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Finally, an important difference on the issues between Coakley and Capuano [2x updated]

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At last, it seems that a real, important, current issue has emerged on which Martha Coakley and Mike Capuano have a major disagreement.

U.S. Senate candidate Martha Coakley says she wouldn’t have voted for the health care bill that passed the House over the weekend because of an amendment restricting abortion funding.

Rep. Michael Capuano, another Democrat vying to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, voted against the so-called Stupak-Pitts Amendment but in favor of the overall health care bill that narrowly passed the House late Saturday.

There you have it (Coakley made her statement on WTKK today – the audio is here, starting at about 20:30).  Let’s assume that the Senate is unsuccessful in removing the Stupak-Pitts amendment from the bill, so that when the final bill emerges from conference, the restriction on abortion funding is still in there (I think that is a likely outcome).  The vote in both chambers will be very close.  UPDATE: in response to BMG’s request for comment, Alan Khazei said that “I would have voted with Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Capuano for Universal Health Care, which only passed by 5 votes.  If the House Democrats listened to Martha Coakley, our best chance for Universal Health Care in 62 years would now be dead.”  He further stated that

If the final bill that emerges from the House-Senate conference committee includes the Stupak amendment, I will reluctantly vote for it in order to achieve the important goal of Universal Health Care.  I will then work day and night with pro-choice groups and citizen activists to change that legislation and elect members of Congress who will preserve a woman’s right to choose no matter their income level.

FURTHER UPDATE: In a statement to BMG, Steve Pagliuca’s campaign confirmed that he, too, would vote “yes” in the Senate for a health care bill that contains something like Stupak-Pitts.

So, as far as we can tell right now:

Capuano [UPDATE: and Khazei and Pagliuca] would vote “yes”;

Coakley would vote “no.”

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE: Of course, that’s all outdated now.  See this post for the current situation.

So there you go.  Do you go along with a disagreeable restriction on abortion funding in order to move through a major health care overhaul?  Or do you see that restriction as so offensive that it contaminates the bill to the point that you cannot support it?

IMHO, this is the most important difference on the issues that has yet appeared.  I have inquired of the Khazei and Pagliuca campaigns as to their position; will update if I hear anything.

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    • “I would have voted against the Stupak-Pitts amendment.  While I oppose the inclusion of the provision in the bill, casting a no vote would be to side with Joe Lieberman and the insurance companies that want to kill healthcare reform.   I would have been a yes vote on the landmark health care reform bill that passed the House yesterday.”

      <

      p>(Disclosure – I work for the Pagliuca campaign.)

      • and Martha Coakley would have voted “No” on Stupak (as Capuano did and Pagliuca would have); and Martha would have voted “No” on HR3962 while Capuano voted “Yes” and Pagliuca would have voted “yes”

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        p>The Globe’s take: “Coakley’s stance is principled but self-defeating”

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        p>

        GLOBE EDITORIAL
        November 10, 2009

        MARTHA COAKLEY should indeed be angry over the provision in the House-approved health-reform bill that denies abortion coverage to the 36 million people who would receive subsidized insurance. But her position that she would have voted against the bill – thereby possibly denying any coverage to those 36 million people – is self-defeating.

        Coakley, the attorney general running to fill the remainder of Senator Edward Kennedy’s seat, showed uncharacteristic passion over the issue. During the Senate campaign, in which she’s the presumed front-runner, she’s been flat and cautious to the point of inciting boredom. So her emphatic declaration in a radio interview yesterday morning that she would have opposed the House bill over abortion coverage offered a welcome point of distinction. (Read on)

  2. Is there an audio clip to the effect of “I wouldn’t have voted for the health care bill…”?  Because Capuano could turn that into a pretty useful attack ad (without, of course, the “…”).  

    <

    p>Will this affect all the labor union endorsements she’s received?

  3. I’ve heard Mike Capuano’s explanation on how he goes about deciding to vote for or against a bill like this. If I get any of this incorrect, it’s my fault, not Mike’s.

    <

    p>Beyond actually reading the bill, he gets it into the hands of experts he trusts and whose opinions he values. He get their feedback and processes it, and in the end has to decide whether passage of the bill makes things better overall. In some cases it’s a clear decision; in the toughest cases, it’s 51% good, 49% bad, or the other way around. But you have to vote 100% yes or no, and sometimes you have to vote for that 49% you don’t like to move things forward.

    <

    p>So I understand and trust how Capuano will deal with this in the Senate. I don’t have the same understanding with the other three candidates.

    • I think it is safe to assume that none of our representatives in Congress actually read most of the legislation they vote on. Their staffs read some or all of it.

      <

      p>Which is the way it should be: there is too much legislation for any individual to read all of it and still get anything done. That is what staffs are for.

  4. Shouldn’t you ask Mike Capuano how he would vote as a senator facing the same situation?  

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    p>We don’t know whether congressmen have been advised of a plan to remove Stupak in the Senate or in conference.  Here’s what make me think there is one.  Saturday, on the floor of the House, Rep John Boehner repeatedly demanded that the Dems  give him a guarantee that the Stupak Amendment would make it through conference. It’s clear Boehner thought the fix was in.  

    <

    p>Is Mike’s vote in the house really the same as how he would vote in the Seante?  I don’t think so. You should. ask.  

      • if Cap says he would to pass HCR in the senate with Stupak amendment attached then I think you will have identified an important difference.  

        • if the bill that emerges from conference and is presented to the House and Senate for final passage is exactly the same as the House bill — including both the public option and the abortion funding restriction — and if Martha/Mike/Steve/Alan is in the Senate, would she/he vote “yes” or “no”?

          <

          p>Will update the post with results as they come in.

          • Good work on this. Needless to say, rooting out a potentially major difference between the candidates on the major issue of the day is a key find.

