Senator Reid Proposes Restrictions on Self-Governance
Senator Harry Reid has slipped language into the heath care bill, via an amendment that would tie the hands of future Congresses with regard to repealing or amending it. The amendment makes substantial changes to the standing rules of the Senate, a move that normally requires a super-majority vote of at least 67 Senators. When questioned about this by Senator DeMint, The Senate president ruled that the bill changes Senate procedure, but not Senate rules, so the 67 vote threshold did not apply. The unasked question that begs to follow is, “what establishes Senate procedures?” Answer: The rules.
Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid's amendment (page 1020) states that "it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection." The subsection pertains to regulations imposed by the Medicare Advisory Board. The amendment goes on to require a vote of 3/5 the Senate (60 votes) to waive the paragraph.
This posturing, setting some provisions of the law above others, so as to make them untouchable sets a dangerous precedent. It is the Constitution that is established as the supreme law of the land. The threshold for changing it was set high by the founders. Senator Reid and his cohorts are now attempting to enshrine provisions of their health care bill as above normal laws, and not subject to the normal democratic processes to change or repeal them.
DeMint observed, “I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this into every bill.”
Ed Morisey made the point well in his article: "The elected representatives of today should not have greater authority than those who will follow them. Any attempt to pass this into legislation aggrandizes the power of this Congress at the expense of those that follow.”
The proposed language of this health care amendment would, by simple majority vote, establish a requirement for a super majority to alter or repeal it. If this anti-democracy measure is allowed to stand, the implications for this and all future legislation are dire. Hundreds of years of established Congressional process will be subverted, the future will of the people, expressed by the election of their representatives, thwarted by unreasonable and unprecedented obstacles to our right of self-governance.