Deem-ocrats?

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.


Reporters mobbed House majority leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) media briefing today, firing off question after question about “deem-and-pass,” a parliamentary maneuver Dems may use to vote on the Senate health care bill and a package of “fixes” simultaneously. Republicans and the press have described the procedure as allowing Democrats to pass health care reform without voting on it—as I left Hoyer’s briefing, the chyron on MSNBC read “No Votes Needed?”—but that’s misleading.

In any case, “real Americans” don’t care about “process” issues like deem-and-pass, Hoyer argued. “In the final analysis, what is interesting to the American public is what we do for them,” Hoyer said. He defended deem-and-pass as “consistent with the rules” and “consistent with former practice,” and he’s right on that front: Republicans set new records for using the procedure when they last controlled the House. That makes the GOP “hypocritical at best” for criticizing Democrats on this front, Hoyer said.

But the criticism of the maneuver isn’t coming just from Republicans. Left-leaning commentators—including The New Republic‘s Jon Chait, the Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein, and our own Kevin Drum—have also slammed the idea, mostly because they believe it’s bad politics for the Dems. Interestingly, Hoyer left open the possibility of using a different procedure to pass the bill. He interrupted himself in the middle of defending “deem and pass” to clarify that his caucus hasn’t settled on using it. “We haven’t decided on a process at this point in time,” he said. “That’s being debated, what process we want to pursue.” Indeed.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate