A few weeks ago, we highlighted a long list of incumbents in marginal districts that voted against State Children’s Health Insurance bill in the House. Today, I want to bring to attention all the Republican lawmakers who listened to their moral conscience and changed their votes to override the President’s veto of the S-CHIP bill that will expand health care to millions of needy children:
| District | Incumbent | Party | PVI |
|---|---|---|---|
Oh, that’s right. There WEREN’T ANY. In fact, the only vote changes on the Republican side of the aisle since last time were that Rep. Peter King (NY-03), who voted for the package originally, skipped town and failed to cast a vote against his beloved President today, and Babs Cubin (WY-AL), Wally Herger (CA-02), and Ted Poe (TX-02) actually found the time to show up and vote against children today. Bravo, folks.
So let’s take the opportunity to tally up the following Republican’ts occupying districts with a PVI of R+6 or weaker who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with George Bush today and against children and families who deserve health coverage:
| District | Incumbent | Party | PVI |
|---|---|---|---|
| NJ-03 | Jim Saxton | R | D+3.3 |
| MI-09 | Joe Knollenberg | R | R+0.1 |
| OH-01 | Steve Chabot | R | R+0.5 |
| IL-11 | Jerry Weller | R | R+1.1 |
| MI-11 | Thaddeus McCotter | R | R+1.2 |
| MI-08 | Mike Rogers | R | R+1.9 |
| WI-01 | Paul Ryan | R | R+2.2 |
| MI-07 | Tim Walberg | R | R+2.5 |
| MN-02 | John Kline | R | R+2.7 |
| IL-06 | Pete Roskam | R | R+2.9 |
| FL-08 | Ric Keller | R | R+3.0 |
| NC-08 | Robin Hayes | R | R+3.0 |
| FL-24 | Tom Feeney | R | R+3.1 |
| NY-26 | Tom Reynolds | R | R+3.5 |
| MI-04 | Dave Camp | R | R+4.0 |
| CA-26 | Dave Dreier | R | R+4.1 |
| FL-07 | John Mica | R | R+4.1 |
| FL-15 | Dave Weldon | R | R+4.1 |
| FL-09 | Gus Bilirakis | R | R+4.3 |
| AL-03 | Mike Rogers | R | R+4.3 |
| FL-18 | Ileana Ros-Lehtinen | R | R+4.3 |
| NJ-05 | Scott Garrett | R | R+4.4 |
| FL-25 | Mario Diaz-Balart | R | R+4.4 |
| IL-16 | Don Manzullo | R | R+4.5 |
| CA-50 | Brian Bilbray | R | R+4.6 |
| IL-13 | Judy Biggert | R | R+4.7 |
| IL-14 | Dennis Hastert | R | R+4.8 |
| MO-06 | Sam Graves | R | R+4.8 |
| VA-04 | Randy Forbes | R | R+4.9 |
| FL-04 | Ginny Brown-Waite | R | R+5.1 |
| MN-06 | Michele Bachmann | R | R+5.1 |
| NY-29 | Randy Kuhl | R | R+5.2 |
| FL-12 | Adam Putnam | R | R+5.3 |
| NJ-11 | Rodney Frelinghuysen | R | R+5.5 |
| VA-05 | Virgil Goode | R | R+5.6 |
| NM-02 | Steve Pearce | R | R+5.7 |
| VA-02 | Thelma Drake | R | R+5.9 |
| AZ-03 | John Shadegg | R | R+5.9 |
| CA-44 | Ken Calvert | R | R+6.0 |
| CA-46 | Dana Rohrabacher | R | R+6.0 |
Let these names be known now — they are the fringe minority that’s siding with an unpopular president against a bi-partisan bill championed by conservative Republican Senators like Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch. Shame on all of them–including the long list that this chart misses. Dishonorable mentions go to Democrats Jim Marshall and Gene Taylor, who both occupy steeply Republican districts, but who both need a spine transplant.
Russ Warner has been hitting Dreier hard on S-CHIP.
Over at Peters for Congress, you can participate in the Red Wagon Campaign: print out a wagon, color it in with your child, and send it to Knollenberg’s office to show the overwhelming support for SCHIP.
Claiming again “the bill includes irresponsible provisions that would overextend the program to provide benefits to adults, illegal aliens, and families with annual incomes up to $83,000”. Repeatedly the lies over and over again isn’t going to win the argument for her.
There’s like 70+% of Republicans who support this program, so I don’t see why it should have taken much of a spine to support SCHIP. I fail to see why opposing it gains these guys anything.
Can you really imagine bragging in campaign commercials about how they bucked their party to torpedo health insurance coverage for 10 million kids? Yes, there’s some value to them in showing “independence” from the Democrats but there’s nothing helping them by opposing a bill that everybody – not just Democrats – support.