Rove baselessly claims Dem leaders used threats, bribes, backroom deals to pass reform bill

Rove: Pelosi “will cajole, entreat and threaten House Democrats to approve the Senate health-care bill.” In a March 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rove wrote that “Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants” are “cajol[ing], entreat[ing] and threaten[ing] House Democrats to approve the Senate health-care bill,” adding that “Democrats from Republican-leaning districts are concerned about backroom deals that greased it through the Senate.”

Rove: Obama administration made “threats against Democrats.” On the March 21 edition of ABC's This Week, Rove told Obama adviser David Plouffe: “The way that you have sold this bill to Democrats by threatening them. You cannot tell me that the White House didn't sanction some of these groups like MoveOn.org and others to make these kind of threats against Democrats.”

Rove: Obama administration used “thinly disguised bribe” to win support. Also on This Week, Rove told Plouffe, “You said earlier this week -- the White House did -- that the president would be campaigning actively and raising money for Democrats who supported that bill. That is a thinly disguised bribe.” Plouffe denied the claim, saying that Obama will “be out there helping people who vote yes on this, who vote no on this.”

Right-wing media have frequently smeared Dems with baseless allegations about tactics used to pass health care reform. Right-wing media have repeatedly attacked health care reform and smeared Democrats with baseless allegations that the Obama administration has attempted to buy votes or has cut “special deals” or “bribes” for health care reform.

In memoir, Rove portrayed deals for prescription drug benefit as mere “horse-trading”

Rove: Bush admin “flipped enough members” to win Medicare vote. As noted by Time magazine's Joe Klein, Rove wrote in his memoir Courage and Consequence about the Bush administration's “three-year effort” to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare:

The House finally voted between 3 A.M. and 5:55 A.M. on the morning of November 22 [2003]. The tally at first stalled out at 216 to 218 against us. House leaders kept the vote open and, using the kind of horse-trading that has always been part of politics, flipped enough members to arrive at 220 to 215 for the Medicare overhaul. [Page 373]

DeLay admonished by ethics subcommittee after offering to endorse congressman's son in exchange for his vote

DeLay admonished for offering endorsement of Smith's vote in exchange for his vote. In September 2004, a House ethics subcommittee admonished then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay after the subcommittee concluded that DeLay had told then-Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI) he would endorse the congressional bid of Smith's son if Smith voted for the prescription drug benefit. According to the ethics committee's report, DeLay testified to the subcommittee “that he did say words to the effect of: 'I will personally endorse your son. That's my final offer.' ” The subcommittee concluded:

It is not controverted in this matter that Majority Leader Tom DeLay offered his personal endorsement of Brad Smith in exchange for Representative Nick Smith's vote in favor of the Medicare Prescription Drug Act. This offer was made personally by the Majority Leader to Representative Smith, most likely during a vote on November 21, 2003, on a matter unrelated matter to the Medicare Prescription Drug Act. The Investigative Subcommittee concludes that the interaction between the Majority Leader and Representative Smith, in significant part, precipitated the public allegations by Representative Smith that ultimately led to this inquiry. At the time the offer was made, Representative Smith believed that the endorsement of his son by the Majority Leader, combined with the publicity and substantial financial support for his son's campaign that Representative Smith believed would follow the Majority Leader's endorsement, would greatly assist, if not assure, his son's election in the primary held on August 3, 2004.

[...]

The promise of political support for a relative of a Member goes beyond the boundaries of maintaining party discipline, and should not be used as the basis of a bar gain for Members to achieve their respective goals. The endorsement of a political candidate is not related to the functioning of government, and the promise of such an endorsement is not a proper offer, and therefore should not be made or accepted, in exchange for a vote in favor or against a particular piece of legislation. While the political consequences of a Member's vote on legislation are usually inherent and exist even if unspoken, the use of political incentives to obtain passage of legislation, or the mixing of political and official incentives to obtain such a goal, risks undermining the confidence of the public that legislation was supported or opposed by Members on the basis of the interests of the public, and no other interest.

Accordingly, the Investigative Subcommittee concludes that it is improper for a Member to offer or link support for the personal interests of another Member as part of a quid pro quo to achieve a legislative goal. In the view of the Investigative Subcommittee, depending on the circumstances, such conduct may violate House Rule 23, Clause 1.

Miller criticized for “unprovoked threat of retaliation” against Smith's son if he opposed bill. The ethics subcommittee reported that according to Rep. Candace Miller (R-MI), after Smith told her that he was going to vote against the bill, “she responded by saying words to the effect of: ''Well, I hope your son doesn't come to Congress, or I'm not going to support your son, or something to that effect.'” The subcommittee further wrote that “Smith's recollection was that Representative Miller 'came up and said something like, I haven't been involved in this campaign before, but if you don't change your vote, I'll get involved, and I'll make sure Brad isn't elected.'” The subcommittee concluded:

Representative Miller's interaction with Representative Smith can fairly be characterized as a specific and unprovoked threat of retaliation against Representative Smith because of his vote in opposition to the Medicare Prescription Drug Act. Given Representative Miller's status as a well-known figure in Michigan politics, from the mindset of Representative Smith, Representative Miller could possibly have had a deleterious impact on Brad Smith's candidacy. Representative Miller never sought to mitigate her conduct by apologizing to Representative Smith, or by otherwise expressing contrition for her conduct. The Investigative Subcommittee concluded that Representative Miller's statements to Representative Smith on the House floor were improper and contributed to his decision to make his public allegations of alleged misconduct related to his vote on the Medicare Prescription Drug Act, and therefore Representative Miller shares a portion of the responsibility for a course of events that risked impugning the reputation of the House of Representatives.

