All seven of North Carolina’s Democratic members of Congress were on the losing side of the vote to override President Bush’s veto of the irresponsible S-CHIP expansion bill.
For the record, Democrats G.K. Butterfield, Bob Etheridge, David Price, Mike McIntyre, Heath Shuler, Brad Miller and Mel Watt voted to override the veto. That vote was 260 to override, 152 not to override. That’s 59 percent, but 66 percent is needed to override a presidential veto.
All of North Carolina’s Republican members (Walter Jones, Virginia Foxx, Howard Coble, Robin Hayes, Sue Myrick and Patrick McHenry) voted against the override.
Here’s House Republican Leader John Boehner commenting on the vote:
Democrats and Republicans alike established SCHIP a decade ago to ensure our nation’s low-income children have access to high-quality health care. Likewise, just a month ago, both parties overwhelmingly voted to extend SCHIP into 2009 and cover the program’s funding shortfall. Unfortunately, that spirit of cooperation has consistently taken a back seat to the Majority’s ongoing efforts to politicize this issue in order to move more Americans from private insurance to government-run health care.
