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Democratic Rep. Eric Massa: I'm voting for single-payer, the wishes of my constituents be damned
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I wonder how many other Democratic Congressmen who represent Republican leaning districts are going to engage in a similar act of political self-immolation as that expressed recently by Representative Eric Massa (D.,N.Y.)
At the recent netroots conference in Pittsburgh, Massa addressed a group of activists and stated that even though he represents a heavily Republican district, he is going to vote for a single-payer plan regardless of the wishes of his constituents.
Courtesy of the Washington Times, here is a copy of the transcript:
MASSA: I’m not going to vote for 3200 as it’s currently written. Step one, I will vote for a single payer option or a bill that does have a medicare coupled public option, which we don’t have right now. If my town hall meetings turn into the same media frenzies and ridiculousness, because every time that happens we lose, We lose another three million people in America. They see that happening and negate us.
PARTICIPANT: It changes America.
MASSA: Every time that occurs. So what happens in my town hall meetings frankly is important, because I am in one of the most right wing Republican districts in the country, and I’m not asking you guys to go back to wherever and send people to me. This is a generic statement of what can I do? Well that’s one thing we can do.
PARTICIPANT: So if we got your meetings to sixty forty, you’d vote…and there was single payer in a bill you would vote for it?
MASSA: Oh absolutely I would vote for single payer.
PARTICIPANT: If there was sixty forty sentiment in the room?
MASSA: Listen, I tell every audience I’m in favor of single payer.
PARTICIPANT: If there was eighty twenty in the room?
MASSA: If there was a single payer bill?
PARTICIPANT: And there was a single payer….
MASSA: I will vote for the single payer bill.
PARTICIPANT: Even if it meant you were being voted out of office?
MASSA: I will vote adamantly against the interests of my district if I actually think what I am doing is going to be helpful.
(inaudible participants' comments regarding the "interests" of the district statement from Mr. Massa)
Massa: I will vote against their opinion if I actually believe it will help them.
The last line is particularly telling. He seems to imply, as do many liberals on the health care "reform" issue, that his constituents are too stupid to know what's best for them and thus, are in need of his superior wisdom as a member of the elect to protect them from their own ignorance.
Yet, how is Massa's opinion any different from that of the leadership of the Democratic Party?
