On the recordMarch 18, 2010
I will vote against the Previous Question Motion today because I think the American people deserve a clear, up- or-down vote on health reform. They deserve to know how their elected representative voted, without any parliamentary confusion or obfuscation. In addition to being a transparency and fairness issue, this may also be a constitutional issue because of the consensus that the House and Senate must pass identical bills before they can be sent to the President for signature. With all the publicity surrounding the so-called ``self-executing'' rule, this procedure will not fool anyone back home, nor should it. It is, however, apparently designed to fool enough members of the House into believing that they did not support the Senate bill, even though, if they support the health reform package, they voted for it as the major component of the health reform. Unless we return to regular House procedure, we will never know how members would have voted on the Senate bill, by itself, and/or the reconciliation amendment, by itself. Since the President is apparently planning on signing the Senate bill before the Senate can take up the reconciliation amendment (as the Senate parliamentarian insists), no one will know who in the House of Representatives, in fact, supported the Senate bill. In simplistic terms, the White House will not know whom to invite to the signing ceremony.