Rep. Feeney reportedly threatened with delayed entry into GOP leadership

Novak: Feeney was told a “no” vote “would delay his ascent into leadership by three years.” Robert Novak wrote in his November 27, 2003, column:

Intense pressure, including a call from the president, was put on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney. As speaker of the Florida House, he was a stalwart for Bush in his state's 2000 vote recount. He is the Class of 2002's contact with the House leadership, marking him as a future party leader. But now, in those early morning hours, Feeney was told a “no” vote would delay his ascent into leadership by three years -- maybe more.

Moore: GOP leadership told Feeney, “Why jeopardize your career, Tom, over this one little vote?” In a December 8, 2003, Human Events article, Stephen Moore wrote of Feeney:

Tom is the freshman class representative to the House leadership, a position that goes to the newcomer whom the speaker wants to groom for a leadership position. Feeney, who had been speaker of the Florida House, was told his stubborn “no” vote would set him back three years in his bid to climb the House ladder. He would be relegated to a position of a backbencher. They put their arms around him and shook their heads and told him how disappointed they were in him. “Why jeopardize your career, Tom, over this one little vote?” they all asked.

Backroom deal: Hospitals in key states got federal funding

VT hospital got increased federal funding, reportedly to “firm up critical support” from senator. An October 5, 2004, Boston Globe article stated that the University of Vermont teaching hospital was placed in the “the same federal wage district as metropolitan Boston” -- despite being 200 miles away from Boston -- in order to help “firm up critical support for the Medicare bill from the state's independent senator, James Jeffords”:

In New England, the regulations resulted in about $7.8 million a year for three years for the University of Vermont's Fletcher Allen Health Care medical center, in Burlington -- money the hospital says it can use to pay its workers better, a hospital spokesman said. To squeeze UVM under the umbrella for the benefits, Jeffords, the lone Senate independent and a key supporter of the Medicare legislation, fought to get Burlington, Vt. in the same wage district as Boston and Worcester, according to his staff. It was a renewal of an earlier Medicare provision that benefited the Burlington hospital but was due to expire, the staff said.

Jeffords, in a statement responding to the Globe's questions, said he worked to put Fletcher Allen and other hospitals like it “on a level playing field with their urban counterparts.”

“I voted for this bill knowing it was not a perfect bill, but after so many years, we could no longer afford to keep talking about a perfect bill while letting a good bill slip from our grasp,” he said.

About 150 hospitals thought they qualified for the higher reimbursements but were frozen out when the money was distributed by the administration.

Similar benefits given to hospitals in other states with GOP representatives. The Globe article continued:

Many of the nation's teaching hospitals are situated in Democratic strongholds like Massachusetts, New York, and Illinois. For them, they key was to identify the few major teaching hospitals in Republican states, such as Texas, that also would benefit from the higher reimbursement rates and get their CEOs to pressure their lawmakers.

The Methodist Hospital in Houston and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston were among the Texas hospitals that contacted the office of GOP Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who in turn went to bat for the institutions in a Senate floor speech, Hutchison's office confirmed.

The teaching hospitals also had to convince the Bush administration to give them the additional money. Dr. Peter Slavin, CEO of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Ellen Zane, now the chief executive of Tufts-New England Medical Center, who at the time was president of Partners Community Healthcare Inc., the physician's network associated with MGH and Brigham & Women's, visited the White House in July 2003 and met with Bush's health-care adviser, Douglas Badger.

They brought along executives from teaching hospitals in swing states in the presidential election, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Among their key points: Hospitals had been hit hard by cuts in funding in 1997, and the money needed to be restored. To set up the White House meeting, Zane called an acquaintance whom she had met while serving on the Stonehill College board of trustees, Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card. The meeting occurred within days after the phone call, Zane said.

“We were constantly putting the pressure on everywhere we could,” said Dick Knapp, executive vice president for the Association of American Medical Colleges, who coordinated the lobbying effort. “Once CEOs get engaged with their senators, it gets there.”

Republican leadership extended voting time to get needed votes

Voting kept open for three hours, “longest roll call in modern House history.” Republican House leaders held what American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Norman Ornstein called “the longest roll call in modern House history” when Republican leaders kept voting on the Medicare prescription drug benefit open for three hours -- far longer than the standard 15 minutes. Ornstein stated that the extended voting “was the ugliest and most outrageous breach of standards in the modern history of the House.” Ornstein added: “It was made dramatically worse when the speaker violated the longstanding tradition of the House floor's being off limits to lobbying by outsiders (other than former members) by allowing Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on the floor during the vote to twist arms -- another shameful first.”

Weekly Standard: Dissenting Republicans “subject to arm-twisting, brow-beating, and outright threats” during extended vote. A December 8, 2003, Weekly Standard article [retrieved from Nexis] noted that “Over the course of the almost three-hour long vote -- the longest vote in the history of the House -- dissenting conservative Republicans were subject to arm-twisting, brow-beating, and outright threats.” The Standard added:

Those who stuck around, that is. Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas, voted “no,” and then left for the gym. But soon after Moran and a few others escaped, the Republican leadership made sure the House chamber's exits were blocked. The rebel conservatives hung around in a group towards the back of the chamber, seeking strength in numbers. Says one of them, Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo, “If the leadership ever got you alone, you were in trouble.”