      • I was watching the debate when Boehner got up and asked for a guarantee that in conference the Stupak amendment would be supported by the House conferees, and what he was told, more or less, was “John, you know that I can’t give you that guarantee, since you’ve been in conference yourself and know how it works.”  

    • Does all legislation die at the end of the calendar year? I know congressional sessions. If Senate approval carried over into 2010, would it be constitutional for Capuano to have TWO votes. Just opening a can of worms. But sincerely curious.

      • 1 in the house, 1 in the senate, and one on the bill that comes out of committee.  I think the answer is yes, he can vote in all votes in the chamber to which he’s been admitted.  

        • A more extreme example is that Chuck Schumer of NY was on the House Judiciary Committee that facilitated the impeachment of Clinton in late 1998, even after he was elected to the Senate that November.  Then as a Senator he sat in judgement of the impeachment charges which carried over not just from the previous session, but the previous Congress.

  5. So Capuano would vote for a larded up health bill even though it will harm his home state which already provides more comprehensive coverage and Coakley will vote against something based on a core principle.  

    • If you want HCR to lose, vote Coakley; if you want it to pass, vote Capuano?

      <

      p>Not sure that’s the framework her campaign wants in a December special dominated by D supervoters…

      • If yoy want publicy funded birth solutions for women who can’t close their legs, vote Coal;ey. If you want a bit of morality, vote Capuano. I thank the both of them for publicly polarizing 50% of the electorate.

  6. Add to the Globe article:

    <

    p>

    I find it interesting and amazing and she would have stood alone among all the pro-choice members of Congress, all the members of the Massachusetts delegation, Capuano said in an interview. She claims she wants to honor Ted Kennedy’s legacy on health care. It’s pretty clear that a major portion of this was his bill.

    If she’s not going to vote for any bill that’s not perfect, she wouldn’t vote for any bill in history, Capuano added. She would have voted against Medicare, the civil rights bill. Every advancement this country has made has been based on bills that had flaws in them … Realism is something you have to deal with in Washington.

    • This is how a “giddy” Capuano supposedly described Coakley’s position, according to the Viser piece. Seems like kind of a cynical/idiotic way for him to describe the conundrum. Is it possible to want to win too badly?

      • At this point I’d be curious on how Coakley responds.  If she backpedals then it raises some integrity concerns.

    • than in imperfection in the bill. It’s a direct affront at a women’s status in society, sponsored by one who pays a reduced rent in a Washington house, owned by an evangelical and registered as a “church”.

      • this amendment will not be present in the final bill.

        <

        p>Martha Coakley is again demonstrating her naivete. This exchange demonstrates why I believe that Mike Capuano is the better candidate, by far.

  7. Probably (hopefully) it is just a miscue on her part. What is crucial to know, however, is whether she really is committed to vote against a final Senate bill that contained the Stupak amendment. Would she filibuster the bill? Would she simply try to eliminate the Stupak amendment but, if it fails, still come around to vote for the bill?

    <

    p>I’m agnostic between Capuano and Coakley in this race (originally leaning towards Coakley), but if she would really sabotage the health care bill because of the inclusion of this amendment (which I find hard to believe), then I don’t see how any progressive could vote for her. She needs a chance to walk this back.

  8. This is making me re-think my support of Coakley. As I wrote to my own representative, the dubious Stephen Lynch, I regard the votes on the Health Care bill as maybe the most important votes on a domestic policy issue since the votes on the Bush tax cuts. I’m a little incredulous to learn that Coakley says she would have been on the wrong side of this. Legislating is messy and imperfect, and you have to be able to accommodate folks in the caucus enough to get a bill passed. I wonder whether Coakley will rethink her comment, which apparently was made live and on-the-air.

    • -voted Yea on Stupak Amendment and surprisingly
      -voted Yea on HR3962 even though the cost came in at $894 billion over 10 years

      <

      p>Does his abortion position make him vulnerable to be primaried? Will the unions forgive him for making us wait until Saturday for an explanation of his position on HCR?  

  9. I think the Stupak Amendment is odious.  However, I also think it would be easier to extract it in conference or in a later vote than it would be to revive health care reform after killing the Stupaked Bill.

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    p>I think a lot of this is posturing from a safe distance, but it is a surprise to me.   I wonder how many Democrats in a primary against a Congressperson are saying that right now — probably enough to get the “yea” total below 218.  I give Coakley for not playing it exclusively safe at this late date, but it’s quite a risky trade-off.  

    • If Coakley gets credit for taking risky, principled stand for upholding abortion rights and abortion funding by announcing her would-be opposition to the House, Stupaked amendment, what statement is she making about the members of the House prochoice Democratic caucus, which I believe unanimously supported the bill with the Stupak amendment?

      <

      p>Is she suggesting that these House liberal are unprincipled legislators, too ready to sacrifice reproductive rights and abortion financing in favor of a bill to reform  health care in America?

      <

      p>Since Coakley is running for the U.S. Senate and not the House, the more appropriate question is whether she would vote for cloture on a Senate filibuster of bill the Stupak amendment language and for a conference report that retained the Stupak amendment.

      <

      p>Martha Coakley must have misspoke on this issue; I can’t believe she actually meant to imply that she would have voted to kill the best chance to expand health insurance access and reform health care in sixty years because of this  antiabortion amendment. If I am wrong, then Capuano, Khazei, and Paglicua finally have a distinguishable political issue to emphasize in their stalled campaigns.  

      • I said she took a chance rather than just playing-it-safe, frontrunner style.  I don’t agree with her, but the fact that she was willing to make waves at a time when most candidates would be in full run-out-the-clock mode stuck out to me.  

        • Admiral Zumwalt is famously quoted as saying:

          If you’re not making waves, you’re not underway.

          <

          p>On this, I enthusiastically agree with you.

          <

          p>Surely, however, the direction of travel must count for something.

