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Murtha's death and healthcare

Bon Tuesday. Sorry to have missed yesterday. Was traveling back home from Los Angeles. The reason for the trip was not a pleasant one, alas, but some interesting things happened nonetheless.

I'm pretty sure that was Antonin Scalia in business class on the flight on the way out. Or put it this way: if it wasn't, it was a guy who could play Scalia at parties. Obviously that wasn't what I would call exciting.

On a more positive note, we were sitting in an excellent, convivial, and amazingly not terribly expensive Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills on Saturday, and in walks Mel Brooks. We were hoping for Larry David, but this was just fine. Remind me to tell you sometime about the time I made Mel Brooks laugh, years ago in a restaurant in New York.

Okay. Now. Healthcare. Democratic Congress Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania died last night. Let's put aside this whole question of whether Murtha was corrupt. His defenders would say he fought for federal largesse for his struggling post-industrial district. Whichever. May he rest in peace.

His death reduces by one the number of sure "yea" votes for healthcare reform in the House. The district leans Democratic, but like Pennsylvania as a whole is whiter and older and more working-class than a lot of other Democrat-leaning areas -- it's Democratic, that is, but it isn't liberal.

I'm pretty sure it may be the only congressional district in America that went for John Kerry in 2004 but for John McCain in 2008. Murtha made the mistake in October 2008 of describing matters bluntly by saying Western Pennsylvania "is certainly a racist area." Obama won the state easily the next month, but he sure didn't win many of the kinds of semi-urban/semi-rural post-industrial counties that Murtha represented.

So it's definitely a possible GOP pickup. There's a Republican named Russell who has money on hand and some name recognition. Murtha beat him handily last time around.

But now, for the first time since literally the Nixon administration, the Democratic candidate won't be named Murtha. That throws things open. Indications are that no election will be held until May or June, but this is certainly a possible GOP pickup, imperiling healthcare further in the House, where it passed last year by just three votes.

Most of my focus has been on the Senate, and reasonably so, since it's such a disaster. But it's worth remembering that the margin is awfully narrow in the House too. And while other Democratic departures will probably end up with Democratic replacements, it still complicates the timing.

I'll have more to say on the upcoming healthcare summit a bit later.

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