Nov

Well, which is it, Congressman?

[U.S. Rep. Phil] Roe [R-TN] also said he does not think another Democrat whose district borders his, Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., of Western North Carolina, will vote for the bill.

I’m sure your doubts stem from your desire for a single-payer system. Or maybe you haven’t heard from enough of your constituents.

Is your number still (202) 225-6401? It is? Just checking.

UPDATE: 5:44pm and Shuler has apparently voted against the rules of debate, which means – since the anti-choice Stupak Amendment will be part of that debate – that even having the opportunity to deny insurance coverage for abortions to consumers buying health insurance on the new exchanges wasn’t enough to get his vote. Would a vote in favor of health care reform really have endangered him to that extent?

UPDATE: Shuler votes yes on the Stupak amendment, and no on final passage, though one hopes he received permission to vote no once it became clear that the bill would pass without him. (At least he didn’t vote for the Republican substitute.) Next time, Congressman, please write your own bill so we know exactly what you stand for. I guess, too, we’ll see how you vote once it comes back from conference.

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8 Comments

Tom Sullivan
November 7th, 2009 at 1:20 pm

1:12 p.m. Steny Hoyer (and a gaggle of leading Dems) just spoke to the press in favor of the House bill. My bet is that — unless they have surplus votes laying about — Shuler will vote the way Hoyer does.

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Doug Gibson
November 7th, 2009 at 2:02 pm

Thanks, Tom. That’s good news. But we’ve got some mixed signals elsewhere. Apparently Jim Cooper (D-TN) is going to vote for the bill, but John Tanner (D-TN) isn’t. Those are the two Blue Dogs I would nominate “most likely to vote the same way as Heath Shuler,” so I’m not going to make a prediction one way or the other.

Shuler has done the right thing before. I hope he’ll do it again this time.

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Tom Sullivan
November 7th, 2009 at 11:36 pm

Shuler votes no, along with McIntyre and Kissell.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll887.xml

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Tom Sullivan
November 7th, 2009 at 11:40 pm

Kucinich too.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll887.xml

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Jonathan
November 8th, 2009 at 12:33 am

I am really annoyed by Shuler’s failure to vote for this bill. I feel pretty confident that it was not a principled stand for something better given that the Congressman has failed to show any leadership on this issue.

It is not that I am a big believer in representative democracy. I don’t usually expect to feel “represented” by folks in Congress, but this time it would have been nice to feel that way a little… feel some connection to this vote.

At some point I was open to the possibility that Shuler was really interested in trying to influence the bill to include more assurance that coverage of rural folks would not decrease, or that he really wanted to work to address issues like prevention, etc but it seems clear that these were all just red herrings. Otherwise how at the end of the day (literally) could the Congressman not vote to support extendeding health care to more people in his district? This was no principled opposition…. it just seems well… lame and sad.

I certainly don’t feel betrayed… my expectations my were not very high… but I honestly am disappointed.

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