* If your constituents STRONGLY favor the course of action, then your responsibility is to accurately reflect -- to REPRESENT -- the will of your constituents and vote in favor.
* Cao did not hold out for just some ridiculous pork project favored by big-money lobbyists; he instead asked for help with local issues caused by THE GREATEST NATURAL CATASTROPHE THAT EVER HIT THIS NATION. These are not roads to nowhere; they are health issues for a still-recovering population. Agree or disagree with his request, it is not outlandish.
Personal Note : Knowing the difficult situation Cao faced, the GOP waited till the 218th vote was cast in favor of the bill before letting him cast his lone vote. His yea vote would not have changed the result one bit.
B/S. His primary and sworn duty is to defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God! I don’t care if he’s democrat or Republican or what his greedy constituents may want to steal from the US Treasury. If he’s not going to defend the constitution then he should resign his office (or be run out of town on a rail!).
This bill is unconstitutional! And I hope and pray that if it makes it through the senate and becomes law, that we citizens unite to defy it!! They cannot arrest 150 million of us!! And if they try, then it WILL be time!!
I also hope and pray that we have at least some governors who have the intestinal fortitude to say NOT in MY state!!The feds will NOT march into MY state and arrest MY good citizens for simply defying unconstitutional federal tyranny!! Not as long as I’m alive they wont!
Keep your powder dry. Rebellion is brewing!! This tyranny will not stand!!
All the abortion funding will be put back in when it goes to committee. What a Rube!
If I was a Republican planning to run in a liberal district, I would just run as a conservative and let the chips fall where they may be. That's what Republicans need to start doing, especially in the Northeast.
Cao's vote is inexcusable.
I would say that's true...except when the constituents want something that is clearly unconstitutional!
So sorry, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then ....
Let him run as a democrat.
Not much of a traditionalists. He ignored a fundamental church teaching: the principle of subsidiarity
But then even more Catholics ignore that than ignore the church teachings on abortion.
Nonsense. The Constitution of the United States of America gives no authority under Article 1 Section 8 (Powers of Congress) to do what he voted for.
And according to the 10th Amendment, if the authority isnt given to the Federal Gooberment by the Constitution, the issue becomes a State issue.
This idiot's constituency may have been wanting to give up their own liberty to have a gooberment bureaucracy control rule over them, his constituency might even overwhelmingly demand to be slaves to an all powerful government but that does not make it Constitutional
You’re right and the article is right. The problem is our fellow Americans, the lazy, mis-educated ones looking for handouts or those who think the government is SUPPOSED to solve every stinking little problem. THEY are the problem.
He took a bribe in the form of a so called “promise” from Obama..........he’s a POS no better than any other criminal / socialist rat .
Doom on him !
Cao was vote buying with his fellow American’s earnings, plain and simple.
Because his voters wanted him to rob peter to pay paul, steal the private healthcare from others, threaten to fine and imprison Americans and their employers, he was willing to shrug and say Okeydokey??????
It should be a crime.
I think this is the thing that bothers me about some in the pro-life movement (I am pro-life, BTW). Some are so singularly focused on this one issue that they don't see that there are many issues just as important, issues that threaten our very freedoms. Regardless of whether the abortion language is in there or not, this is still a very bad bill. Cao's district is 75% Dem? So what, you simply need to do the right thing and vote against this bill, then go back and face your constituents and tell them exactly why you voted against the bill. What would Cao have done if it came down to his vote being the tie breaker? We may yet find out that answer if this bill ever comes back to the House for a final vote.
The problem is that NOW the Dems can put part of the blame for the failure of this boondoggle on the GOP. In 2013 when this monstrosity is implemented the media will simply call it “bipartisan” and the idiots in this country will never remember that one idiot Republican voted for it. They’ll think the GOP supported it. It’s not like the media will be honest, and the GOP doesn’t have the ability or the balls to get an alternative message out.
No defense, none. You let them get away once with this backstabbing, they get all the adoring state-run media coverage, and they become Lindsey Graham or Arlen Specter.
If we want a Republican to represent William Jefferson’s (Democrat - Louisiana) district, and are willing to compromise to the point that the ‘big tent’ must include voters like that, then we compromise to the point that the GOP does not represent voters in places where we need to win.
And THAT, y’all, is how rot-gut commies like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barak Obama take over our country.
No compromise! None!
“He is a traditionalist Catholic, former Jesuit seminarian”
I think I read somewhere that the Jesuit order has been disbanded five times by various Popes during its approximately 500 year history.
I blame the folks who devised the Stupack-Pitts Amendment and “my Bishops”, the USCCB, for providing plausible deniability and political groundcover for this mess.
This bill would be a trojan horse, by which the Democrats will do what they do best; kill unborn US citizens.
To this I might add that if the bill does become a law that you and I will end up footing the bill for the abortions. To add some paradox to this scenario, we won’t even get the cheapest, cut rate baby killing that money can buy. One third of the billions will be graft, which will flow back to the death cult, so that they can fund and susidize more of the same.
Why the Catholic Conference of Bishops favor capitulation and appeasement to this horde of sodomites and baby killers is beyond me. It is truly a disgrace!!
If he’s pro-live and anti-Commie’s then he’s okay by me as that’s my prime reason for voting Republican.
I’ve had issues with American Spectator in the past. I don’t subscribe to it any longer since I can read this kind of mealy-mouthing in Newsweek, or Time or any other liberal rag.
He knew damned well that pro life amendment was going to be stripped from the bill in the end.
NO EXCUSES