The great irony here, of course, is that the “deeming” procedure is fully democratic. In voting for the “rule,” a majority of the House also votes for its “deeming provision,” which, in this instance, provides that if and when the House subsequently votes for the reconciliation bill, it will deem the Senate version of the health care bill passed. Then, if the Senate votes for reconciliation in the same terms as the House, the two identical reconciliation measures having been passed, will go to the President to sign and become law. If the Senate somehow does not vote for reconciliation, or the Senate votes for a different set of provisions than the House, then the original Senate bill, now having been deemed passed by the House, will go to the President for signing.
What the House Democrats are attempting here will only succeed if a majority of House members vote for it. Thus, in both the Senate and the House, it is the Democrats who are attempting to govern with a majority, and it is the Republicans who are objecting to majority rule.
As far as the deeming procedure goes, there is no inconsistency with Article I, Section 7. To someone unfamiliar with the practice of “deeming,” it can sound odd, but it is quite common. For example, numerous federal statutes “deem” Washington, D.C. a state for various purposes. Or to choose an example dearer to conservatives’ hearts, numerous statutes–and the Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence–deem corporations persons for various purposes. Deeming is simply part of legislating.
As conceptualized quite sensibly by the House parliamentarian, a vote for the rule is a vote for the already-enacted Senate bill, subject to a condition subsequent, namely, House passage of the reconciliation measure. There are numerous analogies here too. Congress frequently grants the President authority to take various measures–such as imposing sanctions against human rights abusers or collecting duties on goods from countries that engage in unfair trade practices–only upon the happening of some condition subsequent. The 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, for example, required the President to determine that further diplomatic efforts would be futile in order for the authorization to become effective.
So there is nothing especially peculiar about Congressional action that only becomes effective on the happening of some subsequent condition. The deemer at issue here is especially un-peculiar in light of the fact that the subsequent condition is fully within the House’s own control. If a majority of House members don’t want to vote for health care reform, they have two ways to kill it: vote against the rule or vote against the reconciliation measure that triggers the deemer clause in the rule. If anything, the deemer approach makes the enactment of legislation in the House harder than under the normal procedure, making the argument that it somehow short-circuits Article I, Section 7, extraordinarily weak.