          <

          p>In the aftermath of this, she has not said that she “misspoke” — to the contrary, she has proudly proclaimed and repeated her stance (emphasis mine):

          Opening up a major fissure in the US Senate race, Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday that she opposes the landmark health care bill approved by the House Saturday because it contains a provision restricting federal funding for abortion.

          “To pretend that now the House has passed this bill is real progress – it’s at the expense of women’s access to reproductive rights,” Coakley said in an interview, after making similar comments yesterday morning on Boston radio station WTKK-FM.

          She said later at a campaign appearance in Worcester, “I refuse to acknowledge that this is the best we can do.”

          <

          p>She has not only blundered, she has compounded her blunder by defending it. This is the behavior of a defensive prosecutor, not a senator.

  10. This is a prime example of what I see as the major difference between Coakley and Capuano. It really boils down to Coakley’s lack of legislative experience versus Capuano’s familiarity with the realities of lawmaking. If Coakley thinks she’ll be able to serve in the Senate without ever having to compromise, she’s sorely mistaken.

    <

    p>Capuano realizes that securing much needed, widespread healthare refom is important enough to merit compromise. And he isn’t alone. Other progressive democratic lawmakers voted in favor of the bill as a whole while opposing that particular amendment. Niki Tsongas, who recently endorsed Coakley, voted the same way Capuano did. Louise Slaughter and Diane DeGette, the co-chairs of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, both voted for the healthcare bill despite reservations about the abortion amendment.

    <

    p>Claire McCaskill, a Democratic Senator from Missouri, pointed to the bill as an example of the challanges of working with a moderate democratic Congress. She said “we can’t just turn our back on the fact that the reason we are in majority is because states like Indiana and Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri, North Caroline and Virginia, sent Democrats to the Senate. McCaskill, who’s been strongly pro-choice throughout her career, also said she would support the bill.  

    <

    p>Personally, I think Coakley needs to get her priorities straight. I get that she’s counting on the woman vote. But we’re talking about significant healthcare reform that will benefit an enormous number of Americans. The amendment is objectionable, but it only restricts abortion coverage for governmentally subsidized insurance. Surely the benefits of the bill as a whole outweigh the setbacks of one amendment.

  11. Lurker from Marlborough, take my comments for whatever they’re worth…

    <

    p>I was uncertain who I would vote for in December. Generally I like both Coakley and Capuano and I couldn’t see any big difference between them. I honestly didn’t know how I would be able to make a decision. If she doesn’t back off this statement, I can now say for certain that I will vote for Martha Coakley in the primary. I understand that not all active Democrats would agree with me on this (much less the general electorate), but this kind of thing is EXACTLY what I want in a Congressperson.

    <

    p>Progressives for too long have been unwilling to play the game to move the goalposts. There was no substantive talk about single payer. There was little realistic conversation on Medicare +5. Meanwhile Olympia Snowe singlehandedly has the Senate considering triggers and the Blue Dogs got the coathanger amendment in the House bill. They accomplish this by threatening to walk away. It isn’t the way that I would ideally want to legislate, but it is the only way that seems to get results. I want progressives to get results because, honestly, they haven’t been able to do much other than move progressive goals that have become the vast majority of the mainstream.

    <

    p>I understand those who will argue that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, and I agree. But it is imperative that progressives not take options off the table. Loudly and vocally raising a ruckus is one way of moving the goalposts before being forced into a vote on a terrible situation like having to decide between not passing health care reform or passing it only with significant restrictions on women’s rights.

    <

    p>My worry is not that Martha Coakley will become Senator and vote against health care reform because of the Stupak coathanger amendment, but that she will become convinced that she has to moderate and compromise before she even gets to play the game.

    • I could see drawing this line in the sand for a final bill, but if this bill were killed in the House before it even got to conference committee, it would have been dead for the entire congressional session. We’ve have gone into 2010 with NOTHING to show on health insurance reform, one of the two or three biggest reasons America put Democrats in charge with an overwhelming majority in the first place. We’d have been slaughtered in 2010 and that would have meant no meaningful health insurance reform, for possibly decades.

      <

      p>Now, had she voted to move the bill to conference committee, but come out and said she would not vote for a final bill that included the anti-choice amendment, that would have given choice allies in the Senate and on the conference committee a lot of leverage to protect a women’s right to choose. That’s what she should have done and that’s what a great many pro-choice legislators are starting to do (Keith Olberman reported there’s a list of 40 just a few moments ago).

      <

      p>We shouldn’t put all the chips in until we need to. Every opportunity we have to get this right must be taken before we risk the entire thing. There’s a difference between being courageously principled and legislatively green (or even legislatively stupid). Voting to kill the bill because of one — even major — problem at this stage of the game could have been a disaster.

      <

      p>I honestly don’t believe Coakley would have done it; it’s just too easy for her to come out and say something like that while not actually being a member of Congress. If she were the Congressperson running for Senate, instead of Capuano, and her vote killed health insurance reform (or nearly did), her campaign would have instantly been over. No way she’d have done that, even if she says she would. It would have been such an utterly stupid thing to do that I don’t find her statement on the matter credible — it’s just campaign grandstanding.

  12. Herald/AP.  

    <

    p>Capuano makes a compelling argument.

    <

    p>

    Capuano, the only federal legislator in the field, voted against the so-called Stupak-Pitts Amendment but in favor of the overall bill. The amendment prohibits abortion coverage for any health insurance product subsidized in any way by the federal government.

    The amendment might not survive the Senate. Capuano told The Associated Press he will reconsider all facets of the bill when it comes up for a final House vote, perhaps by the end of the year.

    “That is a classic example of the differences between us in this race: I understand how to make real serious improvements in the issues that are important to me, in this case, health care,” he said. “I understand the process doesn’t stop on one vote.”

    Capuano noted that the bill won approval of every member of the Massachusetts House delegation, as well as every member of the chamber who identifies himself as an abortion-rights supporter.

