photo: Leo Reynolds via Flickr
A major development: Chris Carney (D-PA) will vote yes on the health care bill. Carney was sort of part of the Stupak bloc, but wasn’t on the list of Democrats who co-sponsored Bart Stupak’s ultimately failed amendment.
Carney was present at a meeting between Speaker Pelosi and three anti-choice Democrats (Carney, Kathy Dahlkemper and Steve Driehaus). The fact that he came out of this and decided to vote Yes bodes well for the Democratic leadership.
UPDATE: Carney’s statement.
In addition, Jim Costa and Henry Cuellar decided to lend their support to the bill, but I already had them in the count as Yes votes (Cuellar actually announced yesterday, I believe).
Seeing fellow Californian Costa come home, and with Dennis Cardoza’s main complaint, the deem and pass strategy, rendered moot by the House leadership going away from that path, I think we can confidently put Cardoza down as a Yes, too.
The new count is 204 Yes, 205 No, with now 12 undecided and 10 assumed in the Stupak bloc.
The numbers:
