Stupak Relents

A health vote falls in place after phone call from Obama
BY TODD SPANGLER


-- Here's how John Dingell described Bart Stupak, his congressional colleague and occasional duck blind buddy, on Monday: "He's got to be one of the best poker players I know."


Villified for weeks as the public face of the Democrats opposed to abortion rights who threatened to bring down President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, Stupak gave no hint that he was ready to play his cards.

The Democrat from Michigan's Upper Peninsula said that behind the scenes, decadeslong health care reform advocate Dingell was "chewing on me" as Stupak worked the White House for a clear statement that federal money couldn't be used for abortions.

The call from Obama came via cell phone about 3 p.m. Stupak walked to the House floor. They had a deal, the president said. On Monday, the White House acknowledged it helped put them over the top.

"Without Bart," Dingell said, "we wouldn't have the bill."

Obama calls, closes deal
Stupak knew when President Barack Obama called with a deal clincher -- an executive order reiterating that no federal funds would be spent on abortions -- that it was as good as he was going to get.

It broke the logjam on health care reform, allowing it to pass 219-212 late Sunday, but it seemed to please no one outside of Congress. Abortion opponents felt Stupak caved in to pressure, pro-choice groups felt he held the entire vote hostage.

The Senate had stripped from the bill an earlier provision that he wrote ensuring that no federal subsidies went to insurance plans that covered abortions, and, even if he had convinced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow another vote changing the legislation, that would have sent it back to the Senate, where it most likely would have been stripped again.

"Every time I tried to do something legislatively, I was stymied," he said.

But he had another option. For days, Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan's western Upper Peninsula, had been working with the White House, on his own and through a good friend in Congress -- Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania -- to fashion a presidential order to allow Stupak and about nine other Democratic abortion rights opponents to vote for Obama's health care reform plan in good conscience. The problem was getting the White House to draw up a provision amid fears it would leak and spark a public fight. Finally, by the weekend, they left Stupak to draw it up and circulate it. Time was running short with a Sunday vote scheduled.

There was another motivation: Stupak's good friend Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat who has served longer in the House than anyone and has been pressing for health care reform for more than 50 years, was prodding him.

"It was tugging at me that I could stand in the way of Mr. Dingell's 50-something-year goal," Stupak said.

He had counted votes in the Senate -- he had no more than 45 for the statutory restrictions on abortion funding he still wants to see. Sixty votes are needed to get it passed in the Senate, though.

After Sunday's vote, Stupak caught more static. When Republicans moved to put Stupak's original provision into the bill Sunday, he rose to oppose it, calling it a tactic to destroy the overall bill's chances. Someone yelled "baby killer."

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer admitted he yelled it, but said he shouted, "It's a baby killer" about the deal struck between Obama and Stupak -- not Stupak himself. Neugebauer apologized. Stupak said the Texas Republican might want to apologize to the whole House.

"I was really surprised that they would do this," Stupak said. "Why would they personally attack me?"

He was surprised that Republicans denounced the executive order as meaningless, saying they never took that position when President George W. Bush used an executive order to restrict the use of human embryos for stem cell research.

Stupak could still face blowback at home. Two Democrats plan to challenge him in the August primary.

Beverly Prieskorn, a 68-year-old independent voter in Laurium on the Keweenaw Peninsula, said she admired Stupak's courage but is unhappy that he capitulated to Democratic bullying. "I know it was tough for him," she said.