  13. Press Release has the wrong date.  Nice touch.  

    <

    p>

    For Immediate Release: November 8, 2009

    Contact: Alex Zaroulis (617) 549-0358

    Attorney General Martha Coakley:  

    The House’s vote is in many ways a significant step toward the goal of health care reform. However, I am deeply disturbed that the House adopted the Stupak/Pitts amendment, which would deny millions of women access to reproductive services.  The inclusion of the Stupak/Pitts amendment violates the very intent of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for everyone.  I believe that the Senate has a responsibility to fix this by eliminating the provision in whatever reform legislation moves forward.

    <

    p>So how would you vote again?

    <

    p>Ladies and Gentleman, I believe she just stepped in it.

        • I see no way that this contradicts what David posted above… Coakley wants to vote for HCR, but she wants the coathanger amendment removed. If it isn’t then she won’t vote for HCR.

          <

          p>You can disagree with her reasoning, but it is entirely consistent. (I want to buy an American car, but I want a car that gets 45 mpg. If I can’t get an American car with 45 mpg, I will have to get an import.)

          • the house’s bill isn’t the end of debate. It’s like saying you got an import because you couldn’t find an American car with 45 mpg, but never did any research to find out about the Chevy Volt. We don’t know what’s going to be in the Senate bill and we don’t know what’s going to happen in the Conference Committee (both areas we could have greatly impacted), yet Martha Coakley says she would have voted to never let health insurance reform even get that far. She refused to even do the research to look into whether or not there’s going to be that metaphorical 45mpg car, to borrow your analogy.

      • John, I think the press release came out over the weekend, and then she made the statement about how she’d vote on the radio. So clearly this is important enough to her that she’s bringing the issue to the fore herself.

        <

        p>As a liberal Democrat who’s been disgusted with the mismanagement of the entire health care debate, I’m glad to see someone taking a stand for a core Democratic party principle. Yes, it would be great politically to get this thing passed, but this amendment would set the pro-choice movement back decades.

        <

        p>The shame of all of this is that Democratic leadership in the House even put their members in the position of choosing between health care reform and a woman’s right to choose.

        <

        p>So we know where Coakley stands now: she wants health care without violating her core beliefs. I don’t think we can say the same about Capuano at this point. But hey, at least he didn’t skip the vote this time…

        • That is what Mike Capuano did.  

          <

          p>However, successfully passing health care reform is also a core democratic principle.  Mike Capuano was for it; Coakley against.

          <

          p>Mike Capuano has been voting for core democratic principles in the Congress for 10 years – against the war in Iraq, against the Patriot Act, the list goes on and on.

          <

          p>He gets it.

    • Unfair for me to ask you that…damn right it is.  But you are advocating for a bill that will do just that.

      • Come on Frank, what am I advocating?  

        <

        p>Providing 36 million people with health care coverage that does not include abortion, with the other option, leaving them with no coverage at all (that includes abortion as well Frank).

        <

        p>I do fully support abortion coverage and am pro-choice.  No way in hell should this be over, but Coakley’s statement on WTTK is just nuts.

        <

        p>

        • Four weeks before an election, thoughtful debate falls victim to the desire to win an election.  That means distortion trumps reason.  There is a implication that Coakley is the “anti health care” candidate.  I think that is as unfair to her, as I think it is unfair to suggest you are anti-choice.  

          • I think I’m more cynical.  I really am unsure what I believe are Coakley’s true intentions.

            <

            p>Sometimes I see it as a candidate trying to pander to core voting block and in doing so says something that provides an opening to her opponents.

            <

            p>I’m really unsure what to make of Coakley.  She is the front runner, she didn’t need to do much other than coast.  But maybe not, maybe Cap gained some ground and Coakley needed to solidify a voting block.

            <

            p>I don’t know.

            • Last week if you’d have asked me who I wanted to win Id have said Capuano because he is the best candidate out of the four but Coakley would have been fine by me. Now I see she can’t be. I would be reluctant to support her if she won now-I would likely stay home or vote third party. She is clearly putting her pro-abortion principles over her pro-health care principles and thinks the few hundred maybe the few thousand women that want abortions that can’t be covered trump the 36 million that would be insured. That to me is ludicrous. She also supports overturning the Hyde Amendment entirely. She is not defending the status quo, she is clearly a partisan for the pro-abortion side of the debate and this shows us where her priorities are. For some of us Democrats that oppose abortion on demand but can’t stand illegal wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and want universal healthcare, Coakley has just shown that abortion rights are the only provisions of the Democratic platform worth defending, the only thing she cares about as a candidate, the only thing she will defend as a Seantor. She would have joined 39 conservative Democrats in defeating the most important health care legislation in two decades and handing this President and the Congress a massive defeat going into 2010 all to make an ultimately symbolic point about how much abortion rights matter to her. I say its symbolic since there is no way her ideal bill-healthcare reform with abortion coverage-could possibly pass in any Congress let alone this one. It shows us that this principle trumps all others and that she lacks basic political instincts. Someone once said a gaffe is when a candidate says what they really think, and I believe this gaffe reveals a lot about a Senator Coakley. I can no longer support her as a second choice Capuano has to win this primary.  

  14. How is this going to affect the race?  We all know that Coakley has a sizeable lead in the polls, so does this do anything to shake it up?  Are there supporters of Coakley who are now looking at the other candidates in a serious way?

    <

    p>How do the other candidates use this to their advantage?  Can they attack Coakley for standing up for women’s reproductive rights when this race has been a dash to the left?

    <

    p>How can the AG justify voting against the most comprehensive healthcare reform in 60 years?  

    • …because without the Stupak Amendment it was a pretty mediocre piece of reform (boondoggle to insurance companies who will be smart enough to render the “public option” useless in 5 years) and limiting a woman access to needed health care was to high a price to ask to pass this mediocre bill.

