Thursday, December 24, 2009

Writing laws for ever.

Senator Harry Reid has proposed an amendment to the
health care bill now being debated in the Senate, which would
change Senate Rules, making it impossible for future
congresses to change a part of the health care bill, once enacted.

The change would apply to the Independent Medical Advisory Board making the so-called "death panels" immortal.

Reid's change reads;

“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.” link
In effect, any party in control of congress, currently Democrats,
could write legislation that no future congress would be able to
change.

It is unlikely that Reid will succeed, the amendment is unconstitutional on its face.

These kinds of shenanigans are made possible by the size
of the health care bill, now more than 2000 pages long,
making it easy to hide even the most outrageous of proposals.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the US constitution is, by its very nature, "living".
That is to say, it can change, will change, will amend, will repeal, etc... aka, it changes with the times.
To put such a law on the books effectively "kills" part of the "living" constitution.
This is a very dangerous precedent, if passed. The very idea is repulsive to all that America is based on.
What are they thinking?