The chairman of the House Republicans’ political campaign committee says Democrats will risk new seats if they pass President Obama’s health care plan — particularly if they use unusual rules to pass two bills while only voting on one.
“I think this will put several more in play,” Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said after House and Senate Republicans held a rare bicameral meeting on the House floor this morning. “This is going to be a bigger vote than anything we’ve already had.”
He used as an example Rep. Mike McIntyre, a seven-term North Carolina Democrat whose seat has not been prominent on Republicans’ target list as they try to win 40 Democratic seats and take control of the House in November. Yet McIntyre has already declared that he will vote against the health bill as too expensive.
“He could not get away with this vote,” Sessions said.
Sessions, one of four Republicans on the House Rules Committee, said the complex rules being considered by Democrats to pass the bill will create “more losers by voting for the process.” Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter’s plan is to adopt a rule that would allow the House to vote on a single bill that would both deem the Senate health care bill passed and make changes to it. That let’s House Democrats say they never voted for the Senate health care bill.
Democrats have not settled on that strategy yet and could still decide to vote on both bills.
For now, he said, all GOP efforts are focused on defeating the bill in the House or the Senate. But if Obama prevails, he said, “We’re going to make these political arguments at the political time.”