      • Beyond the rhetoric, she is seriously suggesting that her and Dennis Kucinich would be the only non-conservaDems to vote against the bill?  Even EMILY’s list’s most influential members didn’t vote against the bill.

  15. Finally the three Dwarfs see an area from which to attack Snow White.  But Capuano and others can’t get to giddy as they recut new ads attacking Martha as “anti-health care reform”.  Martha will dig her heels in and declare a strong line in the sand, “I will not limit the right of woman to choose” and starts running an ad that Cap and the boys are anti-choice and she can loudly proclaim that Cap just voted to limit woman from seeking needed access to health care services.  Is that a ad war that Cap and others really want to have?

    <

    p>Given that he is so far down in the polls, the answer is “probably” and we’ll have real nasty ad wars of half-truths and mudslinging.  

    <

    p>Interesting that during the debate, the candidates were asked in what circumstances would they oppose Pres. Obama and Martha said anything that limited the right to choose.  Cap scoffed that such a thing would never happen.  Well, two weeks later we have a very similar decision:  Health Care Reform or A Women’s Right to Choose.  

    <

    p>Personally (and to remind folks, I’m voting for Khazei) this is one of those tough votes I can not hold against any candidate.  It’s the political equivalence of asking, if you had no other choice, would you save your first born or second born child in a fire.  Either way the consequences are horrendous.  But this is an election and there is no time or opportunity for calm, rational thought on this subject.

    • I don’t think one needs to “hold it against” someone, but I do think this is exactly the kind of thing that tells us what kind of Senator we are electing.  Some think the vote is an easy call: yes, of course you vote for health care reform, and you try to fix Stupak later.  Others think it’s equally easy: of course you vote “no,” otherwise you’re sacrificing women’s rights at the altar of health care reform.

      <

      p>But I do think that (1) there’s a respectable chance that something like Stupak will remain in the bill; and (2) the vote in the Senate will be very close.  So the future of health care reform may genuinely be at stake here.

      • …not a easy picture, no matter what.  So David, are you “pro health care” or “anti choice”?  Sure that is like, “when did you stop beating your wife”, but this is how campaign politics frame things.  Given the lack of backbone/unity the Dems have shown, a poison pill has been planted into the HC bill and I agree, it may be in danger and it may infact cause a deep chasm in the Democratic coalition.  

        • My point is that we’re entitled to know which choice the candidates would make in these circumstances, because there’s a good chance that the winner will actually have to make that choice, and a lot is riding on it either way.  A “well I’d have to wait to see the final bill” in these circumstances is not acceptable.

          • She would  not vote on anything that took choice away from women.  That takes guts and the kind of moral compass I’d like to see in my Senator.

          • if she were a congressperson and her vote would make 218?

            <

            p>What’s missing from the analysis is the context the vote is taken.  If you are one of 40 people who will not vote for a bill you want becuase it has a provision you cannot abide, then you’re not spiking the bill, you’re forcing leadership to fix it.  

            <

            p>Look at how progressives in the house are organizing now for the vote on the conference bill.  They are staking out a public option with no opt-in/out and no trigger.  If they can get a block of forty votes, they force leadership to see it there way.

            <

            p>On Stupak, progressives did not organize against the amendment.  You can blame it on NARAL. They were asleep at the switch, and maybe house leadership including Pelosi but you cannot blame it on those who voted against Stupak and for HR3962 unless they failed to participate in caucus discipline (and apparently there was none.)  

          • …of course I agree that voters are entitled to knowing how people will vote in real-world realities of the next 90 days.  My point is that, for me, the decision is such a lose/lose that I won’t have it affect my assessment of each candidate.  It seems like this is a litmus test that only results in a clogged test: anti health care or anti choice.  Using this as a “frame” from which to define this primary mat allow some people to decide their vote, but is also a poison pill that may be cancerous to Democratic/Progressive politics.  (And I have to grudgingly give a tip of my hat to the diabolical Republican tactic that has made this such a sharp wedge issue within the Democratic Party.)

            <

            p>It’s early to see how the anti health care v anti choice conundrum will play out in Congress and, in the long run, among competing Democratic interests nationally.  What I fear in MA during the next 4 weeks, is not so much the debate you welcome, but $10 million of slash and burn ads that distorts, obfuscates and slanders Capuano and Coakley (and maybe Pags and Khazei).  That won’t be healthly for that thing we call democracy.  You see, underneath my hard-headedness, I do have a naive, idealistic side.  

    • HRC or taxpayer funded abortion. That is the real debate. This bill says nothing about Roe v Wade, says nothing about the right to choose, says nothing about the right to privacy or the rights to an abortion. As Edmund Burke says everyone has equal rights but not rights to equal things. Just because the government provides a right does not mean it has to fund it. Stupak was not a radical anti-choice amendment, if anything it was a sensible amendment preserving the status quo on federal funding for abortion-that is the Hyde Amendment and that the federal government does not fund abortion. If you got beef with that you got beef with Al Gore and Joe Biden, key co-sponsors of the Hyde Amendment when they were in the Senate, and both sensible Democrats.

      <

      p>The debate is between health care reform that will insure 36 million Americans or an abortion coverage that a) won’t go into law because it can’t pass and b)would affect a few thousand Americans at best.

      <

      p>You can disagree with me on Hyde, with me on abortion in general, but you cannot say that a few thousand people seeking one medical procedure are suddenly more important than 36 million people seeking coverage for all their health care needs.

      <

      p>Nowhere is the right to choose being threatened with Stupak, that is either ignorance or intellectual dishonesty on your part.

