Dem Rep. Gutierrez Confirms Plans To Vote 'No' On Senate Health Care Bill

"At this time...."

First, this is not a definitive statement, and second, maybe you should have contacted him before your last headline proclaiming that he had switched.

It's fine to express now what he'd like to see in the legislation. But when vote time comes around, vote for what we can get. Then, fight like hell to make it better. He's a Yes when voting happens or he wouldn't be qualifying his statements (unless he's one of the last to vote and his yes isn't needed - then he can make his point if he thinks it's in his best interest politically; but Pelosi can't let too many be the last 5 to vote).

LG has more than this on his plate right now. In a corruption trial of an allegedly crooked developer that has already seen on Chicago alderman plead guilty his name came up yesterday. Gutierrez is on record as having taken a $200,000 loan, received $41,000 in campaign donations, and jobs for relatives all from the developer. This while lobbying the mayor for zoning changes. Far be it from me to judge but a US rep involved in local zoning issues seems a little strange.

As one of his constituents I hope he gets back on board with this bill, while not ideal it is a step in the right direction.

Maybe this is a ploy to get guarantees about doing immigration reform this year. Either way, I just don't understand these people. I really don't. The Dems are as toast as it is possible to be in the next election- I'd say the next few elections- if they get nothing out of this. And yet each of them is using it to advance their own pet projects, rather than fighting to get it passed. It's just disgraceful. However meritorious this all is, surely there's a more intelligent way to negotiate with your leadership than plant the seed that this is failing and by so doing, increase the chances that it will.

What none of these people seem to grasp is that it will be FAR easier to pass something like a public option, or modifications to this plan after it is passed than it is to do so now. I promise you the Republicans and the insurance companies and big pharma, etc. etc.- these types understand. That's why pharma even with its sweetheart deal is secretly funding anti-reform advocacy. Not because it gives them a bad deal- but it sets the stage for power to shift away from them and toward reform of the abjectly broken system that is making them so rich.

And then you have the idiots that Democrats seem to repeatedly elect to office that think that once this legislation passes, Congress packs it up and closes shop for good. I simply, can't possibly even understand. And, btw, Rep. Gutierrez, how many undocumented currently have health insurance. I can't imagine on this earth that it's a big number. I furthermore can't imagine that this would not be a huge help for the myriad documented latinos that are recent immigrants and thus blue collar and those likely to benefit the most from this bill. So he's screwing them to the wall too.

I'm just apoplectic at this point. It's hard to know how to respond anymore. In any case, I definitely plan to exact my revenge at the voting booth and with my campaign donations on Democrats broadly if this goes down in flames.

This clown is a fool. And I err on the side of Capuano (my own representative) and can accept his questions and resulting reasons for being non-committal. Each day in MA, we live with the unwise decision to mandate that individuals and small businesses buy the products of the criminal, status quo health insurance industry. A mandate without competition can be seen as nothing less than a hand out to the insurance companies. I still have no idea whether or not I could vote for this bill were I a representative but I guarantee I would vote for it if I thought my constituents would truly benefit from it...

But this clown Gutierrez...I saw him on Hardball last night and sensed that he was a reasonable (albeit, really goofy) man. However, his reasoning for voting against this bill is simply unacceptable in that he is willing to vote against a potentially better life for (legal) American citizens because it would not permit people here illegally to benefit from the legislation. The guy should be tarred and feathered for making this argument.

I am as liberal/left-leaning as one can get. In fact, I cannot bring myself to lean more than 89 degrees towards vertically center on the scale. I am certainly far outside the bounds of American political scaling. However, I feel very strongly about the issue of people being in this country illegally, and my feelings are validated by stains like this guy. I feel that this country was founded on the hard work and values of people (like my grandparents) who came here in search of a better life and that is what I love. I get the folly of the modern immigration bureacracy and can sympathize with people doing what they have to in order to survive, but this type of thing does nothing but prove that we have ventured far beyond what is acceptable in looking the other way. I say enough...

Rep. Gutierrez is campaigning yet again. The health care bill is NOT the place to debate immigration, that would be the Immigration Bill which Obama claims to have next on his schedule.

I wish we could simply have public financing and get all of this crap over with, although we would still have posturing right around election time...that never changes.