By Kathleen Gilbert
WASHINGTON, D.C., December 20, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) announced Saturday that he had decided to support the amended health bill that allows federal funding of abortion, he set to work defending the decision in terms more familiar on the lips of his liberal colleagues: emphasizing the need for a compromise, and highlighting the greater good of the health of millions of Americans. Yet Nelson left behind a still-reeling pro-life and conservative constituency questioning what could have prompted the sudden change in the senator – who days before seemed so placidly settled in his convictions against the bill, particularly regarding abortion.
The tension leading up to Friday night's events was unexpected a few weeks ago: while it was easy to see how abortion would surface as a major point of contention in the U.S. House, it was far from clear that the same issue would become the ultimate hurdle in the Senate as well. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday night found himself facing down one senator who, like Rep. Bart Stupak in the House, had expressed commitment to Hyde-amendment language in the health care bill. Without that language – which he had advanced in the Nelson/Hatch amendment killed earlier this month – it didn't seem that Nelson would back down.
Nelson's vote was the last needed to secure victory for the health bill in the Senate, a victory presaged by the success of the first cloture vote early Monday morning along strict party lines.
Politico reports that Sen. Nelson's announcement in favor of the bill Friday came after ninety minutes of anxious vigil by Democrat leaders, who awaited Nelson's final decision following a phone call to Nebraska Right to Life. Emerging from his last-minute communications, Nelson reportedly announced: “We can live with this.”
But according to Julie Schmit-Albin, the executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, that statement couldn't have been farther from the truth – at least on her side.
Schmit-Albin told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) in an interview Monday that she had not spoken to Nelson since the Friday evening phone call that marked an “abrupt” change in the senator's attitude. Noting that she had been friends with the senator and had maintained an affiliation with him since his second term as governor in 1994, Schmit-Albin said she was still in shock.
“This is just a craven betrayal, I don't know how else to call it,” she said. Schmit-Albin said she feared Nelson could have been using the abortion issue as a bargaining chip all along for the other concessions – a thought that she said “makes me sick.”
She noted that Nelson's recent decision trampled upon his own promises over the past several weeks. Nelson, she pointed out, had “adamantly” rejected an abortion compromise offered by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) that failed to uphold the Hyde amendment. Earlier, National Right to Life had played a key role in crafting the Nelson/Hatch amendment, the only offering post-committee that would have maintained Hyde-amendment restrictions.
“Ever since [the] Nelson/Hatch [amendment], I thought the man was the real deal,” said Schmit-Albin. “And there were a lot of people who agreed with me … because all of his public comments pointed to that.”
“He had been telling Nebraskans for two weeks: 'I'm not gonna be rushed, I'm not going to be held to a Christmas timeline,” she continued. “He even said on a radio station Thursday morning … I plan to be home for Christmas. so we thought, well, that means he could just not vote for cloture and leave … and he'd be home.”
Nelson had also boasted the same day that he was a “cheap date” compared to some of his colleagues, since he was holding out against the bill on principle and not in hopes of a payoff. However, Nelson caved to pressure after securing special federal funding for Nebraska to expand Medicaid coverage to low-income individuals, in addition to other concessions requested by Nelson.
“At some point,” Schmit-Albin said, “he bought into Harry Reid's timetable.”
Schmit-Albin called Nelson's office Friday night asking to speak with the senator “because I knew it was crucial, because they had him squirrelled away in the proverbial smoke-filled room, and I thought he was under a lot of pressure.” She received a call back at 7:30.
“Julie, I want you to know that this is a courtesy call, this is not a call to get your input or approval, but I have some alternative language that I'm going to pitch back to Democratic leadership,” she recalls Nelson telling her. She said Nelson repeatedly assured her that the new language “was Stupak-plus,” an assertion that later baffled Schmit-Albin, who had protested to no avail that National Right to Life be allowed to vet the language.
“Well, he had to know this was weakened language,” she said. “He knew that by not vetting it by the national groups, that there was a chance that it wasn't good language.” Schmit-Albin later learned that Nelson had agreed to language that allowed states to opt out of providing abortion coverage through the new insurance exchange, and instigated a funds-segregating scheme for premium dollars funding abortion, but left the bill's federal abortion funding intact.
The next morning, leading pro-life groups such as the Family Research Council, the Susan B. Anthony List, and Concerned Women for America immediately expressed grave disappointment in Nelson's about-face. The Christian Defense Coalition blasted Nelson in a press release Saturday for having “sold America's children for a promised pot of gold.”
Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn also expressed shock at the turn of events, decrying the “reprehensible and deceptive agreement” that Nelson agreed to in place of Hyde-amendment restrictions, saying it was “identical to, or worse than” the bill's original abortion language.
“I can't imagine there is a single pro-life taxpayer in Nebraska, or any other state, who would agree to pay to end the lives of the unborn for a never-ending Medicaid earmark or tax breaks for insurance companies. Unfortunately, Senators Reid and Nelson disagree,” Dr. Coburn said.
In an interview with the Lincoln Journal Star, Sen. Ben Nelson said he knew he would pay a political price, “but I would have paid a political price for not supporting the bill, too.” Explaining the Nebraska-exclusive deals to Politico, Nelson said: “I always put Nebraska first, but I looked at this through the standpoint of Nebraskans and the country.”
Yet even those who might have benefitted from the deal expressed opposition to the turn of events. Schmit-Albin noted that the decision flew in the face of Nelson's interests as a Democrat representing a largely Republican and deeply conservative state, and expressed doubt that he would ever regain enough footing to run for re-election.
Nelson defended the federal Medicaid funding, which he obtained exclusively for Nebraska, by recalling governor Dave Heineman complaining of the bill's unfunded mandate. But Heineman is opposed to Nelson's deal, calling the bill “bad news for Nebraska and bad news for America.” “Nebraskans did not ask for a special deal, only a fair deal,” Heineman said in a Sunday statement.
Attorney General Jon Bruning called it “saddening, and maddening, that Senator Nelson has ignored his constituents in favor of politics as usual.” Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee rallied Sunday in front of Nelon's home in Nebraska to protest the turnaround.
Nelson, for his part, scoffed at the backlash.
“This is all orchestrated,” Nelson said Sunday. “It's so thinly disguised … it's almost laughable. So far, the focus seems to have been on some people who are angry. They're ignoring the fact that not only were there good reasons to do what I did, but that there would have been a backlash the other way.”
Nelson had already begun hailing the deeply controversial bill as one that would “improve the lives of millions of Americans,” and cast his decision in light of a need “to solve the [compromise] issue.” “I put together what I thought was appropriate and I'm sorry that both sides didn't enjoy it,” he said on CNN's “State of the Union.”
“That's the way it works. I'm an independent type of person.”
President Obama praised Nelson's decision, saying: “It now appears the American people will have the vote they deserve on genuine reform.”
Ultimately, Schmit-Albin offered little conjecture on the reasons behind the senator's dramatic move, but harshly condemned the political machinations behind the switch. “This is proverbial smoke-filled rooms, back door dealing, but now they're blatant about it … this is out-in-the-open bribery,” she said.
Schmit-Albin told LSN that “what really is personally devastating to me is that I like the man,” and again expressed shock at “the enormity of the betrayal.”
“I had a good relationship with all these folks,” she said. “I thought I did.”