Process (Yawn)

There is lots of chatter this morning about "the slaughter rule," "deem and pass," and reconciliation. Ezra Klein sums up the very inside the beltway controversy:

The conservative case against "Deem and Pass" is getting very complex, very fast. Yesterday, the argument was that it was flatly unconstitutional. But it turns out that Republicans used Deem and Pass dozens of times while they were in power. So today's furor is that Nancy Pelosi and Louise Slaughter joined Public Citizen in a lawsuit arguing that a bill that George W. Bush signed was invalid because Deem and Pass is unconstitutional. But the court ruled against Public Citizen, Pelosi and Slaughter. Deem and Pass, well, passed. And now Democrats are using it, too.

Joshua Tucker's reading of the above graph:

As a political scientist, I was less interested in the overall support levels (which apparently have already shifted a bit in favor of passing reforms since these polls were taken), but rather in the difference between the two graphs. According to Gallup, respondents were first asked if they favored passing the health care bill, and then asked if they favored passing it using reconcilliation. The “process” in this case apparently cost about 3% points of support. So it is not irrelevant, but hardly a game changer in terms of public opinion