[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 38 (Tuesday, March 16, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1445-H1446]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ``PASSED'' NOT ``DEEMED''

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Pence) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PENCE. Madam Speaker, the American people don't want a government 
takeover of health care. I heard it at town hall meetings, across 
eastern Indiana this weekend, and at a rally at the Statehouse in 
Indianapolis yesterday where over a thousand gathered on short notice.
  Now, I know many in the Democratic leadership and the administration 
don't like us to call it a ``government takeover of health care,'' but 
when you mandate that every American purchase health insurance--whether 
they want it or need it or not--you mandate what's in that insurance. 
If you set up a government-run insurance exchange to control what kind 
of insurance people can buy and set up a massive bureaucracy, even a 
new health care czar to govern all of it, that sure looks like to me a 
government takeover of health care. And the American people know it.
  Now, clear majorities of this country have rejected this approach. 
But nevertheless, as we read in the papers, Congress is intent this 
week on bringing this legislation--seemingly by any means--to the floor 
of the House of Representatives. And I want to speak about those means 
today.
  The choice that the leadership of the Congress has before them is 
whether or not to bring the wildly discredited Senate bill to the floor 
of the House of Representatives. But the truth is, the bill, with its 
Cornhusker Kickback, with the public funding of abortion, simply 
couldn't pass the House floor. There's just not the votes for it.
  But it seems at this moment what we hear is that the Democratic 
leadership here in Congress is so desperate to pass this government 
takeover of health care that they are willing to twist the

[[Page H1446]]

rules of the House and the Senate into a pretzel to get it done.
  But I am not here to talk about the arcane rules of the Senate and 
reconciliation that the follow-on bill would be an abuse of. I'm not 
even here to talk about the rules of the House. I'm really here to talk 
about the Constitution of the United States of America.
  I mean, this so-called Slaughter House Rule that is being proposed, 
the idea that the Senate bill could be deemed as passed on the House 
floor without Members of Congress being asked to vote for it, I believe 
not just tramples on the common sense and insults the intelligence of 
the American people, but it really tramples on the Constitution of the 
United States. Let me break it down for you.
  I've understood this since the first time I saw ``School House Rock'' 
about how a bill becomes a law and that little bill danced up the House 
steps when I was a kid. Let me read it. It's in the Constitution, 
Article I, section 7, ``Every bill which shall have passed the House of 
Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be 
presented to the President of the United States.'' There it is.
  As we learned as school children, as it says in the Constitution, a 
bill becomes a law after it has passed the House of Representatives--
not after it was deemed to have passed, not after it was buried in a 
procedural motion that no one really has to say they have supported, 
but after it has passed on the floor of the House of Representatives.
  Now, some will say that, well, Republicans just want to talk about 
process here; we're trying to do something for health care. Well, wait 
a minute. The processes that are in the Constitution of the United 
States exist to protect the liberty of the American people and hold 
those who govern them responsible. The reason our Founders enshrined in 
the Constitution of the United States the requirement that bills might 
not become law unless they pass on the House floor is so that they 
could hold accountable the decisions that the men and women who would 
serve in this Chamber throughout our history would make.
  Madam Speaker, the very idea that the Senate bill could be adopted by 
the House without any vote on the floor is anathema to the Constitution 
of the United States, and I believe it's an insult to the American 
people.
  I would say respectfully, Madam Speaker, if you have the votes, vote 
the Senate bill on the floor. Let's bring it down here. Let's have a 
good, long debate about that bill that passed the Senate on Christmas 
Eve with all of its backroom deals and all of its public funding for 
abortion and its individual mandates and its tax increases.
  But if you don't have the votes, let's scrap the bill. Let's start 
over. Let's commit ourselves to building health care reform on the 
principles of limited government and free market economics. Let's pass 
health care reform that will lower the cost of health insurance rather 
than growing the size of government.
  And for heaven's sake, whatever we do, let's go forward this week in 
a way that honors those who have gone before, those who have fought for 
this Constitution. Let us live up to the ideals of our Founders and the 
expectation of our people. And let's throw this Slaughter House Rule 
business in the trash heap where it belongs.

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