House (Democrats) Disapprove of Wilson

The House of Representatives has passed, mostly along party lines, a resolution formally "disapproving" of South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's (R) "you lie!" outburst towards Barack Obama at his recent address to Congress. The 240-179 vote came after Wilson refused a last ditch plea by Democratic leaders to apologize himself on the House floor.

As usual, I'm less interested in the vote than in the folks who broke from form:

Even though the vote was largely partisan, there were a few departures from party loyalty. Seven Republicans voted to rebuke Wilson: Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, Joanne Emerson of Missouri, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Walter Jones of North Carolina, Tom Petri of Wisconsin, Dana Rohrabacher of California and fellow South Carolinian Bob Inglis.

But 12 Democrats voted no on the resolution: Michael Arcuri of New York, Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, Maurice Hinchey of New York, Paul Hodes of New Hampshire, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Dan Maffei of New York, Eric Massa of New York, James McDermott of Washington, Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, Gene Taylor of Mississippi and Harry Teague of Arizona.

Odd list, on both sides. Rep. Cao is a gimme for Republicans, and Rep. Inglis was one of the first to say that Rep. Wilson should have apologized. Rep. Flake has also periodically demonstrated an ability to stand on principle, so good for him. Rep. Jones may be eying another tough re-election fight. [UPDATE: Definitely got Walter Jones confused with Robin Hayes, who already lost his "another tough re-election fight". Whoops!] Rep. Emerson has been trending more moderate for some time now, Rep. Petri is also reasonably centrist, and Rep. Rohrabacher has always been a bit of a wild card.

The Democratic list is, if anything, more eclectic still. You have staunch progressives like Reps. Kucinich, Delahunt, and McDermott, some random back-benches like Rep. Hinchey, some folks with higher ambitions like Rep. Hodes, and some folks from reasonbly marginal districts like Reps. Maffei, Taylor, Giffords, and Teague. Rep. Moore appears to be the only African-American Representative to vote against the resolution (you wonder if some weren't holding out for a harsher censure motion).

Pro-Heckling

From Matt Yglesias' speech notes:

Personally, I sort of liked Rep Joe Wilson’s idea of introducing British-style heckling to the halls of congress; totally disrespectful and out of step with American tradition, true, but their tradition is better. Unfortunately, Wilson was also lying about the point at issue and will thereby set back the cause of heckling by decades.

Eh, maybe. But frankly, one thing we've witnessed over the past few months is that Republicans can tank deliberative discourse just fine when it's not socially sanctioned, making me cringe at what things would be like if it were. Ezra Klein, however, is willing to cut a deal:

If we're going to adopt British norms of political behavior, we should also adopt British norms of governance. It's fine to have a polarized system when the majority can wield power. You just can't have it when you need a supermajority --- which is to say, a high level of consensus -- to get anything done. So if we're going to move toward British-style heckling, lets also move toward British-style majority rule.

Pick 'em.