House Democrats who weren’t there for the party on the final health care vote are starting to see the consequences. Despite long enjoying the support of organized labor, Rep. Tim Holden (D-PA) will not be receiving an endorsement from the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO in his primary campaign against challenger Sheila Dow Ford.
“He’s been good to us on a number of bread-and-butter issues, but this was a revolutionary, historical vote,” Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George told the Republican Herald in an interview yesterday. And that means they’ll be withholding their vigorous door-to-door campaign.
As national labor leaders have indicated, Democrats’ health care votes will weigh heavily on whether their local affiliates will lend them support. On the eve of the House vote on health care reform, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told me “This will be a big one. This will have more weight than a lot of the other little ones.”
The Holden move demonstrates that threat was credible. “As we said after the vote endorsement decisions are made at the local level and they would certainly be looking at the health care vote,” AFL spokesman Eddie Vale told me this morning. “Accordingly, working families in PA made the decision that they would withhold an endorsement in this primary because of the ‘no’ vote on health care.”
Note, this move may be a bit more symbolism than hardball politics. Dow Ford is a big underdog against long-time incumbent Holden, and the primary is only weeks away.
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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