To survive this November, Rep. Dan Lipinski says incumbents need to "stand up for what they think is right." The question for Lipinski is how Democratic voters will feel about his "principles" in the spring of 2012.
Illinois' own Rep. Dan Lipinski knows 2010 is shaping up to be an anti-incumbent year. To survive in November, he told WLS' Don Wade and Roma yesterday morning that elected officials need to show they are willing to vote their conscience instead of blindly following party directives or popular opinion. Like he did, for example, on federal health care reform. Listen (the full interview is available here):
"Well, I think that the anger out there -- I certainly have not seen before. And talking to a lot of people, they say that they have never seen this before. Even 1994 didn't look like this. There is a tremendous amount of anger out there right now. From my perspective and from where I sit, we talked about before when I was on how I voted against the health care bill. There are a lot of people still -- every single day I am home -- people coming up to me and thanking me for being willing to stand up and vote against that bill. Not just because they didn't like the bill, but because they want to see their representative stand up and be willing to go against the tide. And I think right now, anyone who has shown they are not willing to take a stand, and stand up for their constituents, and stand up for what they think is right and just go along, I think they could be in some trouble."
Lipinski, who represents a reliably Democratic seat, is the only Illinois Democrat to oppose health care reform. And he is correct in asserting that the law, at least for now, isn't incredibly popular. The latest Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 41 percent of respondents were very or somewhat favorable towards health care reform while 44 percent held negative feelings. Those trends have remained stable over the past several months. Respondents who say they are likely to vote in the midterm elections this November also lean negative in their views on the law. Here in Illinois, Rasmussen suggests that most Illinoisans favor repeal.
At the same time, the polling shows a strong partisan divide. The Kaiser survey found that 72 percent of Democrats held a favorable view of health care while just 14 percent opposed it. (A portion of the latter group are likely critics from the left who are angry that the bill didn't go far enough.) Republican respondents are even more united, with just eight percent exhibiting favorable feelings toward the bill. "The main effect of health care as an issue [this November]," wrote political scientist Larry Sabato, "would probably be to reinforce voters’ partisan preferences."
But the real question for Lipinski is this: How will voters feel about it in the spring of 2012, when he could be facing a primary challenge?
Time will only tell on that front. What we do know is that many more of the bill's reforms will be in effect by then and the accompanying headlines will surely have an effect on public opinion. This year, that includes rebates for Medicare Part D enrollees caught in the "doughnut hole," a new tax credit for small businesses, and a ban on rescissions and the denial of coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. In 2011, individual and small group market plans will be required to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services.
Now we're all for legislators taking a stand. But Lipinski's criticisms of the reform package were patently absurd. The two reasons Lipinski cited for his opposition -- that the abortion language and cost controls in the Senate bill were not strong enough -- were directly refuted by members from both the pro-life bloc and the fiscally conservative bloc in the Democratic party. This was not a courageous vote; it was intellectually weak and politically cowardly. Moreover, if he had gotten his way, 57,500 people in the 3rd District would not be on their way to gaining access to affordable health care. But we'll have to wait until 2012 to see what it means for Lipinski's political future.
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