The last few days have seen the emergence of something called the Slaughter Rule as a method of passing the Senate's Health Insurance Reform bill. The technique, more formally known as a "self-executing rule", took on this unfortunate monicker because it was given the parliamentary nod for use in passing the Senate bill by House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter. It's worth noting that the self-executing rule is not a new feature created for this present Congress. It's been in place for quite some time, and has been used over the years for a variety of purposes.

For the definition of a self-executing rule, let's turn to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, which states:

One of the newer types is called a "self-executing" rule; it embodies a "two-for-one" procedure. This means that when the House adopts a rule it also simultaneously agrees to dispose of a separate matter, which is specified in the rule itself. [ . . . ] The effect: neither in the House nor in the Committee of the Whole will lawmakers have an opportunity to amend or to vote separately on the "self-executed" provision. It was automatically agreed to when the House passed the rule.

Essentially what happens is that the House creates a rule that says, among other things, that some other document is considered to be adopted in the House. The rule is then voted on, and if the rule passes, that other document is considered to have been adopted. The House gets a "two-for" on this -- not only do they get the new rule, they also achieve adoption of the referenced document. According to the CRS Report referenced above, self-executing rules are generally used to help the House efficiently deal with Senate amendments to bills that started in the House. This process has the convenient side effect of disallowing debate on whatever document is embedded by reference in the rule.

Shifting from the theoretical to the real now, if Speaker Pelosi decides to pass the Senate Health Insurance Reform bill via this mechanism, the rule the House will vote on will contain language that passes the Senate's bill in a backhanded way. For example, one such way to implement it, according to this Wall Street Journal opinion piece, would be to insert a self-executing rule into the House version of the Reconciliation bill that says that the Senate bill is deemed to have passed. The House then votes on that bill, and if it passes, the Senate bill is passed by the same stroke of the same pen. In doing so, Speaker Pelosi avoids the political problem of her party having to vote directly on the Senate bill and allows them to focus entirely on the Reconciliation bill -- the proverbial spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine go down.