Not that this will keep Republicans from screeching about the "Slaughter Solution" being unconstitutional (no matter how many times they've voted for bills using it), but this morning Eric Cantor was forced to admit that the process is legitimate.
[T]this morning on Good Morning America, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) explained the rule in some very clear terms:
HOYER: We are going to have a clean up or down vote on the Senate bill, that will be on the rule. This is a procedure, by the way, that was used almost 100 times under Newt Gingrich and over 100 times by Speaker Hastert, which my friend Mr. Cantor supported most of the time, if not all of the time. So this is not an unusual procedure. We’re going to vote on a rule. It’s simply like a conference report. Conference report comes back. You vote on it, with amendments.
Unfortunately, the Republicans are a little bit like the boy who killed his two parents and then wants sympathy because he’s an orphan. They’ve tried to stop the passage of this bill. Slowed it up. Wouldn’t agree to go to conference, so what we’re going to do is report out what essentially is a conference report with amendments. So we’ll vote on the Senate bill in the rule and we will amend the Senate bill in the process...
Cantor sheepishly smiled at Hoyer and ultimately agreed. “Yes, Steny is right. The rules of the House allow for this type of deeming provision, it’s called a self-executing provision which means that once the bill, the rule for the next bill passes, the Senate bill is automatically is deemed as having passed,” he said. As Norman Ornstein points out, “that strategy, then decried by the House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration.”
Just like there really is going to be a vote to pass this thing, the process by which House Dems might choose to use (and as of yet that decision doesn't seem to be final) will not be precedent setting and is legitimate. Eric Cantor says so. Of course, he could and probably will argue differently on the House floor, but he'd be lying.