Stupak Still Holding Firm

Rep. Bart Stupak gave us a bit of a scare when it looked like he was falling for a plan to "fix" the Obamacare bill's abortion funding after the Senate bill was passed and signed into law. Looks like the reporting was premature:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) talked with John McCormack at The Weekly Standard today, and put it bluntly: there is no compromise and there is no deal. "If I didn’t" cave in November," Stupak told McCormack, "why would I do it now after all the crap I’ve been through?"

"Everyone’s going around saying there’s a compromise—there’s no such thing," Stupak said. What's changed between this week and last, Stupak went on, is that he had his first real conversation with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Congressman Henry Waxman about fixing the bill.

But Stupak made one thing very clear: While he's optimistic, there's a lot of confusion about how the House would structure a bill that he could vote for. Stupak says "the majority party can get it done. Where there’s a will there’s a way." But: "No one has said here's how you do it, here's the legislative scheme."

Stupak affirmed that he will not settle for an agreement to pass the bill now and fix the bill's problems on abortion later: "If they say 'we’ll give you a letter saying we'll take care of this later,' that’s not acceptable because later never comes."

Let's hope he holds firm. Without his vote and the votes of other pro-life Dems Nancy Pelosi will have a very difficult time getting the votes needed to pass the Senate bill.