The Day: Courtney stands pat, but it wasn't easy

Washington - The voting had been under way for several minutes when Rep. Joe Courtney, a tired, stress-taut expression on his face, entered the House chamber, slid a card into the small slot on the back of a chair, and pressed a small button to record the biggest vote of his tenure so far.

No.

Courtney simply would not support the federal bailout approved Friday afternoon by the House of Representatives, he said, out of concern that the measure could benefit Wall Street and financial firms while doing little to nothing to block the large and growing wave of mortgage defaults and foreclosures that have sent the nation's economy into a tailspin.

But it was not, the congressman admitted, “an easy vote,” an assertion that seemed to confirm his drained expression Friday afternoon. Courtney waited in a knot of representatives in an aisle of the House chamber after casting his vote, watching the vote totals slowly climb, his arms crossed, not smiling.

”This is not a political winner for anybody on either side of the vote,” Courtney said afterward, noting that he had received “powerful and sincere appeals from major employers from our state” to back the bailout bill, which backers, especially Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, hope will break the credit crunch and free up cash for businesses small and large.

Courtney's vote puts him at odds with the rest of Connecticut's delegation to Congress, including Sen. Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee who helped negotiate the final version of the legislative compromise.

”I totally believe their votes were as serious and public-spirited as mine was,” Courtney said, adding that he had strong doubts about whether the bill could help stem the still-gathering cloud of foreclosures and defaults.

”They're not going to dissipate as a result of this,” he said of mortgages in danger of foreclosure. “… The bad loans of '05 and '06 haven't hit yet.”

That number could eventually surpass two million in Connecticut, he said.

The vote followed a combination of behind-the-scenes lobbying from both parties' leaders and apparently growing concern that blocking the so-called “rescue package” for a second time could hurt the markets more severely than they were stung on Monday. But it wasn't enough to bring along some of the critics of the bill's provisions for struggling mortgage-holders, or a majority of House Republicans, either.

Among the organizations that have sought to sway Courtney were The Hartford, the home-state insurance company, and an organization of community bankers, both urging him to support the compromise measure out of concern that its failure would further disrupt the fragile markets.

The initially overwhelming percentage of callers to the congressman's office opposing the bill has dropped, meanwhile, to something closer to 50 percent of the calls, his staff said.

Dodd and Courtney spoke about the Senate's version of the bailout bill Thursday evening, said the congressman's chief of staff, Jason Gross, but Courtney's doubts were not assuaged.

”They weren't out there twisting arms, but there's no question that the leaders would have preferred a 'yes' vote,” Courtney said after the vote.

In a series of conversations over the past few days, including Friday morning, as he and the whole Congress awaited the critical vote, Courtney said he had at first been energized by the response to Monday's defeat of the proposal. Immediately afterward, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., had solicited reform ideas from rank-and-file members of the Democratic caucus, Courtney said, but the proposals were ignored.

”When I voted 'no' on Monday, I had complete confidence that the process would not come to an end and we'd have an opportunity to change the bill,” he said.

In a brief interview before Friday's vote, Courtney said he'd not been worried that Congress would not pass any sort of reform intended to blunt the financial crisis. What he sought were greater measures intended to assist struggling mortgage-holders to achieve the legislation's objectives.

”I've never really doubted for a moment that there was going to be final action on this,” he said.

But change the bill did not.

”This thing looks like it's been pretty much cast in stone,” he said. “… I believe we could have followed a path to a better bill.”

But fixing what he and many others here feel are the major problems with this bailout - in particular, inadequate measures to prevent further mortgage failures and foreclosures - is “really going to be the next president's and Congress's burden.”

”And I do believe it should be their burden,” Courtney said.