  16. How scary that so many of you are willing to throw away 30 plus years of hard work to assure women control of their own bodies.  Now a democratic President and democratic congress allowed an amendment that is even more restrictive than the Hyde amendment.  Outrageous and anyone who isn’t furious is either a male who never has to worry about this or doesn’t really believe in equal rights-

    <

    p>Watch Dr. Nancy Synderman- This woman wants healthcare reform passed as much or more than just about anyone in the media.   She is spitting mad about this and agrees with Martha-  You guys here for the most part are either ignorant of the facts or are more than willing to allow women to be hung out to dry –  Sure we all want healthcare but not at the risk of taking away what we fought too hard to get.  
    Watch Dr. Nancy- her anger is just the tip of an iceberg.

    <

    p>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31…
    it’s the “Health care fight over abortion funding”  

    <

    p>Huffington Post has another great piece-
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
    In Pelosi’s House 64 dems sell women out:
    “There is no health care bill worth supporting that sells out women’s civil rights.
    Right now every woman who values her civil rights should understand how the gay community feels. Democrats just sold us out too.”

    <

    p>Read why this is so important or should be to all progressives. It’s not an either or -we should have both healthcare and women’s rights protected.  

    • I feel you, Menemsha.

      <

      p>At the end of the day, this issue is about leadership and it’s disturbing to know that not only is Coakley the only name in the game that has the balls to stand up and say two steps back is now worth the single step forward, she’s being criticized for it!  

      <

      p>Anyone can ride the coat-tails of the party line to victory. It takes a real leader to stand up and say the end doesn’t justify the means. The end purpose was health care reform that works for everyone, reproductive rights and choice are a critical element of universal health and without it, we have to ask who is this reform really for?    

    • Grandstanding much?

      <

      p>The fact of the matter is there are still two immensley important phases of this entire thing — passage in the Senate and the Conference Committee. Voting to move the process along is NOT “voting on the backs of poor women.” That is hyperbole at its worst and most unhelpful.

      <

      p>If the health care bill died in the House, that probably would have been it — not only just for the year, but probably for another decade or two. We’d have gone into 2010 with nothing to show on one of the biggest core priorities of those who put Dems in a massive majority — and we’ve have been crucified.

      <

      p>I’m all for drawing a line in the sand on this amendment for the final vote, but killing HCR before we even get to that vote would have been an epicly stupid thing to do. I don’t believe for a second Martha Coakley would have actually done it. It’s too easy to make her declaration whilst having never been a legislator, never mind one on DC Capitol Hill, trying to win a campaign. It’s much harder to make the right vote, knowing how the process works, while being a sitting Senator running for office.

      <

      p>If we work hard and together, we can probably make sure this poison pill never makes it to the final phase of the ballgame. I suggest more of that and less grandstanding on your part. This one bill is far more important than either Capuano or Coakley, or anyone else running for this seat: we cannot let it die before we use every single legislative maneuver available to us to get it done.  

    • Do you plan on just dropping 3s on comments you don’t like (which is not kosher for this site, my lurking friend), or will you ever put up an argument?

      <

      p>Just to show how what Coakley argued for could have been disastrous, the Senate is not likely to add anything close to the Stupak amendment.

      <

      p>Why? The Senate would need 60 votes to get the Stupak amendment through a filibuster — and that’s just not happening. Susan Collins has already said she’d vote against the amendment, with Olympia Snowe sure to follow. They probably won’t even be the only Republicans to break ranks (Lisa Murkowski) If we ensure the Senate passes no such argument, with 41 (and counting) democrats in the house signing a letter today promising they would not vote for the final bill with a Stupak amendment, it will be dropped.

      <

      p>So, in short, had Coakley been in Congress, she could have just killed health care, even though it’s quite likely the US Senate will kill the Stupidak amendment. Of course, with Capuano’s legislative experience, he knew that. As I said more than once on this thread, I would think even Coakley knew enough, too, which is why I think she’s just grandstanding on this issue. Coakley fudged this one, methinks, and should walk it back — because what she argued, had she been in Congress, would likely have killed health insurance reform — and base Democratic voters, who usually decide primaries, won’t like that.

      <

      p>—

      <

      p>More on the numbers game:

      <

      p>

      It is unclear whether there are 60 votes in the US Senate to restrict choice. In the Senate Finance and Senate HELP Committees, only Bob Casey (D-PA) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) voted for Stupak amendment language, and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) voted against it. Between those two committees, you can count 24 no votes.

         Tom Harkin (IA), Christopher Dodd (CT), Barbara A. Mikulski (MD), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Patty Murray (WA), Jack Reed (RI), Bernard Sanders (I) (VT), Sherrod Brown (OH), Kay Hagan (NC), Jeff Merkley (OR), Al Franken (MN), Michael Bennet (CO), Max Baucus (MT), Jay Rockefeller (WV), John Kerry (MA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Olympia Snowe (ME), Ron Wyden (OR), Chuck Schumer (NY), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Maria Cantwell (WA), Bill Nelson (FL), Bob Menendez (NJ), Tom Carper (DE)

      Probably all the women in the Senate, excepting perhaps Kay Bailey Hutchison, could be expected to vote against this amendment as well.

         Lisa Murkowski (AK), Barbara Boxer (CA), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Mary Landrieu (LA), Susan Collins (ME), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Claire McCaskill (MO), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)

      That’s 33 votes, and there are 30 other Democrats in the caucus, from which only eight would be needed to block the amendment. It would be difficult for anti-choicers to get 60 votes.

    • “NO HEALTHCARE ON THE BACKS OF POOR WOMEN
      How scary that so many of you…“

      <

      p>I think you may be overreacting.  The bill is far from final.  No need to play the fear card.

      <

      p>There will be a struggle over these provisions, first in the Senate, and then in conference as a result of Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) organizing – she has 41 no votes for the final bill coming out of conference if it contains an abortion rights roll-back. The President has also said he wants a bill that is status quo on abortion rights.

      <

      p>So no, this is not a reason to abandon you first choice for candidate for Kennedy’s seat and vote for Coakley instead.  

      <

      p>More news on Degette’s efforts.

