Dems iron out Obamacare in secret

Writing in The Federalist Papers during the debates on adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, Alexander Hamilton confidently proclaimed that “two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third.”
The Senate majority leader and House speaker, respectively, are attempting, in a display of political arrogance unmatched in this nation’s history, to do almost exactly what Hamilton said Americans would never tolerate. They are inventing “artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties” of legislative procedure in order to force passage of a proposal favored by a minority and opposed by a large majority of the people.

How is teh Donkey Party they doing this?

Reid and Pelosi are meeting privately with each other and with President Obama to work out differences between their respective chambers’ versions of Obamacare. They are thus ignoring the long-standing requirement that a bipartisan conference committee with representatives from the Senate and House meet in public to iron out such differences, and that on-the-record votes be taken in both chambers on final passage of the committee’s report. Once Reid and Pelosi agree on a final bill, they presumably will conduct a pro forma conference vote to rubber-stamp their agreement.

Transparency: what transparency?

Obama, Reid and Pelosi fear the traditional conference committee process will encourage yet more Americans to decide they don’t want either proposal. All three have forgotten Obama’s promise of more than a year ago that “we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents.” C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb said just last week that his network “will commit the necessary resources” to cover “the critical stage of reconciliation between the chambers.” Unfortunately, it appears that the more critical the stage, the more likely Obama, Reid and Pelosi are to go behind closed doors.

When the process is challanged even by C_SPAN, not exactly noted as being a stronghold of the VRWC (Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy), you know the process isn’t coming close to meeting any sort of smell test. Considering the source as the Reid / Pelosi axis of Constitutional evil, there should be no surprise.