WFP: Jump; Maffei: How High?

Democrat Congressman Dan Maffei announced this morning that he will be voting “yes” on upcoming legislation regarding health care. Generally I wouldn’t consider this noteworthy, since he voted in the affirmative on a similar bill earlier in his term and he normally votes nearly 97% of the time with his party leadership anyway. However, the timing of his decision is certainly interesting. On Sunday night, the Working Families Party decided not to support candidates who vote against upcoming health care legislation. Up until recently, Maffei claimed that he was undecided on how he would vote. The day after the WFP announced their decision, Maffei scheduled a press conference for this morning where he announced that he would be a “yes” vote.

Congressman Maffei received 9,085 votes on the WFP line in his 2008 victory over Republican Dale Sweetland, which accounts for nearly 25% of his 37,158 vote margin. We already know how closely tied to Big Labor Dan Maffei is and the WFP is just an outlet for New York State’s largest unions to influence elections. It is clear that Maffei’s “yes” vote is simply an effort to appease the union-backed WFP party leadership to remain in their good graces in order to run on their line this fall. Some other local Congressmen are in more trouble than he is.

In 2008 and 2009, having the Working Families Party line on the ballot provided the margin of victory for Eric Massa (who has since resigned) and special election winners Scott Murphy and Bill Owens, Democrats all. In addition, in 2008, Congressman Mike Arcuri would have only won by 465 votes if he did not have the WFP line. Clearly, the WFP has a lot of power in these races, often being the difference between winning and losing. This health care legislation is the Working Families Party’s top priority and are now demanding that the Democrat Congressmen they helped elect return the favor and vote their way on this legislation.