House fails to override veto of SCHIP

WASHINGTON - House Democrats failed yesterday to override President Bush's veto of a bill to expand a children's health insurance program, coming within a dozen votes and promising to continue their push on what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi termed a "banner issue."

The 273-to-156 vote in the House of Representatives was the latest in a series of setbacks faced by the Democratic leadership on key issues that it has championed. When Bush announced his veto of the insurance legislation nearly a month ago, Democrats were optimistic that the program's popularity would leave Republicans wary of standing with the White House.

Yet a major push by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, advocacy groups, and unions proved unable to convert a single Republican who had voted against the bill on Sept. 25.

Pelosi promised to return a new bill to the White House within two weeks, although she gave no indication that she was willing to compromise on the scope of the program or the tax on cigarettes proposed to finance it.

The bill would expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion with a goal of covering 10 million children from lower-income families. Republican critics said the program was a move toward "socialized medicine" by extending coverage to middle-class families and illegal immigrants.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush was pleased with the House's vote to sustain his veto and called upon Congress "to stop playing politics and to join the president in finding common ground to reauthorize this vital program."

In a news conference after the vote, Pelosi said Democratic leaders would "be ready to sit down with the president about where we go from here." When pressed, however, Pelosi said she was unwilling to budge on the size of the program. "Ten million children is not negotiable," she said.

Elsewhere, Democrats suggested that the original legislation had required significant compromise to pass both chambers - in the case of the Senate with a veto-resistant majority - and they were unlikely to go further.

Members of both parties argued that public opinion was on their side, and repeated poll numbers like mantras to bolster their cases. Democrats turned to survey data saying that 82 percent of Americans supported the bill, while Republicans emphasized a poll suggesting an 11 percent approval rating for Congress.

"The president is isolated on this," Pelosi pleaded with Republicans before the vote. "Don't join him in his isolation."

Representative James P. McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said his party should force Republicans to vote "again and again and again and again" on the issue. "The president of the country and their leadership are holding a gun to their heads, saying, 'Don't do it,' " McGovern said. "I think the American people are sick of their obstructionism."

The Democrats, despite majorities in both chambers, have been stymied in efforts to stop the Iraq war and expand funding for stem cell research. Yet they vowed to use yesterday's defeat to galvanize Democratic voters who might be disillusioned by the losses.

"I think we have to explain to our base that the size of our vision can only be expanded through the size of our majority," said Representative Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat. "I tell them it's not good enough to have a majority, but a working majority."

Forty-four Republicans joined the majority in voting for the override, while two Democrats - Gene Taylor of Mississippi and Jim Marshall of Georgia - sided with GOP leadership in voting against it. Meanwhile, six Democrats, including presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who had opposed the bill last month voted for it yesterday.

"I disagreed with the Democratic position in that they left out six million immigrant children," said Kucinich.

"I disagreed with the president's position because he wants to leave out all the children."