Here's the latest. Stupak "curious" Chris Carney will vote yes. Jim Costa and rabid Blue Dog Henry Cuellar, a long hold out, will vote yes, as will Jerry McNerney. That puts dday's latest count at "204 Yes, 205 No, with now 12 undecided and 10 assumed in the Stupak bloc."
The executive order approach to peeling off Stupak might also include Stupak, he hints.
Stupak said that he was "going to think about" what would need to be included in an executive order to convince him that no federal dollars would go towards funding abortion.
Further, Stupak said that he had not talked to the White House about such an executive order.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) confirmed Stupak's whip count of at least six holdouts.
The group met on the House floor as the presiding officer gaveled to recess while the president addressed Democratic lawmakers in the Captiol Visitors Center.
But, Stupak, Kaptur, Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper ( D-Pa.), Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio), Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.V.) and Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.V.) continued to discuss the recent talk of an executive order.
So those seem to be the six holdouts on that list that Stupak says he keeps in his coat pocket. According to dday's counting, if these are the only six--or if he has only five with him, and it's not entirely clear who those would be--staying with Stupak, leadership just needs to flip one or two.
Let me be very clear: if Stupak only has six members in his bloc, this is basically over. Democrats already hold 7 votes who flipped from No to Yes; Stupak’s 6 plus Joseph Cao, Lynch and Arcuri would equal 9, and if you do the math (I have) you get to 215. That would mean basically one more No to Yes flipper would put you over the top, and I simply believe that Pelosi could get that.
A complication, though: Zach Space has flipped from "yes" to "no."
But going after the previous "no" votes is a better long term move than agreeing to any language that Stupak would accept in an executive order. It's going to be a bad bet to put anything in writing that Stupak demands, because it would likely make enough of the 50 pro-choice members who threatened defection over the Stupak enrollment corrections resolution would probably be willing to bolt again.
Any executive order that would be acceptable to the pro-choice caucus must not essentially codify Hyde, which has to be renewed annually, and make it permanently impossible to ever try to end it. But if he's going to go the executive order route, it'd be helpful to have a few things clarified, like making it clear that the onerous "two check provision" that will pass in the Senate bill can be handled by internal bookkeeping on the insurance companies' part, rather than requiring the offensive and stigmatizing process for the subscriber--or the subscriber's husband or father--to have to write two checks.
Update: Capuano has now said yes, Matheson still a no.