Those words were spoken by Rep. David Dreier, the ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee, and they were true. As the House Democratic leadership struggled to come up with a procedural shortcut to pass the unpopular national health care proposal, they scheduled the House floor to discuss the “Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act of 2010.” However important algal blooms and hypoxia research might be, Dreier was pointing out that the water bill was simply cover, something for the House to do while, the powers in the Democratic party devised a plan to push the Obamacare bill through the House without Democrats having to take a public, roll-call vote on the measure.
As Dreier spoke, Democrats were refining plans to use something called a “self-executing rule” to pass the bill approved by the Senate last December 24 on a party-line vote. The House must pass that bill, as is, for Obamacare to become law. But since the bill contains the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid, and other special deals, House Democrats are wary — no, terrified — of voting for it, even if they pass a separate bill “fixing” the Senate bill’s problems. That’s where the self-executing rule — sometimes called the “Slaughter solution” or the “Slaughter sleight-of-hand,” after House Rules Committee chairwoman Louise Slaughter — comes in.
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