In looking at the U.S. House vote that was just enough to pass the Democratic leadership’s health insurance reform bill (a 220-215 margin), you could say that the votes of three men with almost no influence in Congress, elected from districts thousands of miles apart, were what made the difference between victory and defeat.
Two of the affirmative votes were cast by Democrats who had been members of the House for only a day or so. Bill Owens won a House seat last Tuesday in upstate New York that had been Republican since the Civil War, thanks to a schism between the GOP establishment and the party’s right-wingers over the Republican nominee. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and other GOP figures effectively pushed the Republican candidate out of the race in favor of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman — who was then defeated by Owens.
On the other side of the country that election day, a vacated House seat was up for grabs in California. Although the district is generally Democratic-leaning, pre-election polls showed that Lt. Gov. John Garamendi was facing a tough challenge from Republican David Harmer. Garamendi won on Nov. 3, but only drew 52 percent of the vote.
Interestingly, you heard a lot of spin on the talk shows last week about how the Nov. 3 elections were a “backlash” against Barack Obama’s Marxist excesses and provided “proof” that Democrats were dead in the water as we head into the 2010 election cycle. In fact, in the only two races where federal offices were involved and where healthcare reform was a salient issue, Democrats Owens and Garamendi won.
Finally, we come to the Republican in this affair, Ahn “Joseph” Cao (prononunced “gow”) from a New Orleans-based district. Cao is an interesting anomaly in the U.S. House, as he is the only Republican House member who is both non-caucasian and born outside the U.S. (his family emigrated to America from Vietnam). Cao’s district is heavily black and Democratic, and he won his 2008 race (with less than 50 percent of the vote) only because the incumbent, William Jefferson, was a sleazbag crook who was eventually convicted on public corruption charges.
In his first few months as a congressman, Cao did some very un-Republican things. He was one of only five Republicans to vote for Obama’s supplemental appropriation for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, even though he was heavily pressured by GOP leaders to vote against it. Cao took the radical position that a congressman should vote for legislation that benefits his constitutents (the spending bill contained funds for Gulf Coast restoration work needed in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita) rather than try for a perfect score on some right-wing organization’s check list. Cao was also one of only seven Republicans who voted for the resolution of disapproval against Rep. Joe Wilson for screaming “you lie” during a speech by Obama.
House Republican leaders like Virginia’s Eric Cantor boasted that “not one Republican would approve the Democrats’ health care bill.” When the votes were actually tallied, however, things turned out a little differently. Here’s how Politico’s Jonathan Allen described it:
There was a bit of visual drama on the House floor Saturday night, with Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) cozying up to Cao to try to keep a unified Republican line against the bill. Cao, in a move courteous to GOP leaders who wanted to force as many Democrats as possible to cast “yes” votes — and preserving his options — waited until the other side had posted the 218 votes necessary for passage before casting his yea.
“At the end of the day, I had to make a decision of conscience based on the needs of the people in my district,” Cao said in explaining his yes vote.
Owens, Garamendi, and Cao collectively are as close as you can get to having zero clout in Congress. But without their votes, the healthcare bill would not have passed – it would have fallen one vote short of the 218 needed for a House majority.
The right-wingers, who include our blogging colleague Erick Erickson, are already shouting themselves red-faced over the vote and claiming that Owens “broke a promise” on the healthcare bill.
Let’s look at what Owens actually said while campaigning for his House seat. In an Oct. 30 debate, held four days before the election, Owens was asked if he would support the healthcare reform bill that had been released by the House leadership earlier in the week. Here’s what Owens replied:
I believe that moving towards this legislation is very appropriate. I think that the type or the form of public options included in this bill is reasonable. It is not one that allows people to move to the government option if they already have health insurance coverage, so it is not going to control a significant segment of the population. What it will do, though, is deal again with those who do not have coverage and will eliminate this uncompensated care problem that we have, which is very significant for health care providers.
When he was asked a followup question about his support of a public option, Owens said the public option in the House legislation seemed “reasonable.”
Erickson, of course, is free to say whatever he wants, but I think a rational person who has a reality-based view of life and a reasonable grasp of the English language would agree with me that Owens clearly indicated during his campaign that he supported the healthcare bill. To say that Owens broke a promise on healthcare is about as reality-based as insisting that the sun rises in the west every morning.
The House vote obviously is no indicator of what will happen in the Senate. I predict we will be returning to this issue many times in the next few months.
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