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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spin Control

Ending the shutdown: How they voted

Washington state has one distinction in yesterday's vote to end the partial government shutdown and extend the federal debt limit: It is the largest state in which the entire delegation voted yes.

Across the border in Idaho, the delegation was split, 3-1, on the no side.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Eastern Washington was one of the point-persons for the House Republican leadership in defending its tactics on the shutdown, appearing at press conferences and on 24-hour cable news programs. Like many other GOP leaders, she voted to end it Wednesday night, contending "House Republicans have done everything possible to protect the American people from the arbitrary regulations and unnecessary costs of the President's health care law. . . We did not accomplish everything we hoped. But in the end, the Senate agreed to come to the table and start to talk."

She said House Republicans are united and will work on fixing "an out-of-control government."

As a breakdown of the vote in the Washington Post shows, however, they were pretty sharply divided on the vote to end the shutdown. Americans for Limited Government, a group opposed to the Affordable Care Act, is also blasting House Republicans who voted to end the shutdown, saying they "now own Obamacare just as much as if they voted to adopt it in the first place."



Jim Camden
Jim Camden joined The Spokesman-Review in 1981 and retired in 2021. He is currently the political and state government correspondent covering Washington state.

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