By PATRICK O’CONNOR

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has scheduled a vote next week on a House rule to get ObamaCare passed without one Representative having to vote on the bill. This may be unconstitutional. I have to be careful not to say that “Pelosi will schedule a vote on ObamaCare,” because the plan right now is to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare without a vote in the House. The procedure is purposefully confusing because liberals in Congress hope the American people don’t figure out this procedural fraud until it is too late. So much for the Constitution that says that a bill does not become a law until the House and Senate pass identical bills, and then the President signs that legislation.

Dems: Time to ‘rip the band-aid off’

In addition, it looks like House Democrats won’t have to vote directly on a Senate bill they really don’t like. The speaker hasn’t made a final decision, but she told her rank and file during the meeting that the plan now is to craft the legislation in such a way that they would “deem” the Senate bill passed once the House approves the package of fixes.

That means they would vote on the rule and the so-called reconciliation package, which would make changes to the Senate bill and require only 51 votes to pass the upper chamber. In addition, the package of changes would include a student lending bill that was paired with health care through the reconciliation process, leaders said Friday.

All of this could change if the speaker faces major resistance from her members, but it would mean Democrats won’t be forced to cast a vote specifically in favor of the Senate bill.

Obama was originally scheduled to leave March 18 for a trip to Indonesia and Australia, and the White House had pressed House Democrats to wrap up their work by then. When the House resisted, Obama changed his departure date to Sunday, March 21.

Pelosi reminded her members, as she frequently does, that she wants to make the whole process as quick and politically painless as possible, a person present said.

Otherwise, Democrats aren’t expected to allow amendments on the final package, leaders told their colleagues Friday, as is typical on down-to-the-wire votes.

Once the bill is passed, the Senate bill will go to the president for his signature, and the Senate will then take up the package of changes, the speaker told her members Friday.

Party leaders didn’t unveil specific dollar figures for the final bill, but they told members to expect more information, possibly over the weekend. House leaders say a Congressional Budget Office score could come at any time, though it now looked likely to appear by Monday.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34335_Page2.html#ixzz1oyB7JJbg