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Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009

Local lawmakers still hear about health care bill

A deeply divided House of Representatives passed a health care bill a little more than a week ago -- but swing votes from the Valley are still being lobbied.

Although the U.S. Senate is now wrestling with the controversial legislation, constituents are making phone calls and sending e-mails to Reps. Jim Costa and Dennis Cardoza, conservative Democrats whose votes helped pass the House bill.

And with good reason, experts say. The legislation will almost certainly return to the House for a final vote.

"Most of this is about the second, and more important, House health care vote to come," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. "Everyone knows that a good deal of the House health care bill ... will never see the light of law. The bill is going to be changed very substantially in the Senate." When that happens, he said, it will trigger a conference committee made up of Senate and House members that will reshape the legislation once more. That final bill will then face a final vote in both chambers of Congress.

So it is not surprising that legislators -- particularly Democrats in conservative areas -- are still hearing about the issue. One example: Last Friday, the Greater Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce sent out a "Take Action" e-mail calling on people to "express your disappointment with Congressmen Costa And Cardoza's support of health care legislation." The e-mail said the proposal "does little to reform the current health care system and instead will increase costs for local business owners and further damage our local economy." It goes on to brand the health care bill passed by the House "job killer legislation" "When you get into anything of this magnitude, there is the great fear of the unknown, or unintended consequences," said Al Smith, the chamber's president and chief executive officer.

At the same time, AARP, the advocacy group for seniors that supports the House health care legislation, has been airing radio ads and ran a full-page ad in The Fresno Bee thanking Costa, D-Fresno, for his "yes" vote, and a similar ad in The Modesto Bee praising Cardoza, D-Merced.

AARP spokeswoman Christina Clem called the effort "our first step" as the proposal continues to work its way through Congress.

"There's a lot of misinformation out there, and some of these legislators are going to get negative feedback from constituents on reform," Clem said. "This thing isn't over yet." In addition to the ads, she said AARP volunteers and supporters will be visiting congressional offices to keep intact the fragile House majority that passed the legislation the first time around.

The legislation passed Nov. 7 by a mere five votes, and the University of Virginia's Sabato said the House leadership "will have a big job, maybe a titanic struggle, in producing a majority again" because of the rifts the initial vote exposed among the majority Democratic Party ranks.

Because of that, conservative Democrats such as Costa and Cardoza -- both "yes" votes the first time around -- will be lobbied hard from both sides.

The California Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy group that supported the House bill, noted that since Costa and Cardoza were swing votes on the legislation, the pressure will be intense on them to switch their votes if the matter returns as expected.

Like AARP, both legislators were praised by CALPIRG for supporting the bill.

From the other side, conservative family and Christian organizations are among the groups that have mobilized in opposition to the bill. One such group is SaveCalifornia.com. radio ads.

"We're active on this monstrosity that is sitting in the wings in the Senate side. We will continue to be active," said SaveCalifornia.com President Randy Thomasson.

That will include lobbying of both Costa and Cardoza, who Thomasson said will be facing re-election battles next year that become much tougher if they continue to support the bill.

Since summer, Costa's Washington D.C., office estimated it has taken more than 5,000 comments on the health care legislation, either via phone, e-mail, letter or fax.

By last week, the comments had "quieted substantially," said Costa spokesman Bret Rumbeck. Still, they come -- "a mixed bag of praise and criticism," he said.

Other central San Joaquin Valley representatives -- including Cardoza and Republicans Devin Nunes of Visalia and George Radanovich of Mariposa -- have also been fielding constituent comments.

Johnny Amaral, Nunes' chief of staff, said leading up to the vote, the calls were 90 percent against the legislation. Now, they are: "OK, what can we do now to stop this?" Amaral said if a bill emerges from the Senate, who knows what would emerge from the House-Senate committee? "When it goes to conference committee, all bets are off," he said.