Republicans have seen the ‘Slaughter solution’ before

Republicans made major hay Tuesday out of the “news” (it was reported by the Washington Post today after several days of reporting by The Daily Caller and other news organizations) that Democrats may use the “Slaughter solution” to pass the health care bill.

For an in depth explanation of why Democrats are doing it, click here.

The plan to “deem” the Senate bill passed when the reconciliation bill passes does make Democrats look sneaky, but at least one Republican Tuesday said the use of a “self-executing rule” was not actually lawful.

Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican, said the Democrats’ plan “tramples on the Constitution.”

“I’ve understood this ever since I saw School House Rock,” Pence said, according to Politico.

But Pence voted in favor of a “self-executing rule,” the same procedure that will make the “Slaughter solution” possible, three times when Republicans controlled the House, according to a list of the votes provided by House Democrats to The Daily Caller.

In fact, House Minority Leader John Boehner, Ohio Republican, and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, voted in favor of “self-executing rules” six times and three times, respectively, since 1996.

Republicans have used the procedure at least 11 times since it was first introduced in 1933, the Democrats’ memo said.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said that the Republicans problem was not with the use of the procedure itself, but with its use for something so enormous as the health care bill.

“Nothing – nothing – approaches the sheer scale of this trillion-dollar government takeover of health care. The Democrats simply can’t hide from the American people using this procedural sleight-of-hand,” Steel said in an e-mailed statement.

Pence’s statement of a constitutional violation, however, a point first raised by former federal judge Michael McConnell in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, were in fact a complaint about the procedure itself. We are waiting for comment from Pence’s spokesman.

Republicans hit back earlier Tuesday that Democrats themselves — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat — said the use of a self-executing rule was not lawful back in October 2006, when they joined their names to a lawsuit against the use of such a procedure by Republicans to pass an amendment to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.