A Tale of Two Bad Laws - ‘Obamacare’ collides with Ohio’s regulation of the truth.

Newsweek ^ | February 13, 2011 | George Will

[neverdem]

No person, during the course of any campaign…shall…make a false statement concerning the voting record of a candidate or public official. —An Ohio law

The subject of abortion roiled Washington last week, as it has frequently done during the 38 years since the Supreme Court, by nationalizing the issue, made it the cause of a deep fissure in American politics. Last week’s interest in abortion could have been, but was not, because of the simultaneously heartening and (one hopes) unsettling report about stunning success in treating severe forms of spina bifida in utero. If babies can be surgery patients 19 weeks after conception, are they not babies rather than mere “fetal material” whose “termination” is a matter of moral indifference?

And last week’s interest in abortion could have been, but was not, because of recent stomach-turning (one hopes) reports about the routine butchery of babies at a Philadelphia abortion mill. There, according to the district attorney’s office, late-term abortions often produced living, viable babies who were then killed by “snipping”—using scissors to cut their spinal cords.

Instead, last week’s congressional interest in abortion was part of the aftershocks from last year’s enactment of the health-care law, an event that is having odd reverberations in Ohio’s First Congressional District, which includes Cincinnati. There, last November, Steve Driehaus, a freshman Democrat, lost his bid for a second term by 11,098 out of 201,518 votes cast.

Driehaus, a Catholic opposed to abortion rights, believes that he might have lost because of what he sincerely believes were false statements in broadcasts by the Susan B. Anthony List. The statements were that in voting for the health-care legislation he voted “for taxpayer funding of abortion.” Driehaus insists that “many organizations” supported the legislation “because” he and others secured language in it, and in an executive...

[HiTech RedNeck]

Bring it on Driehaus — you’re not that dense are you?

[neverdem]

Ohio Ping

[laweeks]

Bring it on Driehaus — you’re not that dense are you?

The illegal alien in our White House believes in killing unborn AND NEWLY BORN BABIES (we used to call this INFANTICIDE). What would make you, Driehaus, think there was any protection for our most helpless anywhere in Nobamacare?

[Las Vegas Dave]

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[Eagle of Liberty]

The statements were that in voting for the health-care legislation he voted “for taxpayer funding of abortion.”

Driehaus, you saw the same fate as STUPAK. And why? Because you guys called Congress to the mat over abortion. And then after STUPAK had his little agreement with Obama, the whole coalition jumped on board.

Why It's Absurd to Deny Obama's Health Care Bill Contains Abortion Funding

Driehaus, by the way, had made essentially the same characterization of the healthcare legislation as made by Dannenfelser. On March 19, Driehaus was an original co-sponsor of H. Con. Res. 254, an "enrollment correction," introduced by Rep. Bart Stupak. That resolution would have removed abortion funding from the Senate version of the healthcare bill...

Yes, They’re Going To Go Around Bart Stupak

The majority leader said that as Congress nears a final vote it’s clear the abortion provisions Stupak wants inserted into the health care legislation can’t be addressed in the budget reconciliation bill that House Democrats need to pass.

Asked if the case was closed, Hoyer said: “We’ll have to deal with that pretty much as it is at this point in time.”

I think we can call the negotiations dead dead. Stupak will have to either affirmatively kill reform or become newly satisfied with the (not all that different) Senate language and some vague lean toward a future solution. Democrats really are acknowledging reality on this – there’s just no way to change that language, given the current circumstances.

Now the question becomes how many members Stupak has in his coalition. We know that seven are basically confirmed: Stupak, Joseph Cao, Kathy Dahlkemper, Marion Berry, Dan Lipinski, Joe Donnelly and Steve Driehaus. But wait: in an article in Congressional Quarterly (sub. reqd.), Driehaus appeared to back off a bit.