Burn These Assholes' Names Into Your Memory
On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted 217-213 to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance coverage. Donald Trump held a premature celebration for them in the White House Rose Garden, and, like all photos of meetings of this administration, it looked a lot like the final shot of The Shining, only with fewer women and a higher body count.
The House is now in recess until May 16, and, conveniently, none of the most electorally vulnerable Republicans who just voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act are hosting town halls while they’re back in their districts. Come November 2018, a lot of them hope you will have completely forgotten what they voted for today. So, for posterity, here’s a list of so-called “moderate” House Republicans who voted for the American Health Care Act.
There are 23 House Republicans who represent districts that voted for Hillary Clinton last November:
Of those 23 Republicans, 14 of them voted for the AHCA, and seven of them are from California: Rep. Jeff Denham (CA-10), Rep. David Valadao (CA-21), Rep. Steve Knight (CA-25), Rep. Ed Royce (CA-39), Rep. Mimi Walters (CA-45), Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48), and Rep. Darrell Issa (CA-49).
As the Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein points out, Californians have good reason to be grateful for Obamacare (emphasis mine):
One of the most striking patterns in the vote was the support for the legislation among all seven California Republicans in districts that Clinton won last year. Their unanimity—contrasted with the roughly even division among Clinton-district Republicans outside of California—was especially noteworthy because nearly four million people in California have gained coverage under the ACA. That’s more than double the number in any other state, according to Urban Institute calculations. Since 2010, the state’s uninsurance rate has fallen by more than half.
The other seven are: Rep. Carlos Curbelo (FL-26), Rep. Erik Paulsen (MN-3), Rep. Martha McSally (AZ-2), Rep. Pete Roskam (IL-6), Rep. Kevin Yoder (KS-3), Rep. John Culberson (TX-7), and Rep. Pete Sessions (TX-32).
Twenty Republicans voted against the AHCA’s passage, but 19 of them nonetheless voted to bring the bill to the House floor, essentially guaranteeing its success. By voting ‘yea’ on bringing the bill to the floor and then ‘nay’ on passage, these nine members hoped to have their cake and eat it too—to assist their party in killing Obamacare without incurring negative campaign ads about how they “voted to kill Obamacare.”
Here are their names: Rep. Patrick Meehan (PA-7), Rep. Dave Reichert (WA-8), Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27), Rep. John Katko (NY-24), Rep. Leonard Lance (NJ-7), Rep. Will Hurd (TX-23), Rep. Mike Coffman (CO-6), Rep. Barbara Comstock (VA-10) and Rep. Ryan Costello (PA-6). Ros-Lehtinen recently announced she plans to retire at the end of her term next year.
The other ten who voted ‘yea’ on agreeing to the resolution but ‘nay’ on passage are: Rep. Andy Biggs (AZ-5), Rep. Charlie Dent (PA-15), Rep. Dan Donovan (NY-11), Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-8), Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-3), Rep. Dave Joyce (OH-13), Rep. Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2), Rep. Thomas Massie (KY-4), Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-4), and Rep. Mike Turner (OH-10).