Knox Tea Party of 1

In an attempt to sheild vulnerable Democrats from voter outrage, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is considering the unconstitutional use of "deem and pass' that will, in essence, allow passage of the bill without an outright vote.

Excerpt from an article at the Washington Post:

House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it

By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, March 16, 2010;A01

After laying the ground work for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

Read more here.

What makes this even more despicable, is that this procedure was successfully challenged in court in 2005 with a suit filed by Ralph Nader, which contained amicus briefs by both Louise Slaughter and Nancy Pelosi, over the Republicans' attempt to use this very procedure to raise the debt ceiling.  Read more on this at HotAir.