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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Are They Liars or Telling the Truth?

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  June 24th, 2010 at 07:00 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

There’s this thing in the United States House of Representatives called a “discharge petition.” In a nutshell, a congressman can write a bill and, when the leaders in charge of the House refuse to do anything with it, the congressman can file a discharge petition. The petition, if personally signed by 218 congressmen, forces the House Speaker to put the matter up for a vote by the House.

Why is this important?

Well, every Republican in the House of Representatives and a bunch of Democrats say if a vote were held tomorrow, they would vote to repeal Obamacare. In fact, if you add up all the Blue Dogs, the Republicans, and the Democrats now scrambling for political cover saying they’d vote to repeal, you arrive at the magic number of 218, which also happens to be the total number of votes needed to pass a piece of legislation in the House of Representatives.

Congressman Steve King (R-IA) has filed a discharge petition on legislation he has drafted to repeal Obamacare. He needs 218 signatures.

A month or so ago I told you the Heritage Foundation has spun off a new 501(c)(4) group they are calling Heritage Action. This group will do political advocacy work the Heritage Foundation cannot do as a 501(c)(3) organization. Heritage Action will be able to leverage the hundreds of thousands if not millions of Heritage Foundation supporters around the country for action. And Heritage Action for America is making Rep. King’s discharge petition its first item for action.

So here’s the deal: Republicans in Congress say they’d vote for full repeal of Obamacare. But how many are willing to put their signature where their mouth is? Will John Boehner sign the discharge petition? Will Eric Cantor? Will Mike Pence (of course Pence will)? Will they work to get other Republicans to sign it?

What about Blue Dogs like Jim Marshall (D-GA)? Will he sign it? Remember: if it gets 218 signatures, Nancy Pelosi must hold a vote whether or not she wants to.

This is where you come in. Go to Heritage Action for America and get involved. Sign up, join the site, and start calling members of Congress asking them to sign the Discharge Petition. Many of them say they are for repeal. Let’s weed out the honest ones from the liars.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://benjaminhodge.com Benjamin Hodge

    lie? You must not have had your morning coffee yet, when you wrote your headline.

  • renny

    because he ran on a “platform” that he would not have voted for Obamanationcare, TARP, the stimulus, or even for the Pledge of Allegiance and Aerican pie. How did he vote on the anti-Citizens United/Schumer krap?

  • renny

    Onward and upward.

  • NeoKong

    We will see the capture of Big Foot before we see a majority of Democrats sign that petition.
    I’m not even certain we could get all the Republicans to sign it.
    Talk is cheap but a signature is a commitment.
    Democrats are talking fast now because they fear for their jobs and their majority but they voted for Obamacare and they do not want it repealed.
    Even if a miracle occurred and enough signatures were gathered then Pelosi would just ignore it because she don’t need no stinkin’ rules.

  • Return to Revolution

    i.e., fiction. At least in the 111th congress. Now the 112th congress may be a different story. That will be fun.

  • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

    I think every Dem who has voiced any regret whatsoever w/ ObamaCare should be offered a public opportunity to sign this petition.

  • Syndicate

    Every blue dog Dem who is using their vote against Obamacare as cover in this election needs to be challenged. They need to publicly back up their rhetoric by signing the discharge petition. Otherwise, their words mean nothing and their Republican opponent should repeat that over and over again. The question is simple: do you stand by your word and with your constituents, or do you stand with Nancy Pelosi? If you don’t have the courage to buck your party and Nancy Pelosi by signing the discharge petition, then the answer is apparent.

  • Jim Tomasik

    You ARE the man!

  • IJB

    So I’d say the odds of him actually signing a discharge position are right about *zero*.

    But, that’s OK – Critz is going to be a surprise (to the MSM and the usual pundit suspects, anyway!) loser in November anyway… :)

  • eastbaylarry

    those votes need to be written on each candidates’ forehead.

    Talk is cheap. Votes have consequences.

  • icesweeper

    Proud member of IA 5

  • deano64

    I’d like to be proven wrong but it should be interesting.

  • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

    could absolutely kill by following them around for an hour with a copy of the petition and a recording device….

