Loretta Sanchez, call your office:
As their whip efforts narrow to just a handful of Members, House Democratic leaders are facing an unlikely problem vote: Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.).
Sanchez was nowhere to be found on Saturday — she was in Florida on a fundraising jaunt, two Democratic sources said — and while leaders expected her to return for the Sunday vote on final passage, they weren’t assured. What’s more, leaders now list the Orange County Democrat as a “no” vote.
Sanchez’s office did not return a request for comment Saturday evening. She cast her last vote shortly after 6 p.m. Friday and missed all seven recorded votes on Saturday, a review of the record shows.
Sanchez, by the way, is a down-the-line pro-choice liberal Democrat.
This kind of reminds me of my days organizing the office softball team. You'd spend all week nailing down commitments to show up. Then you'd give everybody directions to (and a map of) the location of the field, offer them a ride if need be, contact them the night before the game to remind them, give them your cell phone number and tell them to call if anything goes wrong. Then inevitably a couple wouldn't show up anyway. I always tried to get at least 12 people to field a 10 person team for that reason.
Presumably the Democrats are operating on the same principle. Jon Cohn's reading of their confident body language suggests they are.