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Watching Virginia's delegation on health care
By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
11/07/09 3:43 PM EST
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who represents Northern Virginia, announced he will vote for the health care bill. Connolly had been on the fence, in part because his district is a bit purple. It voted for Republican Bob McDonnell on Tuesday by a healthy margin after being solidly Democratic in recent cycles.
But Connolly, president of the House freshman class, said Saturday that the bill was needed to protect families from bankruptcy caused by catastrophic illness and being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
Virginia's 11-member House delegation is getting lots of attention today as people watch for fallout from Tuesday's landslide win by McDonnell.
All six Republicans are opposed and liberal Democrats Bobby Scott and Jim Moran are enthusiastic yes votes. Add Connolly to that mix and you have six nays and three yeas. The remaining three Democrats are where things get interesting. Southwest Virginia's Rick Boucher, and freshmen Democrats Glenn Nye and Tom Perriello, who both represent districts that switched from red to blue in the Obama surge last year, all represent districts in which McDonnell rolled up big victories.
Nye announced today that he was voting against the bill because of concerns about costs to small businesses and cuts to Medicare.
Perriello, considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the nation next year, has been on the fence for weeks but has made some approving gestures in recent days, agreeing with Connolly's argument that liberal voters will stay home if Democrats fail to act on health care.
But unlike Connolly, who represents one of the wealthiest districts in the nation, Perriello represents a mostly rural district in which black voters surged to the polls to cast their ballots for Barack Obama, carrying the Yale-educated NGO executive to victory. McCain only won the district by 3 points, as opposed to George W. Bush's 13-point margin there in 2004.
Boucher has been less encouraging about the Pelosi bill. He's more conservative in general and though he's not really considered vulnerable after eight terms, his mountainous district went almost 70 percent for McDonnell and almost 60 percent for John McCain in 2008.
Right now, it looks like the Virginia Democrats are three yeas, one nay, one leaning against and one leaning for.
UPDATE: Boucher just made it official on the House floor. He's a no.The Virginia Democrats are three yeas, two nays and one undecided.
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