  • acat

    It’s asking them to make a simple choice – but an on-the-record one. Either they support rolling back Obamacare, or they don’t – and in either case it’s quite simple to turn their support – or lack thereof – into a campaign ad and possibly issue.

    Even in D+500 districts, there’s still some folks who will be losing jobs or taking home less from their jobs if Obamacare remains the law of the land – and as the districts approach parity (i.e. D+0) the number of such folk increases.

    The ads almost write themselves. Black screen, white lettering “It’s the economy, stupid!” Follow with a simple bar chart showing health care costs before and after, or a line chart showing number of new jobs before and after. Close with another black screen, white lettering, “Are you better off now than you were in 2007?”

    Mew

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    Please, keep him in Iowa.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    You don’t even have a clue why I made that statement.

    I made it because he came to MY State and spent an hour on a local radio show calling our congressional candidate a “pussy”, among other things.

    But then, perhaps you like Betsy Markey and her co-sponsorship of Card Check.

    I didn’t say get rid of him, I said keep him in Iowa.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    When you take a thread about a grave national interest, and threadjack it with some petty local concern, you should expect y our commitment to the grave national interest to be questioned.

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister
  • romeg

    to identify those House members who have indicated that they either oppose the bill or who have said that they would support repeal of same. Please make those names available on this site. Let’s put their feet to the fire.

    If they renege on their previous statement then let’s make certain that we locate and identify candidates that WILL vote for repeal. The same goes for Members of the Senate. This blatantly unConstitutional usurpation of power cannot be allowed to remain and those who enabled it or voted directly for it must be held to account for their breach of their oath of office.

    As Obama might say, We shall not rest until this thing is stopped.

  • gretske

    Even if the 218 signatures were obtained, and even if the Senate were to pass the repeal with the needed 60 votes, it would next have to go to the socialist president for signature. Do you think for a moment he would sign it? Not a chance.

    The only thing that is going to repeal Obamacare is a new president, and that will have to wait until 2012.

  • holystone

    Come on people ….. where are, and with all due respect to another gender, your cojones??? As stated in the diary there are at least 218 “politicians” that are making noise about what they would do about Obamacare in nation where 60 percent of the voting population has determined it is bad for America. ANY politician that can be shown, with an R or a D, that had the chance to vote with the majority of Americans and did not is not only dead in November 2010 they are “dead men walking” until then. So pull up your frillies, quit whining, jack a round into the chamber (put a positive thought in your brain), aim (join Heritage) and FIRE (scare the H E double toothpicks out of em). Thank you.

  • http://www.hopeychangemas.com VizBiz

    Listen everyday. He’ll get that “Fire in the Belly”.

    We all need his passion.

    No excuses, it’s free.

  • loop_block

    We need to make some changes now.

  • kb3mkd

    Maybe it can’t be repealed now, but it can be used as a campaign issue now, and once we get the right people in congress, it can be defunded until we get a new Prez, and be able to repeal it completely.;l

  • revolutionary

    I went on Heritage and joined! It may not help- we may be stuck with Obummercare, but it won’t be because we sat back on our haunches and watched it go by. I don’t have some PollyAnna attitude about do your part and it will all be okay, but I do have the AMERICAN SPIRIT of it’s a free country and I can say what I like, go where I want, petition what I don’t like and look at myself in the mirror everyday knowing I didn’t rely on someone else to do it for me!

  • revolutionary

    I went on Heritage and joined! It may not help- we may be stuck with Obummercare, but it won’t be because we sat back on our haunches and watched it go by. I don’t have some PollyAnna attitude about do your part and it will all be okay, but I do have the AMERICAN SPIRIT of it’s a free country and I can say what I like, go where I want, petition what I don’t like and look at myself in the mirror everyday knowing I didn’t rely on someone else to do it for me!

  • jaydickb

    if the Republicans take even one house of congress and can find some backbone, they could starve Obamacare by refusing to provide any money. That would put everything on hold until we get a Republican president.

  • JSobieski

    We will gain more seats if Blue Dogs are revealed to be more Blue than Dog.

  • dude

    I joined yesterday

  • alamo294