| The resolution disapproving of Congressman Joe Wilson's conduct during President Barack Obama's health care speech last week passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 240 to 179. It was a mostly party line vote, with only 12 Democrats voting against the resolution and seven Republicans voting in favor of the resolution.
The state that was well represented in the "nay" column? New York. Four New York congressmen voted against the resolution and a fifth, Congressman Eliot Engel, voted present.
The four that voted "nay" are: Congressman Mike Arcuri, Congressman Maurice Hinchey, Congressman Dan Maffei and Congressman Eric Massa.
Why did these four oppose it? Perhaps Congressman Maffei put it best in his statement:
It does not promote civility to have a party line vote and spend an afternoon debating whether Mr. Wilson's apology for what he said during the President's address last week is 'good enough.' Clearly, Mr. Wilson thoroughly embarrassed himself. And while I disagree with Mr. Wilson and I strongly support the President, I think we should be moving on and not piling on. As Voltaire wrote, 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' We all agree Mr. Wilson's behavior was inappropriate, now it is time to get back to work.
Speaking as a blogger, I think we did pile on in this situation. It was nice that we were able to raise money for Wilson's opponent, Democratic candidate Rob Miller. But Wilson raised money too. While we did mobilize for Miller, the right followed and did the same thing for Wilson. That was to be expected. They weren't going to hang him out to dry in a district that he came close to losing last time to Miller.
It is time to get back to work.
Congressman Massa also issued a statement on this vote:
"My vote against formally reprimanding Rep. Wilson is based on my belief that we should be doing more important things now that Congress is back in session," said Congressman Eric Massa. "I strongly disapproved of Joe Wilson's outburst last week, but I think it's more important for us to be working on solutions rather than voicing more objections to something that happened almost a full week ago. The issues facing the American people are more important than myself, Rep. Wilson, or President Obama and I think we owe it to the public to continue working for them right now."
Out of the four who voted, I will say this about Massa. Massa has shown during his time in office that he has no time for partisan politics. Some of the bigger media outlets always try to get his thoughts on various issues, whether it's why he hadn't endorsed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand or his thoughts on the gubernatorial race next year in New York. So it didn't surprise me when he voted against this resolution.
Now that it's out of the way and some members of the Democratic leadership got what they wanted, we can get back to the people's business. |
