Maybe Progressives Should Start Blocking Legislation

by: Chris Bowers

Tue Feb 10, 2009 at 16:30


What does it take to get a meeting with President Obama? It is becoming easier to cynically answer "threaten to block his legislation." If you are a supporter, you might have to wait in line:

The House Blue Dog Coalition continues to wield outsize political power, thanks to a canny willingness to leverage its votes on key issues, while the Congressional Progressive Caucus must fight to be heard.

Case in point: the Blue Dogs are meeting directly with President Obama this afternoon on the stimulus bill. The Progressives have yet to hear back about their request for a meeting, which was issued almost a month ago.

More in the extended entry.

Chris Bowers :: Maybe Progressives Should Start Blocking Legislation
During the stimulus fight, Blue Dogs extracted a restrictive PAYGO promise from President Obama and a "fiscal responsibility summit" in exchange for votes on the stimulus. And yet, despite this, six Blue Dogs still voted against the stimulus package. Further, four of the other five Democrats who voted against the measure are freshmen who will probably become Blue Dogs soon (they did indicate there are now 51 Blue Dogs, even though their website only lists 47 members, none of whom are freshmen). In return for this awesome loyalty on the stimulus package, Blue Dogs get a meeting at the White House, while Progressives--who extracted no promises or summits, all of whom voted for the stimulus, and who even had many of their programs cut from the bill--stay on the waiting list.

Given this, it isn't hard to think that supporting President Obama isn't actually the best way to gain access to him, or to influence his legislation. Right now, threatening to block his agenda by joining with Republicans appears to be a more fruitful tactic. As such, it is easy to wonder if Progressives would be better off if they started threatening to vote against President Obama's legislation, and only came around to grudgingly, and incompletely, supporting his legislation in return for specific promises.

I am not going to draw any conclusions based on these developments, but if there is another lesson to learn from all of this, I am open to hearing it.

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Maybe Progressives Should Start Blocking Legislation | 27 comments
Nope (4.00 / 4)
That is exactly what they need to do. Threaten to take their ball and go home. Apparently it is the only thing that gets results.

Whole thing is bullshit.

What it reminds me of (0.00 / 0)
I remember that back in high school and junior high, the Principal and Vice Principal always knew the name of the bad kids. They'd come to know them in detention, or disciplinary meetings, or whatever, and always seemed to be on a first name basis with them.

Yet these same Principals and VPs didn't know the names of the good kids who got straight A's, never got in trouble, volunteered after school, etc.

Obama is looking to me like the Principal who cares more about becoming friendly with the hoodlums as opposed to making alliances with the good kids.

[ Parent ]
Don't forget .. (4.00 / 3)
Rahmbo loves himself some Blue Dogs .. just look at a lot of now-members he recruited
Please sir, may I have some more (4.00 / 1)
Blocking BARF would be a good place to start.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
sternly worded letters (0.00 / 0)
I think you're likely right, but it looks like the Progressive Caucus isn't quite there yet - from that article you linked:

Our own Andrew Golis was able to ask Grijalva today whether the progressives would back up their letter with a concrete vow to oppose any stimulus that too closely resembled the Senate version.

His response was understandable, but likely to take the teeth out of the effort: "I don't know. That gauntlet was necessary to throw down. Will there be the will to sink the package? I don't know."



not everything worth doing is profitable. not everything profitable is worth doing.
Blue Dogs (0.00 / 0)
The Blue Dogs would be Rep. seats if the voted the Pelosi line.

They need to be moderate so the dems keep the healthy margins in the House.


bullshit (4.00 / 1)
Please tell me which Blue Dog holds a seat where the majority of the constituents oppose the stimulus package.

John McCain <3 lobbyists
[ Parent ]
Yea (0.00 / 0)
I was not speaking about the Stimulus package, i was speaking about their voting behavior as a whole, they can not take the Pelosi line on every vote.

Plus, being inside, i know that there is substantial opposition to the Stimulus bill.  

[ Parent ]
I'm willing to bet (0.00 / 0)
Bobby Bright, Parker Griffith, Walt Minnick, Gene Taylor, Jim Marshall, probably Lincoln Davis, Travis Childers, Charlie Melacon.

[ Parent ]
I never understood this logic (4.00 / 4)

 They need to vote like Republicans, because if they didn't we'd wind up with... Republicans.

