Rep. Stupak Expected to Retire

Rep. Stupak Expected to Retire
By JEFF ZELENY AND DAVID HERSZENHORN
Copyright by the New York Times
April 9, 2010, 9:20 AM
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/rep-stupak-expected-to-retire/?hp


Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, who played a central role with fellow anti-abortion Democrats in negotiating a compromise in the final hours of the health care debate, intends to announce today that he will not seek re-election, a senior party official confirmed.

Mr. Stupak, a nine-term incumbent, has been under intense pressure from anti-abortion groups since the health care bill passed last month. At his request, President Obama signed an executive order outlining the prohibitions against the use of federal funds for abortion. But anti-abortion groups dismissed the executive order and pledged to defeat Mr. Stupak.

In conversations over the last week, party officials said, Mr. Stupak told Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Obama and other party leaders that he was leaning against running in November. They urged Mr. Stupak to reconsider, officials said, because his seat would become an opportunity for Republicans to gain ground in their bid to win control of the House.

The National Republican Congressional Committee seized on the development, issuing a statement moments after the news began spreading of Mr. Stupak’s decision: “Red Alert: Former pro-life Democrat throws in the towel rather than running on health care sellout.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had no immediate comment, but one official conceded that the party did not have a strong candidate to field in the district, located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Mr. Stupak, a leader of the Congressional Pro-life Caucus, put himself at the center of a debate over provisions in the big health care legislation regarding insurance coverage for abortions.

In the fall, Mr. Stupak pulled off what at the time seemed a remarkable political feat, forcing Ms. Pelosi, who is a fierce champion of abortion rights, and other liberal Democrats to allow a vote on an amendment inserting tight restrictions on abortion coverage into the House health care bill.

With Republican support, the amendment was approved, and immediately posed a challenge for Senate Democrats to find compromise language in their bill — which they did after negotiations between two abortion foes, Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and a supporter of abortion rights, Senator Barbara Boxer of California.

But when the Senate bill returned to the House and Mr. Stupak insisted that the language was not good enough, he quickly infuriated all sides. Whether they were for or against abortion rights, many Democrats seemed to be anti-Stupak.

He sided with bishops who opposed the Senate language, rather than nuns who supported it, and then said the bishops were wrong not to accept Mr. Obama’s executive order as a compromise.

In the aftermath, all sides in the abortion debate continued to criticize Mr. Stupak, but the loudest outcry was from ardent opponents of abortion, who had been his biggest backers. He was stripped of a pro-life award and lost the support of many right-to-life groups.

An earlier version of this post had Senator Bob Casey representing the wrong state.