<font color="blue"> The recent medicare medication thing is a good example. The new law probably sucks, but many of those voting for it didn't see anything better they could get. </font>
The new Medicare law was actually defeated, fair and square. After a debate that ran into the small hours of the next morning, a vote was called at approximately 3:00 AM. It was to be a standard 15 minute vote. Before the 15 minutes were up, nearly every member of the House had voted, and it was defeated. Many Republicans joined in with the Democrats to vote "No".
The vote was kept running, however, by the majority party of the House, as they lobbied members to change their vote. After about 2 hours, the bill was still defeated. They had tried their best to get their fellow Republicans to change their votes, but only a couple switched.
So, they started working on Democrats. One by one, they found a Democrat who they could sway to change the vote. The votes changed, and the bill edged closer to defeat.
Finally, after about 3 hours, they succeeded in getting one last Democrat to change the vote to "Yes", and the bill had enough votes to pass. Immediately, the leadership ended the vote, before any of them could change their minds back again.
How do I know? Because, I sat up and watched the entire proceeding until after 6 AM in the morning. The entire thing was broadcast live on C-Span. This is fact.
The rumors started to come in the next few days. How had they succeeded in getting 6 Democrats to change their votes? Because the leaders are in a position to grant things the minority Democrats couldn't get on their own. One strong rumor, for example, was about a Florida Congressman whose son was running for a local office. According to the rumor, the House leadership promised him that the Republican opponent would quit the race, giving the son the win, if the father changed his vote.
It was the longest vote in the hostory of the House. In all their years of leadership, the Democrats never pulled such a stunt.
