Americans care about fairness

Nancy Pelosi has been playing the role of the consummate politician these last few days, wheeling and dealing in order to cajole her wayward flock into committing political suicide and vote for Obamacare. The latest ploy being discussed over the last few days is being refereed to as the ‘Slaughter Solution,’ named after Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Chairman of the House Rules Committee.

What this ploy attempts to accomplish is to provide cover to those Democrats without the courage to come out and vote directly for Obamacare. Many House Dems have one or more problems with the Senate bill, passed on  December 24, most notably including the fact that for the first time, the government would pay for abortion. What the Slaughter Solution would do is create a rule change; the House would create a bill that includes changes to the Senate bill acceptable to those members who what changes to that bill, and by voting for the ‘rule change,’ that vote would automatically cause the Senate version of the bill would “deem” it to have been passed without requiring House Members to actually vote for that bill. Someone searching the House record in three, six, nine months from now would never find a record of any one Congressman voting “for” Obamacare.

Americans are smarter than that! If the Democrats think they can create some kind of political sleight-of-hand and it not be noticed, they are even dumber than I think they are.

One of the really basic values of the American culture is that of fairness. Americans will overlook many weaknesses in someone’s character, but if they ‘deem’ people are being unfair, that is where they generally draw the line.

The smoke and mirrors Pelosi is trying to use to cover her underhanded tricks is going to backfire on her and her caucus … because it will be viewed by the average American as unfair.

US Census and Identity Politics

The US Constitution requires the the Federal Government determine how many and where its citizens live:

“Representation and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers … . The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.”

Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States

Initially, that’s all the government did; count its citizens. However,it did require a differentiation of “white male” and “white female” and “slave” in each household. One of the reasons for this is that slaves were accorded 3/5ths of a person when counted for purposes of apportionment, based upon a compromise during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Additional census questions were added over time throughout the history of the US Census. However, the question of race has been a relatively consistent feature during every census.

Regardless, the reasoning behind asking for the racial identity of our citizens has changed. Obviously the issue of slavery is no longer in need of tracking. Since the 1960′s, the reasons have been more associated with “affirmative action” and white guilt. Nonetheless, accurately defining ones “race” is becoming much more difficult in today’s United States.

Mark Krikorian, the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a contributor at National Review Online, made an outstanding suggestion the other day;  when you fill out your census questionnaire this month, on question number 9, check the box “Some other Race – Print race:” and then enter “American” on the space provided.

Michelle Malkin concurs.

UPDATE: James Taranto writes a well stated piece on racial politics in last Monday’s Best of the Web (opening article).

UPDATE 2: Hans A. von Spakoski wrote a post last night on this issue and made a couple of great points:

I have been deluged lately with requests asking me whether one has to answer all of the questions on the 2010 Census, particularly those about race and ethnic background. Like Mark Krikorian, I don’t like those questions and don’t think the U.S. government should be collecting that information — its only use is to continue to separate us on racial grounds, for reapportionment purposes and for certain government programs.

The point of why the government collects such information is precisely the point I was trying to make with commenter brad. Further, those who claim the Constitution doesn’t require anything more than our name and the names of everyone in our household may not fully understand the Article cited above, granting Congress the authority to conduct the Census, and I liken to those who claim the government has no “right” to collect income taxes. Hans goes on:

Mark has said that he is going to answer “American” on the race question. I have always been tempted to answer “Native American,” since I was born and raised here. However, people need to understand that they may incur a legal liability if they use such answers or don’t answer questions at all.

In Article I, Section 2, the Constitution says that an “Enumeration” must be conducted every ten years “in such Manner as [Congress] shall by Law direct.” Congress has directed through a federal law that anyone who “refuses or willfully neglects…to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions” on the Census form can be fined $100 (13 U.S.C. § 221).  If you deliberately give a false answer, you can be fined up to $500.

Follow the link to Hans’ post and read the whole thing.

More Evidence for Global Warming

I know that you’ve all been holding off the attacks from them dirty “deniers” following the exploitation of the stolen emails and what is being nastily called “Climategate” … Well below is a video you can refer folks to proving that the climate is warming.

See!!! Proof!!!

[/snark]

Obamacare Without Reconciliation

Reconciliation has been the topic du jour every day since Obama’s dog and pony show last Thursday. Pundits speculate whether the Democrats have enough votes in the Senate to meet the majority requirement or not … does Pelosi have enough House votes even without counting on Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and his like-minded Blue-dog Dems. Pelosi has said she’s trying to find a way to make ‘reconciliation’ work for those in the House who are skeptical of it working. Harry Reid denied that anyone was contemplating using reconciliation to pass Obamacare.

The real reason Pelosi is having so much trouble finding the votes in the House is most likely due to members of the House not wanting to be shafted by the Senate and Obama. Reconciliation is a Senate function, supposedly limited to budget issues, allowing bills to pass without being subjected to the Senate’s filibuster rule (requiring 60 votes to reach cloture .. stopping debate and putting the bill to a vote). Obamacare has already passed cloture and voted on by 60 Democrat Senators.

The current rub is that the House and Senate versions of Obamacare do not match … and they must in order for Congress to send one bill to Obama for signature. There are portions of the Senate version that some members of the House don’t buy into … mainly Federal funding for abortion, but even some House members on the far left don’t like that the the Senate stripped the “public option” from version of the bill.

So Obama, Pelosi and Reid need to convince the House to accept the Senate bill as is and pass it … before the Senate begins working on the “fix” that would be acceptable to those in the House who have the heartache with the Senate version … ergo the rub! It would be quite possible that after the House passed the Senate’s version, Reid could say it will be too hard to put together a reconciliation bill that meets the rules of the Senate and just send the one bill passed by both chambers (which just happens to be the Senate version!) to Obama for signature.

The Senate decided not to take up Cap and Tax and Tax and Tax after the House passed it on June 26 2009. There were many House Democrats, Pelosi being one, who were not happy with putting their necks on the line for a very unpopular bill and being stiffed by the Senate. Fortunately for those of us who are massively against government takeover of our health care system, House members look to be following the adage “once bitten, twice shy.”

Let’s make sure the House Dems occupying tenuous seats know they could be nothing more than the fodder Obama needs to stay away from his Waterloo.

UPDATE: I just ran across this post by Yuval Levin on this same subject. A slightly different approach, but draws the same conclusion.