    • How does that matter? All the men in the Senate race are just as pro-choice as Martha, the difference is they are sensible enough to realize that a piece of legislation that does not fundamentally alter the status quo on abortion but does provide over 36 million Americans with healthcare coverage is more important than a bill that appeases the NARAL checklist but can’t pass Congress. You should ultimately want to be a Senator to actually pass legislation, not vote no on everything. Martha is showing she will be a leftist Tom Coburn, someone who won’t work with anyone else, won’t compromise, won’t make deals, and wont get things done for our state. Her incessant commitment not just against Stupak but against Hyde shows that she cares more about abortion than healthcare, even though healthcare has been a Democratic platform position for longer, is an issue most Americans support, and is more important frankly, at the end of the day than abortion rights for the average American. Also in no way does Stupak alter Roe v Wade or deny women the right to an abortion. Do you think the government should arm me because I have a right to arms? Should it fund my newspaper because I have a right to free speech? Should it defend my right to free religion by funding my bible study group? This line of reasoning is very flawed, and as a lawyer I am shocked Coakley has shown time and time again a basic ignorance of our Constitution and the various SCOTUS precedents that allow the government to legalize abortion but also not to fund it. The polls show most Americans don’t want federal funding of abortion, but most want healthcare, I say give the people what the want and pass a bill that helps them.  

  17. Another way to look at why voting to allow this  bill pass with the amendment was outrageous:
    http://voices.washingtonpost.c…
    “But the poorer women who will be using subsidies on the exchange proved a much easier target. In substance, this amendment was as much about class as it was about choice.”

    <

    p>More reading:
    Strange Bed Fellows: Health Care Reform and the Stupak Amendment
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
    “How did women’s reproductive rights become the bargaining chip for health care reform in this country?”

    <

    p>”Pro-Choice” McCaskill Could Support Stupak Coathanger Amendment”
    Daily Kos
    http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

    <

    p>These are true progressives who are angry and this is just a small sampling-
    How can one not be?  This is not a choice between healthcare or no healthcare. It was a matter of drawing a line and obviously our politicians with support from so many supposed “progressives” are willing to sell out those least able to provide for themselves.  It makes me truly sick.

  18. I think it’s important to note that a vote FOR the House bill is far from a guarantee that the abortion restrictions will be in the final legislation.  However, a vote AGAINST the House bill is a guarantee that health care reform — the cause of Senator Kennedy’s entire public life — would be over this year and possibly for longer than that.  

    <

    p>That’s why the leaders of the pro-choice caucus (Reps. Slaughter & DeGette) and the entire Massachusetts House delegation voted in favor of the bill, even with the terrible Stupak amendment included.  They understood that this could be the best chance in many decades of advancing health care reform.  If this vote failed, it would be back to almost square one.

    • Yes this distinction Coakley has established is about making tough choices in the context of the process.

      <

      p>Health care was on the line, choice, process-wise, was not. It confirms why I’m a Capuano supporter. But it’s no small bump in the road. It will take serious work to keep this monster out of the final bill and still get the votes.

      <

      p>This sleazy attempt to use HC to shift the goalposts on abortion by the anti-choicers should not be forgotten. See here and here for the last-minute role of the Catholic bishops in making this happen. This maybe explains why Lynch was being so cagey about his position on HCR.

    • And perhaps if a few more representatives had had the courage of their convictions and said they would not support Health Care Reform with the sweeping new Stupak-Pitts restrictions on women’s reproductive health care, they would have kept working it until they had a better deal before taking a vote.

      <

      p>The Stupak amendment goes much farther than the Hyde amendment.  It effectively means no insurance on the Exchange will cover abortion- that’s denying reproductive health care services to a lot of women.

  19. Could there be state subsidized health insurance for both abortion and contraception or in other words, reproductive health. It could be a new insurance plan for women’s health.  Sort of like a ryder, but it would be subsidized for low income people via the state.  

    • but even if the answer is yes, that’s a very, very small consolation prize — and would certainly make it infinitely harder for Massachusetts to be able to do the right thing.

      • No reason states can’t do whatever they want, as long as it’s not with federal money.  In fact, several states do exactly that now with respect to Medicaid (which is prevented from funding abortions by the Hyde amendment).

  20. So if your running Cap’s campaign, how do you exploit this? If I were him or her…I’d be as nimble as Barack’s people last year…get up on tv NOW….by the close of business tomorrow, have something playing during the local news….he has to attack before Martha cleans this up…or he will lose what may be his only opening.  

    <

    p>The funny thing…is I think Pags will be using it in ads before Cap gets his act together.

    <

    p>My mom does not follow politics much….ask her who she is going to vote for….”I like that nice man Steven who is on TV”

    • his ads are going to hit home with every uninformed voter across the state.  His ad caused me to look up from the paper I was reading, hoping it was a Capuano ad.  But,
      noooooooo….it’s a Pagliuca ad.  I couldnt’ believe it. Capuano better get with the program and start reaching out to the struggling middle class who are livid with Wall Street and their bonuses.

      • It would be much easier for him to reach out to the people who are upset about the Wall Street bonuses if he hadn’t voted for TARP last year. I don’t think he gains anything by bringing that up.

        • He can speak out against the bonuses, he didn’t vote for TARP so the greedsters could reward themselves with fat paychecks from taxpayer dollars.  He most certainly should speak out against it, and quickly.  

  21. I was absolutely shocked to hear Coakley’s statement today.  Millions of women without health insurance in this country and she would have cast a vote, potentially a deciding vote, that would have halted HCR!  How could anyone running to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat, not understand the value of moving the process forward after decade after decade without progress?  The ammendment, can always be dealt with in the Senate and in Conference and the Republicans are well aware of that fact. (Hence the grandstanding and requests for assurances on the floor Saturday night.)

