any challenges.

Our side doesn't understand that the right has figured out how to turn political anger into popular entertainment -- at least for the like-minded. The right has made more Republicans by training right-leaning citizens to turn to talk radio and Fox the way other people turn to HBO or Netflix, for fun. As a result, those citizens really keep up with politics, or at least politics Limbaugh/Fox style.

Right-wing message disseminators are already describing this procedure as the "Slaughter Solution," after Louise Slaughter, the House Rules chair. This crowd -- and some swing voters who also find this programming entertaining -- will get this argument. They'll find it exciting and infuriating. And they're still going to be talking about it in November 2010, and November 2012, just as they were talking about "back room deals" all through Scott Brown's campaign.

I'd add that violent wingnuts are also going to develop an unhealthy fixation on this vote -- the next right-wing crazy who attempts or commits political terrorism will have mentioned this vote specifically in his Web rantings. No, you can't let violent paranoids dictate your actions as a legislator. But nonviolent paranoids are another story. The right has created a lot of them, and they're going to march, and call for impeachment, and offer support to demagoguing state legislators and attorneys general who want to sue over this law, and vote in big numbers in November.

I hope the benefits of the procedure outweigh all that.

As I've said before, the goal here is to undermine the legitimacy of the federal government itself.  If the Club For Growth crew and the Freedomworks astroturfers can convince Republicans, Independents and even Democrats that the very process of governance of this country is immoral and illegal, then they can call for the dissolution of the programs and laws that Club For Growth opposes.

If you want to hamstring government to the point where it has no power to regulate commerce, enforce laws, or ensure the safety of the American people, this is the classic way to do it, and it's working brilliantly.  The solution of course will be to increasingly give those powers to corporations instead.  After all, if the people so despise the government that they prefer the profiteering corporate giants controlling every aspect of our lives, held unaccountable in any way, then there's no reason to have a federal government, right?

And isn't that the endgame of the whole mess?  For Texas to tell California and New York "You're on your own, we're going our own way"?

Steve is right.  This is playing right into the hands of the Tenthers.