Democratic Representative Bart Stupak's April 9 announcement that he would not seek re-election from Michigan's First Congressional District, coming as it does on the heels of his pivotal role in passage of President Obama's health care reform package, will forever tie him to that iconic legislative moment. First vilified by abortion rights supporters for insisting on anti-abortion language in the first iteration of the health care bill last fall, he was then excoriated by the Right for tipping the balance in favor of the bill's passage.
Stupak insists that he is not leaving because of the relentless and vicious attacks he has endured from Tea Partiers, abortion opponents, and Republicans, and that he has been weighing this move for many months, and even years. There's no reason not to believe him when he said that he is retiring now because of the cumulative stresses of the job. Yet regardless of the truth, the former state trooper will forever be linked with what some will consider his "profile in courage" moment, even if others consider it more like "cut and run."
Yet Stupak had another profile in courage moment a decade ago, one that tested his political mettle against a similarly virulent political movement, and that, in many ways, spoke even more clearly to his character as a legislator.
Since his first election in 1992, Stupak was one of the most conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives, a moniker encapsulated by his staunch support for gun rights -- not a surprise, since his district covered Michigan's rural upper peninsula or "Yooper," where 60 percent of households have guns (about twice the national average). The National Rifle Association endorsed and funded him in every race until 2000, when it turned on him, recruited and funded his opponent, and campaigned aggressively for his defeat, accusing Stupak of betraying gun rights. Stupak's sin? In 1999, just months after the shooting massacre at Columbine High School, he voted in favor of a House bill that would have imposed a three-day waiting period for background checks for firearms sales at gun shows (the measure ultimately failed to win enactment). Despite the furious political onslaught, Stupak won re-election in 2000, garnering only about half a percent fewer votes than he had received in 1998. He was easily re-elected in each subsequent race.
Political pundits have noted that, even in the face of the right's furious assault, Stupak was the odds-on favorite to win re-election, had he decided to stay in the 2010 race. For those critics who may think of Stupak as a man who wilted when the going got tough, his past record says otherwise.
Spitzer's recent books include The Politics of Gun Control (4th ed. 2008), Saving the Constitution from Lawyers (2008), and Gun Control: A Documentary and Reference Guide (2009).
Most rural areas of America are poor, have few employers large enough to offer insurance and have limited access to physicians and few or no hospitals and hgh tech ER's. So his voters were the ones who he was hurting the most.
He played both sides of the issue against the other and in the end betrayed both and angered both. He threatened to undo the desperately hard work of both houses of Congress. He yanked everybody's chain - at least twice.
He made the decisions and acted in a manner that put him in the center of a five sided firing squad and he has become the collateral damage. (5: Americans, House dims, Senate dims, anti-abortionists, freedom of choicers, the needs of his own voters, every American who has a differing religious or moral belief about abortion then he did, and truth since abortion funding is already prohibited by federal law. Make that a 7 sided firing squad.)
I can’t imagine he has very many political friends at the moment. He can't even go back to his district and sell HCR, since he opposed it - mostly.
> and vicious attacks he has endured from Tea Partiers, abortion
> opponents, and Republicans, and that he has been weighing
> this move for many months, and even years.
So... he's leaving because of a sex scandal?
Go sell that back on the hill as an influence peddler...it's what Daschles does.
It was the left for pillorying him for having principles. It's the left who want him gone, who endeavored to ruin him, and with his conservative base abandoned, he had nowhere else to go. He would not win in a landslide. He was polling in the low 30s.
According to the latest CBS News Poll, President Obama’s health care bill has lost seven points in popularity since it passed last month. When the legislation passed, it won approval from 41% of Americans according to a CBS poll taken at the time. Now, the network reports that only 34% back the legislation. Since July, backing for the plan stood at 49% in CBS’ polling.
(The network also found that Obama’s overall job approval is down to 44%, also five points lower than CBS found last month).
We are talking about Democrats...you really need to get with the rest of the tour.
And the Republicans are offering Newt, Sarah, and a bunch of guys who have already lost out in the primaries.
What were Bush's numbers 15 months in?
Stupak was on some kind of mission that didn't have anything to do with his constituents. He just wouldn't stop yapping when he knew the media also had a probe up his boo boo about C street. He needs to retire and explain to his wife what he was doing at C Street all those years. I believe it is true that Stupak and his C Street buddies are going to be investigated soon and Stupak didn't want to answer for his participation in this secretive organization.
It deals in the meat of the bill - the money. With private insurance continuing to administer health delivery and responsible for it's accounting - RULES regarding the pooling and distribution of resources are what matters.
A tricky new entity in this miasma of money is the co-mingling of funds, both private and public money, together. Taking both private insurance premiums AND government subsidized payments mixes public and private money. There was no instrument to seperate the public "dollar in" from the private "dollar out" spent on abortions. This is what Bart Stupak was adressing. In fact, he was / is an expert on this issue. That is why HIS Amendment passed the house and was attached to the bill that finally was supported.
The problem is that the fallacies relating to this issue are not Bart Stupak's to explain or defend, they are Rachel Maddow's, Keith Olberman's and others. I am grateful Rachel, Keith and others do what they do on many issue's - here they failed to deliver a rational counter.
Bart Stupak understood through hard work and respect for what representation means, how to find the rubber meeting the road. A majority of American's support the 30 year (32 actually) reauthorization of the Hyde Amendment. So did Bart Stupak.
Bart Stupak was distinguishing the "dollar in" from the "dollar out"
Thanx Congressman
You have NO idea what you're talking about! In IL a few years ago they split ComEd up into two companies: Excelon and ComEd. Excelon handled all the production of electricity, and ComEd handled the distribution of electricity, but is WHOLLY owned by Excelon.
They recently had a MASSIVE price increase, which they justified by claiming that ComEd had NO money and was being charged extra by the electricity PROVIDER. Never mind that Excelon WAS the electricity provider, and OWNED the company that was supposedly "broke"....
Money is FRANGIBLE, meaning that any dollar is just like any OTHER dollar, so the companies would be able to set aside some of those dollars and say "This is from the government" and then the problem would be solved! Bart Stupak was full of it, just like you are now!