Let's Review Regular Order

Regular order includes committee markups, hearing from witnesses, a Congressional Budget Office score, discussing with constituents, and allowing all Members and the public to review the bill text. But Republicans are not following regular order under TrumpCare. For weeks, 13 male Senators have been meeting in secret to negotiate a bill and reports indicate they now have a draft. Yet, they won’t release the text. From Axios:

“Senate Republicans are working to finish their draft health care bill, but have no plans to publicly release it, according to two senior Senate GOP aides.”

“’We aren't stupid,’ said one of the aides.”

“Republicans are sure to release the bill at some point, but it's unclear when— and they want to vote on it in the next three weeks, before the July 4 recess.”

Man, where have we heard this before? Oh right, when House Republicans considered their TrumpCare bill in a similar manner – hiding the bill behind closed doors and then marking it up in committee without hearings, without witnesses, and without a CBO score. It hasn’t gone over well with constituents since House Republicans passed their bill, so Senate Republicans are only fooling themselves if they think this is going to work out for them.