By NEIL H. SIMON, Media General News Service
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WASHINGTON—Two North Carolina House Republicans reversed course Friday and voted to support the revised $700 billion bailout bill, helping to send President Bush the biggest federal rescue of the private sector in history.
Reps. Howard Coble, R-6th, and Sue Myrick, R-9th, joined 54 other House members who had voted no on a bailout bill Monday. The revised version passed the House Friday 263 to 171.
Coble's change of heart came after a flood of constituent calls and what he described as light pressure from Republican leaders, including the president.
Myrick said she could lose her re-election over the vote. She cited meetings with North Carolina business owners as the reason she changed course.
A White House aide called Coble's chief of staff Thursday, Coble said.
"They said, 'Does Howard want the president to call him?' 'No' was my answer," Coble said. "I wanted this decision to be mine and mine alone."
House Republican Leader John Boehner and Roy Blunt, the Republican whip, also called Coble Thursday. Coble said that when he told them he was leaning toward supporting the bill, "they got off my back."
The constituent calls had the most impact, he said. His calls were running heavily against the bill, but he said that after the House rejected the bailout Monday, opinions began to even out.
"I stand to annoy about 50 percent of my constituents," Coble said in an interview after the vote.
Coble had tried earlier in the week to push back on the urgent way the bill was presented, saying "the sky is not falling."
"If the sky does fall, it's going to land on my head," he said Friday.
He cited an increase on government insurance limits to $250,000 for savings accounts as one key reason he changed his mind about the bill.
Her constituent calls were running about even on the issue, Myrick said, but business owners large and small convinced her the economic meltdown was affecting their bottom lines.
"I was told the credit crunch or crisis is real," she said. "I wasn't going to take the chance of going into a Depression."
Myrick and Coble aside, the rest of the North Carolina delegation maintained the same positions on the bill that they took Monday. The four other North Carolina Republicans voted against the measure. Four North Carolina Democrats voted for it, and three voted against.
Besides the insurance limits, the Senate version included more than $8 billion dollars in tax provisions, which bill supporters said amounted to a "mixed blessing" in their quest to find at least 12 more votes for the bill than they had Monday.
Rep. Mel Watt, D-12th, supported the bill from the start, but he expressed dismay that the Senate added the tax measures without completely paying for them.
"The Senate's failure to pay for the cost of these (tax) measures concerns me. But we have no choice but to try to address the credit and economic crisis," Watt said in a statement.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, said she was more upset about how Democrats, who control the House, limited debate on the final bill. A House rule, voted on by members Friday morning, barred any amendments to the economic rescue package.
Foxx and three other House members had requested in a letter Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Boehner that the bill be amended to have more oversight, including an FBI investigation into how Wall Street landed in this crisis.
"It's perhaps the most important bill in recent memory – aside from the war – and we were shut out," Foxx said.
(E-mail nsimon@mediageneral.com or call 202-662-7669.)
Reps. Howard Coble, R-6th, and Sue Myrick, R-9th, joined 54 other House members who had voted no on a bailout bill Monday. The revised version passed the House Friday 263 to 171.
Coble's change of heart came after a flood of constituent calls and what he described as light pressure from Republican leaders, including the president.
Myrick said she could lose her re-election over the vote. She cited meetings with North Carolina business owners as the reason she changed course.
A White House aide called Coble's chief of staff Thursday, Coble said.
"They said, 'Does Howard want the president to call him?' 'No' was my answer," Coble said. "I wanted this decision to be mine and mine alone."
House Republican Leader John Boehner and Roy Blunt, the Republican whip, also called Coble Thursday. Coble said that when he told them he was leaning toward supporting the bill, "they got off my back."
The constituent calls had the most impact, he said. His calls were running heavily against the bill, but he said that after the House rejected the bailout Monday, opinions began to even out.
"I stand to annoy about 50 percent of my constituents," Coble said in an interview after the vote.
Coble had tried earlier in the week to push back on the urgent way the bill was presented, saying "the sky is not falling."
"If the sky does fall, it's going to land on my head," he said Friday.
He cited an increase on government insurance limits to $250,000 for savings accounts as one key reason he changed his mind about the bill.
Her constituent calls were running about even on the issue, Myrick said, but business owners large and small convinced her the economic meltdown was affecting their bottom lines.
"I was told the credit crunch or crisis is real," she said. "I wasn't going to take the chance of going into a Depression."
Myrick and Coble aside, the rest of the North Carolina delegation maintained the same positions on the bill that they took Monday. The four other North Carolina Republicans voted against the measure. Four North Carolina Democrats voted for it, and three voted against.
Besides the insurance limits, the Senate version included more than $8 billion dollars in tax provisions, which bill supporters said amounted to a "mixed blessing" in their quest to find at least 12 more votes for the bill than they had Monday.
Rep. Mel Watt, D-12th, supported the bill from the start, but he expressed dismay that the Senate added the tax measures without completely paying for them.
"The Senate's failure to pay for the cost of these (tax) measures concerns me. But we have no choice but to try to address the credit and economic crisis," Watt said in a statement.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, said she was more upset about how Democrats, who control the House, limited debate on the final bill. A House rule, voted on by members Friday morning, barred any amendments to the economic rescue package.
Foxx and three other House members had requested in a letter Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Boehner that the bill be amended to have more oversight, including an FBI investigation into how Wall Street landed in this crisis.
"It's perhaps the most important bill in recent memory – aside from the war – and we were shut out," Foxx said.
(E-mail nsimon@mediageneral.com or call 202-662-7669.)