The Case of the Missing House Health Care Votes

It seems that everyone and his brother, too, are busy handicapping whether the Democrats can round up the votes in the House of Representatives to finally pass some version of health care. To start with, they have to eventually pass the Senate bill either before they patch it or after using the so-called Slaughter Proposal. To do this they need 216 votes and given that they have lost some of their yes votes, they need to hold virtually all of those members and flip some of the no votes to a yes. Since none of the Republicans will vote for the bill and they are now down to 253 Democrats, they can only afford to lose 37 votes (253 - 216).

One of the handicappers has been The Hill and another has been Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics. They each have their own count of the votes in various categories of how committed they are. What are we to make of this? There were 39 Democrat no votes the first time. Thus the first question is whether any of them can be flipped. Both The Hill and Jay Cost agree there are at least 25 solid no votes out of the original 39 as follows:

John Barrow (GA-12), Dan Boren (OK-2), Bobby Bright (AL-2), Ben Chandler (KY-6), Travis Childers (MS-1), Arthus Davis (AL-7), Lincoln Davis (TN-4), Chet Edwards (TX-17), Parker Griffith (AL-5), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD-AL), Tim Holden (PA-17), Larry Kissell (NC-8), Frank Kratovil (MD-1), Dennis Kucinich (OH-10), Jim Marshall (GA-8), Mike McIntyre (NC-7), Mike McMahon (NY-13), Charlie Melancon (LA-3), Walt Minnick (ID-1), Collin Peterson (MN-7), Mike Ross (AR-4), Heath Schuler (NC-11), Ike Skelton (MO-4), John Tanner (TN-8) and Gene Taylor (MS-4).

To this group we can add Frederick Boucher (VA-9) since Jay has him as very hard to persuade and The Hill has him as leaning no. That leaves 13 that might be persuaded to vote yes. Eric Massa has resigned so that leaves 12 who might be shaky as follows:

1. John Adler (NJ-3) - Jay has him as persuadable and The Hill has him as leaning no.
   
2. Jason Altmire (PA-4) - Jay has him as very hard to persuade but The Hill has him as undecided.
3. Brian Baird (WA-) - Jay has him as persuadable and The Hill has him as undecided.
4. John Boccieri (OH-16) - Jay has him as persuadable and The Hill has him as undecided.
5. Allen Boyd (FL-2) - Jay has him as very hard to persuade but The Hill has him as undecided.
6. Bart Gordon (TN-6) - Jay has him as persuadable and The Hill has him as undecided.
7. Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24) - Jay has her as persuadable and The Hill has her as undecided.
8. Betsey Markey (CO-4) - Jay has her in too tight race to vote yes and The Hill has her as undecided.
9. Jim Matheson (UT-2) - Jay has him as in a district that too heavily favored McCain and The Hill has him as a likely no.
10. Scott Murphy (NY-20) - Jay has him as persuadable and The Hill has him as undecided.
11. Glenn Nye (VA-2) - Jay has him in too tight race to vote yes and The Hill has him as undecided.
12. Harry Teague (NM-2) - Jay has him in too tight race to vote yes and The Hill has him as leaning no.

That means the no side has to hold 11 of the 12 left which is not very likely which is why the Democratic leadership is so optimistic. On the other hand they have a lot of yes votes who no longer can be automatically counted on since the election of Scott Brown. Jay has a list of 26 such members while The Hill has 7 members in the no group and another several dozen in the undecided group. Most of those undecideds will still vote yes and are saying they are undecided to see what kind of a deal they can get and to keep their staff from being inundated with phone calls from angry voters. Since The Hill has 2 that are not on Jay's list, let's look at those 28.

