Food Safety Bill May Get Delayed In House

I've been hearing a lot about the "food safety bill" recently. Some say the bill, approved quite a while ago in the House and approved yesterday in the Senate, is incredibly bad. I've heard claims that the bill removes our ability to grow our own food legally in private gardens, but I haven't seen supporting information for that.

Regardless, the bill might well be "blue slipped" in the House, thus delaying its final approval. Why? Well, among the many things that the Senate added were revenue-raising "fees," which are technically taxes under the Constitution. And that's a problem, because the Constitution says that ALL taxes must originate in the House, and the members of the House Ways and Means Committee are jealous of their prerogatives.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/-201012-1.html

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate’s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

By pre-empting the House’s tax-writing authority, Senate Democrats appear to have touched off a power struggle with members of their own party in the House. The Senate passed the bill Tuesday, sending it to the House, but House Democrats are expected to use a procedure known as “blue slipping” to block the bill, according to House and Senate GOP aides.

If the bill IS blue-slipped, that means the House must make changes to the bill to pass it, which means the bill has to be re-approved by the Senate. Which leaves Senate leader Harry Reid two basic choices. He may simply decide there isn't enough time and drop the issue until the new Congress convenes next year. It's not a controversial bill, as many Republicans voted in favor of it, so he doesn't have much to lose by doing that. On the other hand, he may decide to push it through during the lame duck session. The problem is that they already have so much to do that they'd need to limit debate in order to fit it in, which means he'd need a unanimous consent agreement to limit that debate.


After it passed, the Democrats sent out numerous press releases trumpeting the passage of this law. "See," they seemed to scream over and over again, "we CAN accomplish things!" Oops.

The debacle could prove to be a major embarrassment for Senate Democrats, who sought Tuesday to make the relatively unknown bill a major political issue by sending out numerous news releases trumpeting its passage.

Perhaps the real message they sent was this: "We can pass bills IN SPITE OF the Constitution... watch this!"

I mean, really. This isn't some obscure provision of the Constitution of which Senators weren't aware, this is a major part of the Constitution that they live with every day that they're in session. I reiterate... Oops.

This should serve as a stark example of how little our Senators care about the Constitution. And the only reason the House cares is because the Senate stepped on their toes!

This could get messy...