WASHINGTON (AP) &045; Quoting both the poet Carl Sandburg and a 1970s aftershave commercial, Rep. Gil Gutknecht savored his uphill victory over his own party leaders on importing drugs from Canada.

&uot;There are men who can’t be bought,&uot; said Gutknecht, a Republican from Rochester, taking a line from Sandburg’s 1936 poem, &uot;The People, Yes.&uot;

On Friday, the House passed Gutknecht’s bill allowing Americans to purchase prescription medicine abroad, resisting a fierce lobbying campaign from the pharmaceutical industry.

&uot;We took the people’s house back,&uot; Gutknecht said. &uot;There was an undertow that people had gotten really pretty fed up with some of these interest groups around town.&uot;

It was the kind of fiery talk one might expect from someone like Rep. Bernie Sanders, the former socialist mayor of Burlington, rather than a conservative Republican. In fact, Sanders, I-Vt., stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Gutknecht in praising passage of the bill, as did nine other lawmakers from all across the political spectrum.

Missing, however, was GOP leadership, which tried to defeat the bill. Gutknecht, a generally loyal Republican with a 95 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, called Friday’s 243-186 vote a wake-up call to his own party’s leaders.

&uot;I would hope this morning that they would say to themselves, ‘Thanks, I needed that,’&uot; he said, citing a ’70s aftershave commercial.

Jonathan Grella, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said the GOP leadership continues to have safety concerns about the legislation, which unlike earlier versions, does not require the Department of Health and Human Services to certify that importation would be safe.

&uot;That’s not an issue that should be taken lightly,&uot; Grella said. But he said DeLay will defend the bill in House-Senate negotiations over the final shape of the legislation.

A majority of senators, including Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, are already on record opposing any weakening of the HHS requirement. Minnesota Democrat Mark Dayton said he supports Gutknecht’s bill, but wants to review the details more closely.

Congress has twice before passed legislation dealing with drug importation, but both required HHS certification. HHS secretaries in both the Clinton and Bush administrations have refused to do so.

Opponents of Gutknecht’s bill argue that imports could expose American consumers to counterfeit and contaminated drugs. Gutknecht counters that the bill calls for tamperproof and counterfeit-proof packaging, and allows importation only of FDA-approved drugs from FDA-approved facilities in Canada, the European Union and seven other nations.

But Gutknecht has also been hammered by free market scholars in Washington, who say that the lower prices would mean less money for research and new lifesaving drugs. Several made that point rather bluntly to Gutknecht in a closed-door meeting earlier this month.

&uot;The Gutknechts of the world are focused on this generation,&uot; one of the participants, Fred Smith, said later. Smith heads a Washington think tank called the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

&uot;They fail to understand that a low-cost drug today, which means a low-quality health care world tomorrow, is going kill people. And it will kill a lot of people.&uot;

Price controls in Canada and other countries often lead to much lower drug prices than in the United States.

Gutknecht, who was first elected to Congress when Republicans took over the House in 1994, said he first got interested in the issue when he realized he could do nothing to stop the flow of pork bellies from Canada, which were hurting hog farmers in his district.

&uot;A light bulb went on in my head,&uot; Gutknecht said, wondering why the same free trade shouldn’t apply to prescription drugs.

Gutknecht argued that his idea is essentially a conservative, free market approach, but he picked up far more support from Democrats than Republicans. Democrats voted for the legislation 155-45. Republicans opposed it 141-87.

In years past, Gutknecht had teamed up with the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., probably the most liberal senator.

&uot;This is one issue where Senator Wellstone and I worked together,&uot; he said. &uot;We had joint town hall meetings. We agreed on almost nothing else, including his choice of neckwear.&uot;

Gutknecht joked that passage of the bill couldn’t possibly hurt his relationship with party leaders.

&uot;I’m not sure it can get a whole lot worse,&uot; he said. &uot;But, at the end of the day, this isn’t about making friends, it’s about making a difference. If I wanted to just be friends with folks in leadership, obviously, I would have never embarked on this journey.&uot;