Does Resolving Two Bills in a Single Vote Deviate From the “Same Text” Requirement?
A second objection behind Professor McConnell’s criticism is thornier. He argues that because, under “Deem and Pass,” the House would have voted on two measures — the reconciliation package and the Christmas Eve bill — at once, after the House’s action the House and Senate would not have adopted the “same” text of the health care bill, and so there would have been no bill passed for the President’s signature. As Professor McConnell writes: “Article I, Section 7 clearly states that bills cannot be presented to the president for signature unless they have been approved by both houses of Congress in the same form. . . . The Supreme Court wrote in Clinton v. City of New York (1998) [that] a bill containing the ‘exact text’ must be approved by one house [and then] the other house must approve ‘precisely the same text.'” No one denies that the version of a bill that the House passes must be the same as the version of the bill that the Senate passes, before the bill goes to the President fo
