There are many reasons for pushback on the Senate health care
legislative ‘compromise’. Abortion funding is chief among them. But
other threats to the vulnerable are in there - how bizarre that this is
called ‘health care reform’ - and Senate Democratic leaders crafting it
want to use a power play to keep bad law once they make bad law.

They can’t do that, say some real reform-minded senators.

Two pro-life senators plan to raise a constitutional
challenge to a section of the Senate health care bill that makes the
infamous “death panels” permanent. They say it is unconstitutional to
pass a law that prevents Congress from overturning the law at a later
point
Senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina and John Ensign of Nevada raised
a Constitutional Point of Order on the Senate floor against the bill on
behalf of other Republican lawmakers.

The Senate will vote tomorrow on the bill’s constitutionality.

Yes, they’re trying to push this through while Americans are
absorbed in Christmas and family celebrations. Scoundrels, keeping the
Senate in session and hard at work instead of allowing them time to be
with their families.

This is insidious.

At issue is Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid’s
manager’s amendment that the Senate adopted Tuesday morning and is now
part of the pro-abortion, government-run health care bill.

The section, on page 1020, says “it shall not be in order in the
Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill,
resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or
otherwise change this subsection.”

That would be a problem for any section of any bill but the language
in contention concerns pro-life advocates because it is the so-called
death panels section whereby regulations are imposed on doctors and
patients by the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards.

“This is not legislation. It’s not law. This is a rule change. It’s
a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time
creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even
repeal the law,” DeMint said in a Monday night Senate speech.

“I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most
certainly is a Senate rule. I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t
put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would
want it to have force for future Senates,” he continued. ‘I mean, we
want to bind future Congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of
Senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the
rights of the minority or of future Congresses.”

“This is not liberty, it is tyranny of good intentions by elites in
Washington who think they can plan our lives better than we can,”
DeMint complained.

That is one of the few things happening in Washington that’s clear.