October 30, 2007
This is pretty amusing. House Republicans have concocted a new explanation for why they voted against the SCHIP children's health care expansion despite the fact that it had bipartisan support in Congress and was backed by strong majorities of the American people.
The latest rationale: They voted against it because Democratic leaders were nasty to them. That's what angry House GOPers have now
told Dem leaders in a private meeting on the Hill:
In a closed-door meeting before the last vote on the children’s health care bill, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer appealed for the support of about 30 wavering Republican lawmakers. What he got instead was a tongue-lashing, participants said.
The GOP lawmakers, all of whom had expressed interest in a bipartisan deal on the SCHIP legislation, were furious that the Democratic leader from Maryland had not reached out to them in a more serious way early on. They also criticized him and Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois for failing to stop his allies outside Congress from running attack ads in their districts, while they were discussing a bipartisan deal.
One GOPer who sniffled particularly loud about his maltreatment at the hands of House Dems was GOP Rep. Ric Keller of Florida, who complained: "They spent $1.5 million through their various shill outreach groups attacking me and a handful of my colleagues. But they did not spend five minutes to approach me to ask for my vote."
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There’s been some debate, here and elsewhere, about why exactly so many Republicans balked on the bipartisan effort to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). The president’s veto, and the GOP’s reluctance to override the veto, just don’t make a lot of sense. It couldn’t have been the spending, because the bill is paid for. It couldn’t have been the arguments the Republicans actually presented, because they all turned out to be patently false.
Could it have been because the Dems were
mean to them?
In a closed-door meeting before the last vote on the children’s health care bill, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer appealed for the support of about 30 wavering Republican lawmakers. What he got instead was a tongue-lashing, participants said.
The GOP lawmakers, all of whom had expressed interest in a bipartisan deal on the SCHIP legislation, were furious that the Democratic leader from Maryland had not reached out to them in a more serious way early on. They also criticized him and Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois for failing to stop his allies outside Congress from running attack ads in their districts, while they were discussing a bipartisan deal.
One GOPer who sniffled particularly loud about his maltreatment at the hands of House Dems was GOP Rep. Ric Keller of Florida, who complained: “They spent $1.5 million through their various shill outreach groups attacking me and a handful of my colleagues. But they did not spend five minutes to approach me to ask for my vote.”
Sweet Jeebus, the “
hysterical party” strikes again. Keller might have voted to help low-income kids get healthcare, but those mean ol’ Dems didn’t say “please” first. It’s reminiscent of the time Newt Gingrich suggested he shut down the federal government in part because Clinton asked him to leave Air Force One from the back.
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