 Ooh-kay.

 (ps. there's nothing "moderate" about blocking job creation)

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
Numbers (4.00 / 3)
Three of the 47 listed members are no longer in the House (Nick Lampson, Tim Mahoney, and Kirsten Gillibrand).  Two others who lost in November, Nancy Boyda and Don Cazayoux, were pretty conservative.  Some of the NY and CA Blue Dogs are not that conservative and would seem to belong mainly because they seem to feel that it is cool and would appeal to swing Republicans in their district.

The concession on PAYGO wrecks any chance for universal health care and many other initiatives.  It was way too much to give to the pathetic dogs.

Newt and Company enacted internal rules that slapped down the power of Republican moderates.  Even threatening similar caucus rules would neuter the Blue Dogs.  Time to do it.

PAYGO (0.00 / 0)
The concession on PAYGO wrecks any chance for universal health care and many other initiatives.  It was way too much to give to the pathetic dogs.

How so?  I've never heard of a proposal for universal health care that didn't include payment.  Is there some specific stumbling block I'm not thinking of?  In general, I would expect health care to fit within PAYGO.

While restoring PAYGO is a bad idea at this time, it isn't quite as bad as it seems.  We still have those Bush tax cuts to roll back and corporate loopholes to close; both Obama promises.  If the Bluedogs don't want to raise those taxes for PAYGO, that is their problem.

[ Parent ]
Unenploymnet, underemployment (0.00 / 0)
About 15% of the country's population was uncovered in 2007.  As the economy gets worse, the number and percentage will rise and those paying payroll taxes will decrease.  In the short term (2 or 3 years) there is going to be a gap.  

We seem to be missing a golden opportunity and in health care those opportunities come along only every 15 to 20 years. (e.g. Truman in 1945, LBJ in 1965, Clinton in 1993-94, Obama in 2009).

[ Parent ]
The Blue Dogs are complaining of rules imposed by Speaker Pelosi (0.00 / 0)
which does limit their ability in committee to influence events.  They are using that as an excuse to vote or threaten to vote against other Democratic bills!

On the thesis of this post, progressives are afflicted with an overweening sense of public responsibility, unlike Blue Dogs.  In their mind, they feel they have to do what's right for the country, even if politically they know it might long term be the politically risky thing, because it might help The Republicans the 2010 midterms.


"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

[ Parent ]
The weaker the stimulus... (4.00 / 3)

 ...the more it helps the Republicans in 2010.

 The Democrats will be evaluated on one thing in 2010, and one thing only: the state of the economy. Jobs. Incomes.

  The Blue Dogs are the politically tone-deaf ones here.  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
King Salomon Problem (0.00 / 0)
The willingness to split the baby in two gives some far more power than it should.  But that's just reality.

In general, I don't think we can go the conservative route and use the same techniques.  Our power lies elsewhere.

[ Parent ]
Democracy favors the center (4.00 / 1)
That's just an inherent feature of democracy.  The left has just generally been pretty bad at cutting deals with the middle to ensure that we have a center-left orientation.

Now, I'm saying that the left has to follow this course, but it is an avenue that I think must be contemplated as one that moves the country in a more progressive direction.  I think that the biggest bargaining chip that progressives in Congress can use is to trade support for Obama's course in Afghanistan in exchange for concessions on economic issues.  

The left agrees with Obama on the general thrust in areas that he highlighted in his campaign: energy policy, health care, withdrawal from Iraq.  There may be a disagreement about the extent and implementation, but everyone's headed in the same direction.  One clear area where some on the left disagree with Obama on direction is on his desire to refocus on Afghanistan and do what he thinks Bush should have done instead of going gallivanting on a crusade to Baghdad.

Whether or not that's a trade people are willing to make, I am pessimistic about the left's ability to compromise on one area in order to gain concessions in another.  An alternate strategy would be for progressives to block something that both progressives and Obama want in order to send a message that showing who is boss is sometimes more important than policy.  I'm talking about doing things on the level of what if progressives had tried to hold something popular like SCHIP expansion hostage in order to force concessions on the stimulus bill.  I'm not sure who wants to go down that road.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

empowering conservatives again -- supporters are not shut out at all -- (4.00 / 2)
he agrees with them -- not with progressives or liberals.

