Sources: Matheson (UT) released by Pelosi to vote no

Everything I'm hearing and seeing suggests that Democratic Utah Rep. Jim Matheson's announcement that he will vote "no" on the health care reform package was done after Speaker of the House Pelosi released him to do so.

Matheson apparently was ready to vote "yes" on the legislation if his vote was necessary to put the Democrats over the top.  Because such a vote would hurt Matheson in the upcoming November elections, however, he and the House Democratic leadership agreed to delay finalizing his vote until it was clear whether or not they needed a "yes" from him.  Hence the late timing of his decision.  (This is exactly what I suggested might happen in this article earlier today.)

We'll get a sense if this scenario is true or not based on at least two things.

First, if the vote goes for the Democrats with more than just one or two votes in their favor, that will be a pretty strong tipoff that Matheson was released.

Second, it will be useful to keep an eye on what Matheson does over the course of the next 24 hours.  I doubt we'll see it, but if there's clear evidence that he's been out and about persuading other fence-sitting Dems to vote "no," we'll know that my sources were feeding me dogfood.