Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.) said Saturday that he fought hard to oppose the controversial “deem and pass” procedure to pass health care reform because he wanted to avoid a potential judicial challenge to the measure.

“When the situation is so hot and there’s so many people that are so angry, that you need to have an abundance of caution, and abundance of care, to make sure we don’t get the situation where the Supreme Court is deciding this later,” he said Saturday evening as he left Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office.

Cardoza announced earlier Saturday that he would vote “yes” on the bill.

But the Rules Committee member said he didn’t want to have a Bush v. Gore situation — referring to the controversial 2000 presidential election that ended in a Supreme Court decision — in which the nation’s high court would review the procedure of another government branch.

“I said I wouldn’t vote for the rule if we didn’t change it and so we were successful in getting the rule modified,” he said.