Zack Space’s Reaction To New SCHIP Veto Threat
Congressman Zack Space of the 18th district has put out a press release criticizing House Republicans for continuing to block efforts to extend the SCHIP program after efforts were made to address their previous concerns.
In the release Space says:
“No matter how hard we try, it appears as though nothing will make a majority of House Republicans change their minds on providing health insurance to our children.
“I find it unconscionable to believe that, for the third time, a handful of Republicans would place their own political goals over the health and well-being of our nation’s children. 145,000 children in Ohio are at risk of losing their health insurance because Republicans are so eager to score points with the insurance industry. This is not only inappropriate – it is astounding.”
– Rep. Zack Space
As I mentioned earlier, the new compromise bill passed by a margin of 265-142 (the veto override attempt on the last bill had a vote of 273-156 and had a higher turnout). President Bush has already announced his intention to veto this bill as well.
October 26th, 2007 at 7:51 am
I’m a numbers kind of person, so I looked at the vote counts carefully. Assuming that everyone who voted for the override voted for this bill (meaning no one changed their vote), that means that 8 people who voted for the override didn’t vote for this bill and that 14 people who voted against the override didn’t vote against this bill.
What does that mean? It’s probably just that 22 people didn’t feel it important to come back for another vote. I’m not sure these numbers are big enough to be significant, but it could mean that the against crowd figures Bush will veto and they don’t have to vote. So they don’t have to be labeled as hating children (a label I disagree with) and the bill still gets shot down.
It would be interesting to know the 22 people. Also of interest would be if there were any that voted differently (I don’t like the flipflop term, let’s say they saw it differently). And it would be interesting to know why 28 congressmen didn’t vote on the last bill.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Ask and you shall receive…
Here is the roll call tally for the veto override attempt and for yesterdays vote. Comparing the two should provide you with some answers.
As for the lower turnout, I expect it was more along the lines of business as usual. There’s easily enough votes to pass an SCHIP bill but when it comes down to a veto override attempt it’s close enough that both sides need to get as many supporters to vote as possible.
October 27th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
It looks like 2 people swapped sides.
Ehlers voted to override the veto, then voted against the new bill. Taylor voted against the override, but then voted for the new bill.
The ones who didn’t vote against the second bill were (but voted against the overried) : Bilbray, Buyer, Calvert, Dreier, Gallegly, Hastert, Hastings (WA), Hunter, Issa, Lewis (KY), McHenry, “Miller, Gary”, Shuster, Tancredo.
The ones who voted for the override, but nt the second bill were: Boren, Davis (CA), DeFazio, DeGette, Filner, Kilpatrick,
Shea-Porter, Wilson (OH), Young (AK).
I may have gotten some of this wrong. Now, what does it mean, probably nothing. Those who thought the first bill was good stayed that way. Those who thought the first bill was bad, stayed that way.
It bothers me that there is no real working together. That’s not a Bush thing, it’s a congress thing. There is no real effort in congress to make any progress. Only to point fingers.
October 27th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
It’s true that there’s some finger pointing going on but this is the second time the bill has been changed to address Republican concerns. Like the last time, Republicans are refusing to acknowledge those changes and are moving back the goal posts.
If these people really were interested in saving money they would also be working to end things like no-bid contracts in Iraq. For some strange reason these “fiscal conservatives” seem to lose their edge when the money is going to companies owned by political donors. Heck, while I’m on the subject we’ve probably misplaced enough money in Iraq to pay for the entire SCHIP program.
October 28th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
More finger pointing. “Like the last time, Republicans are refusing to acknowledge …”
Seems like the roll call shows some republicans (almost 1/4) voted for the bill.
If there is partisanship, why is it that ALL but 2 democrats voted for the bill? Seems like in any decent bill, there would be some on both sides to agree and some to disagree.
October 28th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Hey, I didn’t deny there was finger pointing.
There were some Democrats that voted against the first bill, they switched sides after facing some backlash from their constituents and supporters.