If he cared about progressive policies, he'd have submitted a far far different stimulus bill to begin with -- he doesn't.

He's shutting out those who can be ignored entirely, and without consequences -- their votes are assured and/or irrelevant to him, no matter what a bill is like, sadly.

They won't put holds on legislation like GOPers do, and the leadership in both houses and most cttee chairs will ensure legislation that's not truly liberal anyway.

like with the "bailout", and state secrets, etc, too -- (0.00 / 0)
There's nothing wrong with President Obama taking in competing ideas from his top aides. It's discouraging, though, when he considers the discussion, and sides with Tim Geithner over David Axelrod on the issue of financial institution accountability. ...

"[F]or all of its boldness, the plan largely repeats the Bush administration's approach of deferring to many of the same companies and executives who had peddled risky loans and investments at the heart of the crisis and failed to foresee many of the problems plaguing the markets."

-- http://www.washingtonmonthly.c...

These are all things Obama supports -- he knows full well that progressives in Congress are against them -- and doesn't care. (for many things, the majority of Americans too)

[ Parent ]
maybe they're just no good at negotiations (0.00 / 0)
I see at TPM the latest Democratic idea is take the CEO pay limits out of the Stimulus Bill and then blame the Maine Republicans for it.

Why you ask?  The lost taxes add up to $10B so it's too expensive!  I was mostly snarky when I made that joke that Wall Street bonuses from the bailout are good since it makes NY/NJ tax income, but evidently I should have been serious.  

 

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

Carter (4.00 / 1)
I like this proposal, but am far from sold.  Isn't this what happened to Carter?  That didn't turn out so well, though certainly it was a different time.  (And I could be dead wrong, I didn't pay any attention to politics until the 1980 election, when I was 14.)
Sigh... (4.00 / 3)

 Yes, I know Obama's smart and has great political skills and all that.

 So he HAS to know that the more he waters down this bill by appeasing reactionaries, the more likely this bill will NOT have the desired effect on the economy.

 And he HAS to know that he -- and the Democrats -- will ultimately get blamed for a stimulus failure.

 So he's got to know that an emasculated stimulus bill is BAD for his own naked self-interest, even leaving the rest of the country out of it.

 So either (a) this is all part of a complex, incomprehensible master plan that will yield thunderous successes for the Democrats in 2010, or (b) Obama's not quite the political genius some think he is.

 Campaigning and governing are two different skillsets, after all...  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

I'd be very careful on that one (4.00 / 1)
Defeating potential administration victories would be very costly to the long term progressie movement.

The Politics of Bruno S.

And not achieving a worthwhile stimulus (0.00 / 0)
could be just as damaging to the movement. politics is a high stakes game.
[ Parent ]
Which is why (0.00 / 0)
you have to pick your battles accordingly. Whats to say if progressives start blocking legislation in favor of legislation that has absolutely no chance in passing, the leaders won't just move further to the right and ignore us some more?

That's pretty much what has been happening so far.

[ Parent ]
The situation is delicate (0.00 / 0)
I think some trading back and forth can go on in conference, but it will have to involve spending for spending - ie some state funds can be brought back in in exchange for cuts elsewhere.

Actually, having looked at the bill, there are defintely other spending parts that could be sacrificed that would get back the $40 billion in state spending which I think is pretty important.

But some of the fire breathers here also need to understand the fragility of the 60 vote situation and that signficant changes in conference can't happen as a result.

Defeating Obama from the left might be advisable in the future, but in the current circumstance it is just dumb politics. There is no better option on offer - no stimulus bill passes if this one doesn't. And for Obama to not be able to pass a bill to which he has invested some political capital in will simply diminish his stature, embolden the GOP, and thus make anything else passing all the more harder - see Clinton, Bill; and Carter, JImmy.

Really - if the moderates won't give in conference, at this point, tough. Political common sense demands it.

leverage (0.00 / 0)
wouldn't Obama gain leverage with the BDogs if he is perceived as dealing w progressives?  Seems like he could use a little more clout with those bad puppies

Bdogs might have constituencies that (they feel) must push them right, but they also have to take care not to severely tick off their progressive voters.  They need a broad swath of voters, not just the moderate right, right?

(sorry is this has already been said -- no time to read all posts)

Maybe Progressives Should Start Blocking Legislation | 27 comments
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