What do you do when you don't have the votes to enact your century-old dream of nationalizing the American health care system? Simple: burn the Constitution and just deem the bill passed. That's exactly the solution set forth by Louise Slaughter (D-NY), a member of the House Rules Committee.

Article 1 § 7 of the U.S. Constitution states in part:

"Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approves, he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. .... But in all such cases the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively."

Furthermore, the Supreme Court affirmed as part of their 1998 decision in Clinton v. City of New York that in order to become a law, a bill containing the "exact text" of the final product must be approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and signed by the President. The Slaughter solution skips one of these critical steps.

If Pelosi and the Democrats want to take this path, then Axelrod won't have to worry about whether or not the GOP has the backbone to repeal this destructive legislation. There are plenty of states ready and willing to add this to their list of grievances in a Supreme Court case. And this isn't the only Constitutional hiccup.

The Senate Parliamentarian recently made a verbal ruling stating the Senate cannot begin debate on a reconciliation measure until the legislation it intends to address has become a law. Granted, the Senate ruling doesn't affect the House directly, but it does mean there is no guarantee that less Liberal members will be given the compromises they want.

There is already too much controversy around the bill. More than likely, if they can get the bill passed, Obama and Reid would prefer to put this whole fiasco behind themselves and attempt to mitigate the coming party-wide collapse. Why would the Democrats want to continue debating health care when every day they spend on the subject seems to darken their prospects in November? Besides, they have much more important things to work on like an economy-killing Cap & Trade proposal.

In essence, the Slaughter rule is the archetype of Liberal arrogance from a leadership operating in defiance of the American people they are supposed to represent. If the Democrats actually go through with this so-called solution, expect a flurry of activity in the Supreme Court, a general government shutdown compliments of the GOP, and even more incredible Democrat losses at every level of government during the 2010 election cycle.

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ErikSoderstrom.com

The "Slaughter Solution" Only Slaughters our…

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