Just received this tweet over the Interwebs:
@JeffreyYoung_HC Dems will not use "deem and pass," Pelosi told members, according to Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY).
I think this is the right decision, honestly. The whole framing of this got off on the wrong foot the moment Pelosi said it would make it easier to pass the bill without members voting on it. Although it would have been perfectly constitutional, members should be able to come forward and say, "Yes, I voted for the Senate bill, and then I voted for a reconciliation bill to fix the problems in the Senate bill." Really, voters will be intelligent enough to figure it out.
Plus, this has the added benefit of drawing a few more votes for members who were nervous about the whole deem and pass strategy. I think this was a really smart move, and I feel more confident that ever that we can pass this baby.
What do you think?
UPDATE: Now confirmed by the Washington Post:
House leaders have decided to take a separate vote on the Senate health-care bill, rejecting an earlier, much-criticized strategy that would have permitted them to "deem" the unpopular measure passed without an explicit vote.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Saturday that the House would take three votes Sunday: first, on a resolution that will set the terms of debate; second, on a package of amendments to the Senate bill that have been demanded by House members; and third, on the Senate bill itself.
UPDATE 2: Our own David Waldman makes a funny:
So Dems will drop self-executing rule. Republicans of course will now praise Dem openness and transparency.
UPDATE 3: More procedural analysis on this move:
The House appears set now to move toward an up-or-down vote on the Senate healthcare bill, as well as a separate, up-or-down vote on the series of changes to that bill. There will still be a vote on the rule, as there always is for a piece of legislation, though it will not package the two bills together.
Democrats moved toward separating the votes after several members, including Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), had said they could not support the procedural maneuver.
Cardoza confirmed the change in position by House leadership during a Rules Committee meeting Saturday afternoon.
I think this means we're looking at three votes tomorrow, in this order: (1) Vote on rules for debate, (2) Vote on reconciliation sidecar, (3) Vote on Senate bill. The order is important, because members who vote for the Senate bill, with the "Cornhusker Kickback" et al, can say that they didn't vote for it until they had their votes on the fixes for the giveaways. It also means we're probably looking at a long night tomorrow, instead of a winner-takes-all 2 PM vote.
UPDATE 4: There's now a good FP diary up from David here. And so, as meteoric as my rise to rec diary fame began, so quickly it ends. Alas.
UPDATE 5: Sam Stein has some insight on why this is all happening now:
2:39 PM ET -- Debbie Wasserman-Schultz: How the vote tomorrow will work.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz says what will now happen is first a vote on the reconciliation package followed immediately by a vote on the Senate bill. They had wanted to do this all along, she said, but thought they had to do Senate bill first. The parliamentarian has now ruled it's ok to do reconciliation first.
So it sounds like it was all based on a misunderstanding of the parliamentarian's instructions, and apparently the parliamentarian cleared it up today.
UPDATE 6: If this whip count is believed, we are just about there. This reporting was almost certainly done before this reported change of plans with deem and pass. So, add Lynch and maybe Cardoza's vote to the total (since deem and pass was their main concern), and we're looking at being only two or three votes away. An executive order from Obama on abortion funding may not win over the whole Stupak bloc, but it would have to be enough for a few of the softer members of the block to come over. Maybe an executive order isn't even needed at this point. Either way, my money's on this thing passing.
UPDATE 7: Jonathan Cohn tweets:
@jcohntnr Hoyer: More than 50 senators have signed letter promising vote on reconciliation #hcr #healthreform
Interesting that these two announcements have come out at the same time, isn't it?