On March 21 , 2010 , Spratt joined a majority of his House colleagues in approving H.R. 3590 , the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act , the Senate version of the health care reform bill . As Chairman of the House Budget Committee , he made the floor motion which led to the vote on the bill . " I was where the action was when the bill had to be called from the clerk 's desk , " he told '' The Herald '' , a Rock Hill , South Carolina newspaper . " It was like sharing a moment in history . " On March 24 , 2010 , Spratt was appointed to the President 's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform . In reporting on the appointment , Dow Jones Newswires called Spratt " one of the staunchest fiscal conservatives among House Democrats . " Spratt became active in Democratic politics at an early age , and was elected delegate to the 1964 Democratic National Convention . Spratt was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982 , succeeding fellow Democrat Kenneth Holland . He was reelected 13 more times . Although parts of the district were becoming friendlier to Republican candidates at the national level , the GOP was more or less nonexistent in this part of South Carolina at the local level for some time . As evidence , Spratt only faced a Republican opponent twice from 1984 to 1992 , both of those times winning easily . In 1994 , however , Spratt was nearly defeated by Republican Larry Bigham , only surviving by 6,300 votes . He defeated Bigham by a slightly larger margin in 1996 , but from 1998 to 2008 usually won with relatively little difficulty
1964 Democratic National Convention
1964 Democratic National Convention
John Spratt