Matt Yglesias

14 Responses to “What Was Gained With the Stupak Amendment”

1. Jason L. Says:
   November 11th, 2009 at 1:33 pm

   Dem leaders in the House no doubt considered compromises other than the Stupak Amendment. The choice is not one between the non-passage of a Stupakless bill and the passage of a Stupacked bill; what were the discarded alternatives?

   Or did Bart Stupak just throw his amendment onto the floor, and no one could stop him? Can someone who knows a lot about House procedure and rules explain?

2. hugo Says:
   November 11th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

   And some of the “no” votes came from liberals like Dennis Kucinich and Brian Baird who might be relatively easy to persuade to vote yes on an un-Stupaked conference report.

   Kucinich (a former pro-lifer, albeit one with an 100% NARAL score) might vote yes on a conference report bill if his vote was needed, I suppose but I can’t see how Stupak would have much of anything to do with it. He didn’t cite the amendment at all in his statement “Why I Voted No.” His problem was expanding the for-profit insurance model, which he wants to greatly reduce, if not do away with completely.

   I have to say, I’m in no way unbiased on the issue, but I think it would be bad optics for Dems to sink the health-care bill because of Stupak. If it comes to that, they might be better off announcing it “doesn’t have the votes” and just walking away.

3. Anandakos Says:
   November 11th, 2009 at 1:49 pm

   Brian Baird is my Representative. He sent out an email to folks in the district detailing why he was going to vote “No”. It is because the CBO has not analyzed the potential impact of the plan on Medicare premiums.

   That’s a pretty wonky objection, but he’s quite adamant about voting against anything that hasn’t been fully investigated. He voted against the Stupak amendment, but I don’t think its removal would cause him to vote “Yes” on the final bill unless his objection is also answered.

4. Hector Says:
   November 11th, 2009 at 2:42 pm

   Re: Kucinich (a former pro-lifer, albeit one with an 100% NARAL score)

   The emphasis being on the word FORMER.

   Kucinich was pro-life right up until just before he decided to run for President. Which, given that he had approximately the same chance of winning the presidency as a purple cow, strikes me as a remarkably dumb thing to do. If you must sell your soul, then at least make sure the devil is keeping his end of the bargain.

5. Adam Says:
   November 11th, 2009 at 2:52 pm

   Or did Bart Stupak just throw his amendment onto the floor, and no one could stop him? Can someone who knows a lot about House procedure and rules explain?

   Pelosi (via her proxy, the rules committee) has wide discretion to allow any, all, or no amendments before a vote. They saw trouble coming with Stupak and so were apparently going to allow a vote only on the Republican substitute amendment, so they could tell him sorry, no amendments of any sort. That’s why Weiner didn’t get a vote on single payer.

   Sometime late Friday, it apparently became clear that if Stupak didn’t get a vote the bill was simply going to fail – it only had around 210 votes, no matter what. Thus Pelosi had to make a last-minute switch to allow a vote on Stupak to get the last 10 votes. I’m fairly sure if it were at all possible not to do so she would have found a way.

6. Adam Says:
   November 11th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

   If you must sell your soul, then at least make sure the devil is keeping his end of the bargain.

   Have you seen his wife? Maybe that was the devil’s end of the bargain.

7. Hector Says:
   November 11th, 2009 at 2:55 pm

   Adam,

   How do you know Mrs. Kucinich is pro-choice?

8. Adam Says:
   November 11th, 2009 at 2:59 pm

   How do you know Mrs. Kucinich is pro-choice?

   I don’t. I was referring to the fact that she’s stunningly beautiful and for the elf-like Dennis to wind up with her might have required some divine intervention.

9. Miles Says:
   November 11th, 2009 at 3:09 pm

   This is why I’m not mad at Pelosi:

   Without Stupak, there are 209 ayes, so you need 9 more for passage. There are 6-10 progressive nays who will presumably vote yes after conference if they need to.

   However, progressive giveaways only take you to 215 or so; you need a couple of moderate giveaways. So, to pass the bill, you throw in the biggest rollback of freedom of choice in the Roe era in order to get it off the floor.

   About 30 of the ayes on Stupak were from 100% pro-choice cynics trying to get the bill off the floor–bear in mind that it failed in a voice vote first. They were making sure it passed, so that the whole bill would pass.

   Now, Stupak’s a poison pill–it’s the biggest rollback in the right to choose in the Roe era! So, it can’t be in the actual law; the whole women’s caucus will vote it down, or else the Democratic party will implode.

   So, they strip it in conference, get those 6-10 progs to vote aye, then give out purple nurples to the anti-choice Dems to make sure they stay on board.

   The bigger our hissy fit now, the more effective are those purple nurples.

10. Jason L. Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 3:15 pm

    I don’t. I was referring to the fact that she’s stunningly beautiful and for the elf-like Dennis to wind up with her might have required some divine intervention.

    Reminds me of Sarko.

11. Jason L. Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    If Miles @9 is right, then it seems like pro-choice progressives raising a ruckus is, in game theory terms, the dominant strategy.

12. beckya57 Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 5:05 pm

    Sorry, Matt, but you just put on a show of how egregiously you don’t know WA politics. Go take another look at Brian Baird’s record. My husband and I used to be supporters of his (all 3 of us are psychologists) but he lost us years ago after repeated Bush enablings. He’s no liberal.

13. DAS Says:
    November 12th, 2009 at 6:49 am

    Do Dems. realize how bad the Stupak ammendment will be politically?

    If the final bill from the conference has Stupak’s language in it and the Dems kill it, in 2010 the GOP will run on “Dems. are so obsessed with fetus-killing that they killed their own health care reform bill to ensure that women can keep killing fetuses” — even moderates who are supportive of abortion will find this quease-inducing.

    OTOH, if the bill does pass with Stupak’s language, it won’t be long before the language becomes a “reason” why insurers will deny coverage for an abortion. A woman will need an abortion for reasons not allowed under Stupak’s language and suffer major morbidity. Then the GOP will run against “Dems got government involved in health care and government involvement prevented women from receiving the health care they needed”.

    Why can’t Dems, now in the frickin’ majority, manage to pass progressive legislation without shooting themselves in the foot? The Dems have a bigger mandate — and that being a mandate for progressive change — than Gingrich and CO did in 1994, and yet the GOP somehow managed to move its agenda along. Why can’t the Dems?

14. colby Says:
    November 12th, 2009 at 10:22 am

    Stupak himself indicated that if the amendment was defeated, his people would still vote for the final bill. It seems they just wanted an opportunity to publicly hate on a Constitutional right.

    So while I have no reason to doubt Clyburn’s number, I think you could’ve found ten votes without Stupak in the bill. Figure 3-5 of Stupak’s people vote for HCR even if the Amendment failed, figure Kucinich and Massa come back if their vote is really needed, figure another 3-5 Pelosi had in the “BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY” case, or another 3-5 she could brow beat into line, and boom, no need to give the Conservative base one of it’s top goals with a bow on top.

    Academic at this point, but it probably means you can strip Stupak in conference with little fuss (after conference, you’ll also have the “voted for it before he voted against it” club to wield on anyone thinking about straying).