1. Michael Arcuri (NY-24)
2. Marion Berry (AR-1)
3. Shelley Berkley (NV-1)
4. Tim Bishop (NY-1)
5. Dennis Cardoza (CA-18)
6. Christopher Carney (PA-10)
   
7. Jerry Costello (IL-12)
8. Henry Cuellar (TX-27)
9. Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-3)
10. Joe Donnelly (IN-2)
11. Steve Driehaus (OH-1)
12. Brad Ellsworth (IN-8)
    
13. Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8)
14. Luis Gutierrez (IL-4)
    
15. Baron Hill (IN-9)
16. Steve Kagen (WI-9)
17. Paul Kanjorski (PA-11)
18. Marcy Kaptur (OH-9)
    
19. Dan Lipinski (IL-3)
20. Dan Maffei (NY-25)
21. Alan Mollohan (WV-1)
    
22. James Oberstar (MN-8)
23. Solomon Ortiz (TX-27)
    
24. Earl Pomeroy (ND-AL)
25. Nick Rahall (WV-3)
    
26. Kurt Schrader (OR-5)
27. Bart Stupak (MI-1)
28. Dina Titus (NV-3)

We now have 40 people whose votes will decide this issue and are the only ones worth looking at. Remember that those opposed to this measure need only 11 of these 40 to defeat this bill. Now it is time to add our own analysis to all of this. We are going to add some more folks who voted yes and should now vote no if they wish to avoid joining that vast list of unemployed Americans next January. The ?? column is where the person stands where Y is yes, U is undecided and 40 means they are in the in play list of 40 people. In the margin column a # means we did not use the most recent election results for one reason or another. The Us column is our own rating in terms of the percentage we think the district is likely to go to the Republicans.

Democrat	Seat	??	Margin	Obama	Us	CQ Pol	Cook	Rothenberg
Tom Perriello	VA-5	U	0.23%	-2.31%	91.5%	Toss-up	D toss-up	R toss-up
Scott Murphy	NY-20	40	0.45%	3.00%	88.5%	Likely D	Likely D	D favored
Mary Jo Kilroy	OH-15	U	0.76%	7.12%	85.5%	Toss-up	D toss-up	R toss-up
Kathy Dahlkemper	PA-3	40	2.47%	Tie	79.6%	Leans D	Likely D	Safe D
Mark Schauer	MI-7	U	2.31%	5.23%	78.8%	Toss-up	D toss-up	Toss-up
William Owens	NY-23	U	3.11%	5.22%	75.5%	Leans D	Leans D	Leans D
John Adler	NJ-3	40	3.31%	5.38%	74.7%	Leans D	Leans D	D favored
Michael Arcuri	NY-24	40	3.94%	2.36%	73.4%	Leans D	Leans D	Leans D
Baron Hill	IN-9	40	4.52%	-1.76%	72.9%	Leans D	D toss-up	Leans D
Alan Grayson	FL-8	Y	4.03%	5.70%	72.0%	Toss-up	D toss-up	R toss-up
Paul Kanjorski	PA-11	40	3.25%	14.83%	71.8%	Leans D	Leans D	D favored
Glenn Nye	VA-2	40	4.94%	1.96%	70.3%	Leans D	D toss-up	D toss-up
Steven Driehaus	OH-1	40	4.94%	10.25%	67.6%	Toss-up	D toss-up	R toss-up
Jim Himes	CT-4	U	3.97%	20.06%	67.4%	Likely D	Likely D	Safe D
Carol Shea-Porter	NH-1	U	5.89%	6.21%	66.2%	Leans D	D toss-up	Toss-up
Dina Titus	NV-3	40	5.14%	12.76%	66.1%	Leans D	D toss-up	Leans D
Harry Mitchell	AZ-5	U	9.58%	-4.53%	62.2%	Leans D	Leans D	D favored
Jason Altmire	PA-4	40	11.72%	-10.45%	61.1%	Likely D	Likely D	D favored
Paul Hodes	NH-2	Y	7.10%	13.09%	61.0%	Toss-up	D toss-up	Toss-up
Niki Tsongas	MA-5	Y	#6.21%	19.51%	61.0%	Safe D	Safe D	Safe D
Steve Kagen	WI-8	40	8.10%	8.10%	60.5%	Leans D	Leans D	D favored
John Boccieri	OH-16	40	10.73%	-2.61%	59.8%	Likely D	Leans D	D favored
Ron Klein	FL-22	U	9.34%	4.04%	59.7%	Safe D	Likely D	Safe D
Gabrielle Giffords	AZ-8	40	11.90%	-5.94%	59.4%	Likely D	Leans D	D favored
Christopher Carney	PA-10	40	12.66%	-8.43%	59.2%	Leans D	Leans D	D favored
Harry Teague	NM-2	40	11.92%	-1.33%	57.8%	Toss-up	D toss-up	R toss-up
Betsey Markey	CO-4	40	12.39%	-0.88%	57.0%	Toss-up	D toss-up	Toss-up
Gary Peters	MI-9	Y	9.45%	12.96%	56.6%	Likely D	Likely D	Safe D
Earl Pomeroy	ND-AL	40	#15.11	-8.63%	56.2%	Leans D	Leans D	Safe D
Gerald McNerney	CA-11	U	10.55%	9.33%	56.1%	Leans D	Leans D	D favored
Ann Kirkpatrick	AZ-1	U	16.45%	-10.17%	54.9%	Likely D	Likely D	Safe D
Ciro Rodriguez	TX-23	U	13.84%	2.69%	54.1%	Likely D	Likely D	Safe D
Chellie Pingree	ME-1	Y	9.80%	22.82%	52.7%	Safe D	Safe D	Safe D
Suzanne Kosmas	FL-24	40	16.09%	-1.95%	52.7%	Leans D	Leans D	D toss-up
Gerald Connelly	VA-11	Y	11.72%	14.96%	52.6%	Likely D	Likely D	Safe D
Dan Maffei	NY-25	40	12.94%	13.12%	51.7%	Likely D	Likely D	Safe D
John Tierney	MA-6	Y	#12.18%	16.94%	51.4%	Safe D	Safe D	Safe D
Martin Heinrich	NM-1	Y	11.31%	20.43%	51.3%	Likely D	Likely D	Safe D
Leonard Boswell	IA-3	Y	14.25%	9.37%	51.3%	Leans D	Leans D	D favored
Rick Boucher	VA-9	40	#20.37%	-19.10%	50.7%	Safe D	Leans D	D favored
Patrick Murphy	PA-8	Y	15.14%	8.93%	50.3%	Likely D	Leans D	D favored
Timothy Bishop	NY-1	40	15.77%	3.82%	49.8%	Likely D	Leans D	Leans D

