'"....The activists at Heritage Action, one of the conservative groups that successfully persuaded enough Republicans to refuse to fund the government unless the federal health care law is defunded, is not sorry about the shutdown.
And Michael Needham, CEO of Heritage Action, thinks that if this goes on long enough, Democrats will have no choice but to back down.
More than a week into the first government shutdown since the Bill Clinton era, groups such as Heritage Action on the right continue to urge lawmakers not to negotiate a measure to fully fund the government unless they include riders to effectively dismantle the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“The only acceptable way out of this is some sort of deal that funds the federal government without funding Obamacare,” Needham told reporters at a breakfast on Wednesday sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “This is a fight about Obamacare, and the attention of Republicans and conservatives needs to be back on Obamacare and not on other ways out of this situation.”
The group’s doggedness about the GOP strategy, combined with muscle on the inside from dozens of conservative House members and Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, puts Republicans in a tough position going into negotiations to resolve the impasse with Democrats. The group’s regularly updated legislative scorecard, which tracks votes and issues it believes help separate the conservatives from the RINOS (Republicans In Name Only), serves as a public shaming mechanism for Republicans that wander astray.
In August, the group ramped up the pressure by joining with its sister organization, the Heritage Foundation, for a nine-city town-hall tour that drummed up support in the states for the plan to link Obamacare defunding to must-pass legislation like the bill to fund the government.
