Where is bart stupak now

Bart Stupak began cleaning out his Washington, D. As he prepares to leave office, Stupak says the passage of universal health care for all Americans — a controversial issue that thrust the Congressman into the national spotlight — is the highlight of his political career.

But as a pro-life Democrat, he feared the bill would allow for federal funds to be used to pay for abortions. So he, along with Republican Congressman Joseph R. Stupak said he would not vote for the final version of the bill if his amendment was not included.

But in March, Stupak struck a deal with Obama that had the President signing an executive order that barred federal funding for abortions. The deal cleared the way for the passage of the health care bill and ignited a firestorm of criticism against Stupak. Stupak went on to say the executive order has been upheld three times in different litigation.

How could this occur? September 11, was a day that changed America and the tragedies of that day will not be forgotten. Skip to content. TV6 Morning News. Storm Reports. What's Up With The Weather? Sports Video. Friday Night Fever. TV6 Programming. Election Results. The e xecutive order that President Obama signed, acknowledged, reaffirmed and ordered federal agencies to comply with all these protections.

These laws are evidence of a strong American tradition of protecting those who conscientiously object to playing any role in taking a human life at any stage of development. We must honor the abortion conscience principle which the Green and Hahn families are fighting to uphold as well as like-minded Americans who wish to continue to provide health care coverage and preventive care for their employees.

The Affordable Care Act struck an important balance between improving health care options and respecting conscience, a moral conscience that no one can violate, not even the federal government through an HHS mandate. I urge the Supreme Court to recognize and uphold this balance. To read more columns like this, go to the opinion front page or follow us on twitter USATopinion or Facebook. Facebook Twitter Email. Contraception mandate doublecross: Column. It would fly though the Senate.

So they weren't interested in getting health care passed, they were interested in killing it. So every suggestion, every legislative proposal I had--and I knew I had to get to 60 votes in the Senate--I was led to believe up to that point in time they'd work with me.

And they pulled the rug out that Thursday before. Remember, they went home that Thursday night, or that Friday night there. They weren't around that weekend when we voted on the health care bill. They were gone, and House Democrats were meeting in the Capitol Visitors Center, and that's when all that craziness was happening on the Hill.

I'll tell you what happened was, the White House started to float an executive order, but I was not included in the discussions. And the group that stood with me, about 12 of them that were with me, only about 7 at the end, they came back and they said to the White House, 'We're not negotiating an executive order without Stupak.

Right, without my adamant position. But fortunately I had the faith of these people, and they said, 'We're not doing it without Stupak. I said, 'Well Mike, how'd you get involved in this? And then we met outside the White house. The White House, everyone was watching the White House, everyone was watching what we were doing.

House] Dan Turton really was the guy, and Greg Craig, the president's [now former] counsel, and we met in some little anterooms off Doyle's office, in [the] Cannon [House office building]. This is either Thursday or Friday night. After Doyle said, 'What do you need in this executive order, you put down what you would like to see in this executive order,' I spent that afternoon after Republicans left, we had some votes, I went back to my office, drafted about six points, gave it to Doyle, he gave it to the White House, and then White House counsel put together a draft, and it was either that Thursday night or that Friday night and we met, at the Cannon building in some little conference room.

We met Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday. So we did it outside the limelight. Rahm was never there, the president never was there. The only time I talked to the president then was maybe about two or three or four o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday. Sunday morning we had met on the executive order again, I gave my final approval on Sunday morning, the president called about four o'clock--there was some minor change I made, with that change he was going to sign it, and could I then vote for the legislation?

I said yes. And how many of my people would be [on board]--about seven of us, which then guaranteed they'd get this thing passed. And so that was it. I never really had any discussions with the president directly on the executive order, other than working with his counsel, and there were about three attorneys there, and I was the lead on the other side. When we met, like Friday, there had to have been about six of us, Sunday were six of us, Saturday there was about six of us, but I was the lead on it.

That's the way the whole thing came down. I know there are all these other theories, but they're not correct. At the time it looked like it happened right at the last minute. Sounds like the deal got worked out a couple days ahead of time. Again, on the first draft of the executive order, they didn't include me in the meeting. And these people came back to me, some of my stalwarts I had the confidence of the Right to Life Democrats--I had been the leader for many years, and I know the stuff cold--and they said, 'You're the guy that has to do it, it's not going to be anyone else,' and so we worked it out.

There was a lot more involved, but up till the Thursday before that vote, I was still trying to get statutory language. But when the Senate Repubs sorta packed up the tent and went home, they really left me with nothing but an executive order.

I made the tweak Sunday morning, and what happened was And they called and they said, 'We're going to go with your language that we finalized earlier today. We will present it to him, and we'll let you know what the decision is going to be. And it had to be closer to four o'clock, the president called me and said, 'I'm going to sign this executive order, I'm in agreement with you.