OTR SIDEBAR: Did budget vote seal MMM's fate?

It was only one vote – but it caused much of Washington and the nation to add just one more "m" to Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky's name: martyr. On August 5, a roll call vote was taken on President Clinton's proposed budget plan in the House of Representatives. For a while, it looked as though the budget wouldn't survive. Mezvinsky, a Democrat, had planned to vote against the budget. Coming from a highly-Republican district, a vote for a budget which included items like a 4.3 cent-per-gallon gas tax would be a high risk that she did not want to take. She had already opposed the initial budget vote in May. But at 8:45 that evening, after Mezvinsky had given several interviews denouncing the proposed budget, the calls started coming in. The vote would be close, she was told, and her party desperately needed her vote. It was so needed, in fact, that Clinton himself called Mezvinsky to plead with her to change her mind. Mezvinsky told Clinton she would support his plan if he would attend a conference on entitlements such as social security, welfare and Medicaid to be held in her district in Pennsylvania. When Clinton agreed, so did Mezvinsky. She didn't cast her vote until after the electronic voting had finished. She walked with party leaders to the front of the House and, to cheers from Democrats and boos from Republicans, cast her vote in favor of the plan. Mezvinsky, Ray Thornton (D-Ark.), Pat Williams (D-Mont.) and David Minge (D-Minn.) ultimately cast the deciding votes for the plan, which was later approved by the Senate. Mezvinsky's move cast the media's spotlight upon the Congresswoman, as speculation on her political fate catapulted from The Philadelphia Inquirer to Newsweek. Pundits bemoaned the "sacrifice" of a freshman politician – and a woman, at that! – to the whims of the older, male and more firmly entrenched Democrat elite on Capitol Hill. Such media coverage, though, carried with it the implicit supposition that Mezvinsky's vote guaranteed her political death after the next election. American Civilization Department Chairperson Murray Murphey, however, believes Mezvinsky's fate is not sealed. "A lot is going to depend on how people feel about how they're doing [when the election comes up]," Murphey said. "If the Clinton economic plan does even moderately well, she will receive some of the credit for that." And Associate Political Science Professor William Harris believes that to judge anyone on a single vote is hasty. "I think it would be unfortunate to focus on one vote of anybody," Harris said. "It can't be a litmus test."