As you can see, 21 of the 40 folks in the swing group are not guaranteed of getting re-elected. There are another 11 people in the undecided group as well. That makes a total of 32 people who have every reason to vote no to avoid a chance of committing political suicide. There another 19 people belonging to the 40 group who are not vulnerable to losing the election but have expressed doubts. That is a total of 51 people and the Democrat leadership can only afford to lose 11 of them. Notice that there are another 10 yes votes who should rethink their position. Right off hand, it would appear that having to get a yes vote from 50 of the 60 people who at least should be in play is definitely a tough haul. The odds of that happening are about 17%.

Our analysis would not be complete without pointing out that several members from Massachusetts, all of whom voted yes, should rethink doing so again. Scott Brown carried 7 of the 10 districts and 6 of them by 56% or more of the votes. He ran against this health care proposal and you are going to vote yes in the face of that? All of you have Republican opposition for a change and you know they are going to make a federal case out of your voting yes. If you vote no you can just say that you changed your mind after listening to your constituents. Here is the percent of the votes that Scott Brown got in your district:

MA - District 01	John W. Olver	48.4%
MA - District 02	Richard E. Neal	56.9%
MA - District 03	James P. McGovern	57.6%
MA - District 04	Barney Frank	50.1%
MA - District 05	Niki Tsongas	56.2%
MA - District 06	John F. Tierney	57.4%
MA - District 07	Edward J. Markey	45.8%
MA - District 08	Mike Capuano	35.8%
MA - District 09	Stephen F. Lynch	56.9%
MA - District 10	William D. "Bill" Delahunt	59.3%

For that matter there are a few other yes votes that would be risky to say the least. Gary Peters got less than a 10% margin which is the safety margin in an ordinary election year which this is not. Chellie Pingree had both her Senators vote against the Senate bill and also got less than a 10% margin. She represents half the state of Maine so how does she explain her vote in the face of determined Republican opposition? Paul Hodes is running for the Senate and is behind in the polls already so he is going to vote for this bill so his opposition can crucify him for it? Gerry Connelly apparently thinks an 11.72% margin is safe enough to vote yes but is it really in this year?