Sole Republican to vote for bill knows price

WASHINGTON — When Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, R-La., won a stunning victory in a heavily Democratic district in New Orleans last December, the GOP was so thrilled that House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, sent a memo to his colleagues headlined "The Future is Cao."

But on health care, Cao, 42, had for months considered bucking the party that embraced him, while the White House wooed his vote.

And this weekend, as a group of Democrats gained momentum in their effort to limit abortion in the health-care bill, the staunch abortion foe Cao dialed up the White House and said he might be able to offer the bipartisan-starved Democrats his support if the abortion limits were included in the bill.

By Saturday afternoon, President Obama was on the phone trying to close the deal.

Cao pressed Obama for more federal funds for his Hurricane Katrina-ravaged district, saying later Obama didn't make him any guarantees.

But the abortion amendment gave Cao, a former Jesuit seminarian, a way to stay true to his personal beliefs while trying to win a second term in a district Obama won with 75 percent of the vote, though he denied looking toward his political future.

So on Saturday, Cao, the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress, surprised Democrats and Republicans by becoming the only one of the 177 House Republicans to support the historic health-care bill.

"I felt last night's decision was the right decision for my district, even though it was not the popular decision for my party," Cao told CNN on Sunday.

The decision, he said, was a lifeline to the poor and uninsured in his district, rejecting the idea that it had anything to do with re-election hopes.

Members of both parties privately said, however, Cao's prospects are doomed unless a large number of Democrats in his district embrace him.

Democrats in Washington and New Orleans, noting how Cao has voted with Republicans on other issues, including opposition to the $787 billion economic-stimulus package, said his record can't be erased by his health-care vote. Democratic Party officials view Cao as one of the nation's most vulnerable Republicans.

"I know that voting against the health-care bill will probably be the death of my political career," Cao told The Times-Picayune earlier this year.

But he added, "I have to live with myself, and I always reflect on the phrase of the New Testament, 'How does it profit a man's life to gain the world but to lose his soul?' "

Cao, who at age 8 fled war-torn Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, moved to New Orleans after several missions as a Jesuit seminarian. He eventually left the priesthood and became a lawyer.

His political activity increased after Hurricane Katrina, when he ran unsuccessfully for state representative as an independent. He was then recruited by the GOP to run for Congress.

In some ways, his victory was something of a fluke.

Hurricane Gustav pushed back the election cycle last year, resulting in an early December contest that pitted Cao against Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., a nine-term incumbent who won re-election in 2006 despite widespread publicity about the FBI finding $90,000 in his freezer in 2005.

With turnout much lower than in the presidential race a month earlier, Cao won an upset.

Boehner immediately argued that Republicans would win if they cast themselves as reformers like Cao. But the lawmaker had little connection to the GOP establishment, which did little to help him win.