Health Care Bill Hailed by Obama, but Stupak-Pitts Abortion Amendment May Divide Dems in 2010

In the late-night aftermath of a too-close-for-comfort 220-215 vote, House Democrat leaders and the White House hailed the passage of a health care bill that would cover more than 35 million uninsured Americans while introducing a limited public option and adding restrictions on discrimination against insurance applicants with preexisting conditions. But, not everyone – not the entire Democratic caucus or even some of its most active interest groups – praised the bill, which included an amendment that codifies the so-called “Hyde Amendment,” and would restrict the use of federal funds for abortion coverage.

The parallels to the House’s Waxman-Markey climate bill – which passed in June in the face of opposition from green stalwarts and Democratic political players like Greenpeace – are significant, and it begs the question: are progressives on board with all of this “progress?” The vote that one House Dem took on the bill is already becoming an issue in the Massachusetts special Senate election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat. The issue is proving to be the first real policy distinction among four candidates for the seat, and Democrats facing re-elction nationwide in 2010 can now expect Stupak-Pitts and abortion to become a potential anti-incumbency lever.

Progress or Politics?

Presumably, a year ago, as progressives basked in the victory-with-a-mandate of the nation’s first truly progressive president since FDR, they would not have settled for a health care bill that the chairwoman of the House Pro-Choice Caucus called “the biggest restriction of a woman’s right to choose that will be considered on the House floor in my career.” Likewise, they could not have anticipated that they would be left to cheer for a climate bill that not only includes huge subsidies for coal companies and nuclear plants and expansion of offshore drilling, but also does not auction carbon credits under its cap-and-trade program, instead handing the credits as allowances to utilities and other major carbon emitters.

Call it what you like – genuine progress, an important Trojan Horse, political spin – but walking back from hardcore progressive initiatives might have real political consequences as 2010′s mid-term elections approach.

The Known Enemy – GOP Sharpening Attacks and Piling Up Ammo

Of course, the GOP will be taking dead aim at Dems across the country, branding them as government expansionists who have increased the federal debt and mismanaged the financial crisis through free-spending programs like Cash for Clunkers. But, the parrallels to the the 2003 BTU Tax vote also cannot be underestimated.

The House vote on that bill – which put Dems in the lower chamber out there on a somewhat controversial issue in spite of the fact that the Senate never came close to taking a similar vote, and therefore the measure had no chance of becoming law – is often given partial credit for driving the Republican Revolution of 1994. Like ’94, there is not much evidence that the Senate will be able to pass – or perhaps even vote or move out of committee – a bill that approaches many of the issues that the House rules allowed Speaker Pelosi to put on the floor and take to a vote. Facing high Congressional disapproval already, House Dems are already tacking on the challenges of a still-flagging economy that just breached 10% unemployment, a figure that promises to continue rising right through 2010′s election season. Now they must also defend their vote for this health care bill against GOP challengers. The politics will play out, but there is the chance that the razor’s edge health care vote violated one of the first rules of Washington: never take an unnecessary vote.

A New Enemy Within? Greens, Gay Rights, Pro-Choicers and Peaceniks

More than in 1994 though, Democrats in Congress might be facing backlash from both sides as 2010 advances. The climate bill’s “giveaways” alone would not have been enough to energize hardcore progressives to unseat sitting Democrats, but add in the escalation in Afghanistan; a lack of progress on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;” and, now the health care vote and its abortion amendment and Democratic leaders may have done just enough to instigate a mutiny that unites the four most active and important political power players within the party: greens, gay rights groups, anti-war advocates and pro-choice women’s interests.

In other words, it is not inconceivable that by splitting the baby (turning John Kerry’s famous phrase on its head, many Dems from deep blue states voted against the anti-abortion amendment before they voted for the bill), Democrats who were already vulnerable have made themselves beatable.

Speaking on CNN after Dems lost the Governors’ mansions in Virginia and New Jersey, but prior to passage of the House bill, Democratic political guru James Carville noted that Democrats might “lose both chambers” if they could not pass a healthy care bill in this session. The father of one of this generation’s most famous political aphorisms (“its the economy, stupid”) may have proven to be a soothsayer yet again. Although, I’m not sure even Carville saw this coming.

Massachusetts is the Test Race – Are Democrats Divided?

If the Stupak-Pitts amendment is an issue that plays with the progressives and gives some daylight for potential challenges from the left side of the party, Massachusetts will be an early – if imperfect – example. Can Congressman Capuano – who voted against the amendment and for the bill – survive an attack on that vote from state Attorney General Martha Coakley?

One startling aspect of the burgeoning Democrat in-fighting is that it was only this past weekend, amid the ouster of the Republican candidate in the special New York 23rd Congressional election (at the urging of establishment GOPers like Palin and Pawlenty) that observers were asking whether there was a fatal schism on the right. Now the question may be turning on its head.

What should not be surprising to anyone is that as major issues in Massachusetts politics and national health care play out, the legacy of Ted Kennedy continues to loom large.

Flickr photo used under a Creative Commons license from BarackObama.com