    <

    p>As a pro-choice and PRO-HEALTH CARE REFORM woman, I am dumbfounded by Coakley’s statement.  In my humble opinion, the most favorable way to view it is pandering.  It is that, or a complete lack of understanding of the legislative process and the impact that HCR would have for women across this country.

    • It would practically take biblical intervention to get Stupak through the Senate…

      <

      p>

      It is unclear whether there are 60 votes in the US Senate to restrict choice. In the Senate Finance and Senate HELP Committees, only Bob Casey (D-PA) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) voted for Stupak amendment language, and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) voted against it. Between those two committees, you can count 24 no votes.

         Tom Harkin (IA), Christopher Dodd (CT), Barbara A. Mikulski (MD), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Patty Murray (WA), Jack Reed (RI), Bernard Sanders (I) (VT), Sherrod Brown (OH), Kay Hagan (NC), Jeff Merkley (OR), Al Franken (MN), Michael Bennet (CO), Max Baucus (MT), Jay Rockefeller (WV), John Kerry (MA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Olympia Snowe (ME), Ron Wyden (OR), Chuck Schumer (NY), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Maria Cantwell (WA), Bill Nelson (FL), Bob Menendez (NJ), Tom Carper (DE)

      Probably all the women in the Senate, excepting perhaps Kay Bailey Hutchison, could be expected to vote against this amendment as well.

         Lisa Murkowski (AK), Barbara Boxer (CA), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Mary Landrieu (LA), Susan Collins (ME), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Claire McCaskill (MO), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)

      That’s 33 votes, and there are 30 other Democrats in the caucus, from which only eight would be needed to block the amendment. It would be difficult for anti-choicers to get 60 votes.

      <

      p>so, yes, Coakley’s words, indeed, played up the fact that she’s legislatively green. This speaks to why some people have concerns with her taking office; legislative experience is important and she has none.

      <

      p>(Waits for Menemsha’s automatic 3 in 3..2…)

      • Republican Susan Collins is a confirmed opponent of the Stupak amendment. I continue to stand behind my numbers. Anti-choicers do not have 60 votes in the Senate, in all likelihood.

        • Every pro-choice vote in the Senate is considered to be reliably on board with killing the Stupak amendment. Yet a bunch of pro-choice members in the House voted for a bill that contained the amendment. People are castigating Coakley because she will let her pro-choice principles kill healthcare. If the pro-choice votes in the Senate are faced with approving a similar amendment or destroying Kennedy’s legacy, etc. etc., why is it a given that they will put it all on the line for choice? Basically, the Blue Dogs drew a line in the sand and were ready to kill HCR if their specific issue wasn’t addressed. Coakley said she would draw a line in the sand if choice wasn’t protected, and she’s the bad guy? I think it’s been shown repeatedly that the anti-choice crowd are much more committed and dug in than the pro-choice people.

          <

          p>The solution presented here is to kick the can down the road, with assurances that offensive provisions will be fixed “later.” And anyone who doesn’t buy into this notion is pandering, or naive, or worse. What is everyone’s reaction going to be when the Senate passes a bill containing the amendment, with the rationale that it was important to get a bill passed, and the anti-choice language will be fixed by a later Congress? Is everyone really comfortable relying on the idea that 60 Senators will always vote their conscience, and will never compromise for expediency?

          <

          p>As I recall, the FISA vote was pretty disheartening, and even Obama voted for it after saying that he wouldn’t.

          • They didn’t vote for it in the final bill. At least 41 members in the house have already come out and said they wouldn’t. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will remember that when it comes to what happens with this bill and who goes to conference committee.

            <

            p>You draw the line at the sand when you have to, not any earlier. Coakley would have gotten this thing killed, when it’s still likely we get the public option sans Stupak when all is said and done, even if we have to go to reconciliation to do it (which is likely at this point).  

        • but they do count to 60, as if that was how many votes it takes to pass a bill. This amendment won’t get passed without the 60 votes — and it’s not going to get them, especially if the netroots and grassroots stay as active as they’ve been.  

  22. As Members of Congress we believe that women should have access to a full range of reproductive health care. Health care reform must not be misused as an opportunity to restrict women’s access to reproductive health services.The Stupak-Pitts amendment to H.R. 3962, The Affordable Healthcare for America Act, represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women’s ability to access the full range of reproductive health services to which they are lawfully entitled. We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women’s right to choose any further than current law.

    via

    <

    p>Coakley may be the only candidate for Kennedy’s seat taking this stand, but that doesn’t mean she stands alone. I’m still undecided, but this stand is turning me against Capuano and the other men in the race.

    <

    p>Women aren’t a special interest group – we’re half of Americans (and a higher percentage of Democratic voters than men).

    <

    p>Reducing our rights to bodily autonomy is not an acceptable trade-off.

    <

    p>Here’s what I want to hear from the guys in the race:
    If the final bill which comes out of conference still contains this anti-abortion language, how will they vote?

    • The job of every pro-choice progressive is to ensure that the final bill that comes out of conference does not contain this anti-abortion language. It is like negotiating a divorce settlement during the engagement.

      <

      p>Questions like this needlessly polarize an already overly contentious debate.

    • Those 41 people voted to move this process along, which is what Coakley said she wouldn’t do. If those 41 people were willing to move the process along, the question should be why Martha Coakley wouldn’t be. She’d have joined the ranks of Dennis Kucinich with her vote, instead of the that pro-choice caucus, which voted to move the bill along, but take a stand against Stupak on the conference report.

      <

      p>I would urge anyone to vote no against the bill if it includes the Stupak after the conference report, but NOT before. Chances are there will be no Stupak on the Senate side, which is why it’s important to move the process along.

      <

      p>The legislative process is long and complicated. We’ve got to keep our eyes on the big picture. Getting rid of Stupak at the end game is, imo, mandatory, but the House was right not to kill the bill at that stage of the game, since it’s so hard to pass amendments in the Senate when they require 60 votes.

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