Back in August, when town hall meetings were at a fever pitch, I attended three of Rothman's 'listening sessions.' While Rothman deserved credit for taking the heat at that time, it was evident that he had no intention of ever changing his mind and voting the will of his constituents despite his rhetoric to the contrary. I said as much here.

Among the many things Rothman said at the time was that he would not vote for a bill that rationed care, included abortion or covered illegal immigrants. Mark Kalinowski of the North Jersey Tea Party Group details this in his Facebook post today:

At his August 10th town hall meeting in North Arlington, Democratic Congressman Steve Rothman told the citizens assembled that he would not vote for any bill that would lead to rationing of medical care. (Video of him saying so is located on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VradLPeiynQ) Last night, bill HR 3962 came up for vote. One of the core purposes of this bill -- the remarks of the ignorant and the power-hungry notwithstanding -- is to have the federal government take over medical care. Whenever this anti-free market approach has been tried by other governments around the world, it has always led to rationing. In fact, the people who wrote this bill understand this, because they removed the following sentence outlawing rationing from a similar bill (HR 3200) weeks ago: "In developing such recommendations, the Committee shall take into account innovation in health care and ensure that essential benefits coverage does not lead to rationing of health care." (This language was not added back into HR 3962.) Unfortunately, there are a lot of horrible politicians out there, and firmly among them is the thoroughly dishonest Steve Rothman. Voters in his district have just found out in a most spectacular, obvious way that Rothman's word is no good. (Politicians like Rothman who are so willing to lie to themselves should never be trusted.) For the harm Rothman has caused to our country and our Constitution, for his willingness to violate our unalienable moral rights (such as our right to refrain from paying for other people's health insurance), and for his stunning betrayal of his constituents, Rothman must be voted out of office in 2010.

Note #1: The source for the quote of the June draft of HR 3200 comes from: http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/11/change-prohibition-against-rationing.html

Note #2: I predicted Rothman's would go back on his word; for example see this from the August 16th Bergen County Record: http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/letters/The_debate_on_health_care_reform.html?c=y&page=3

Note #3: The final roll call for the November 7, 2009 vote on HR 3200 can be found here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll887.xml. If your congressman or congresswoman voted for this move toward socialized medicine, let's vote him or her out of office too!

Mark is correct. With yesterday's vote, Rothman has now gone on record as holding his constituent's in contempt as well as going back on his word. Like every other representative in Congress who voted for government-run healthcare, he has also violated the oath he took to uphold the constitution. 

Mr. Rothman is no longer worthy of the office he currently holds. As a resident in his district, I will personally do everything in my power to make sure that the vote he cast last night is one of his last. And I'm sure I will not be alone in that endeavor.

Cross-posted at Garden State Patriot.