Now that Democrats have retaken Congress and the White House, one of the problems I have struggled with the most over the past five months is "how can the grassroots make a difference in passing good legislation?" It is a difficult question to answer.
Over the past several years, we have developed a lot of good ways to make a difference in winning elections. We have donated money, made phone calls, registered voters, and knocked on doors. We have pushed favorable media narratives, and worked against unfavorable ones. We have even run our own ads, conducted our own search engine optimization campaigns, and urged Democrats in safe districts to send more of their money to swing districts. However, when it comes to influencing legislation, it feels like we have comparatively few tools at our disposal.
Sure, we can make phone calls, sign petitions and send emails to our members of congress either in support of good legislation or in opposition to bad legislation. But how much of a difference do these "contact your member of Congress" campaigns really make? Maybe a little, but the truth is, not much. The same goes for protests, too.
Sure, we can run ads against, and support primary challenges to, wayward Democrats. This strategy has proven effective in flipping votes, but it is cost intensive and can't be used in every instance. (For example, will we really be able to run primary challenges against Democrats who are strong on virtually every issue, except one or two? Probably not.) Also, it usually only has a long-term payoff (namely, after the 2010 elections). This is a good strategy, and one that I support. However, in the short term it doesn't really open any doors to the sausage making factory.
At least for the ongoing health care fight, I think I have an idea that might just change this dynamic and allow us to have more influence. What if, through repeated emails from constituents, we were to ask Senators to respond to a short survey asking them to outline what sort of public option they would, and would not, support?
Such information would be invaluable as it would let us know the range of possibilities on what sort of public option can be passed, and also let us know where "contact your member of Congress" efforts would be most needed. Further, while a few dozen constituent emails probably won't convince a Senator to support a more robust public option, it probably would be enough to convince a Senator's office to complete a short survey outlining what type of public option the Senator supports.
The idea is similar to the activist model Talking Points Memo used for Social Security. In that fight, before any legislation was actually drafted, Josh Marshall asked his readers to contact their members of Congress, and to scour their public statements, in a crowd-sourced attempt to discover where every member of Congress stood on privatizing Social Security. The information was collected in a central area, where anyone could see, in a single glance, which Republicans opposed privatizing Social Security ("the conscience caucus"), and which Democrats supported it ("the fainthearted faction.") We can do something similar for the public option.
Given that Senator Kennedy will release his health care reform proposal today, but that the legislation will still need to be negotiated with Senator Baucus's inevitably more tepid proposal, the timing couldn't be better. Here is a draft email we could send to all 59 members of the Democratic Senate caucus (everyone emailing only their own Senators, of course), and also to the two Republican women from Maine. In coordination with other blogs, especially state blogs, we could keep sending a bunch of these emails until all 61 of those Senators answer the following yes or no questions (it is always best to only ask members of Congress yes or no questions, as such questions are easy to answer and difficult to evade):
Hi! I am interested in my Senator's position on a federally-backed health insurance plan, commonly referred to in the media as a "public option." Please let me know where Senator X stands on each of the following aspects of the public option (all questions are yes or no):
1. Is Senator X completely opposed to a public option of any sort? (if yes, there is no need to answer any more of the questions)
2. Is the Senator supportive of a public option that is sustained not just through selling premiums, but also through federal funding?
3. Is the Senator supportive of a public option that would be available shortly after health care reform legislation is signed into law, instead of just as a fall-back option years in the future if private insurers do not reduce costs?
4. Is the Senator supportive of a public option that's available to all Americans of non-SCHIP or Medicare age, and whose incomes are less than 150% of the poverty level?
5. Is the Senator supportive of a public option that's available to all Americans of non SCHIP of Medicare age, and whose incomes are less than 400% of the poverty level?
Thank you in advance for your time, and all the hard work you do on behalf of constituents like me.
Best,
XXXXX
Obviously, the questions need some work. However, if we had answers to all five of these questions from the 61 Senators who can be reached on the public option, we could wage a far more effective campaign for the public.
This strategy is based on the belief that, while legislation is still being drafted, transparency can act as an agent of change. If we know where lawmakers stand, then we know who needs the most pressure. Also, after it starts receiving a few responses, the survey can start providing pressure on its own. Once a critical mass of Senators have provided transparency by detailing what kind of public option they support, all Senators will feel pressure to provide that same level of transparency. Once a member of Congress takes a public stance on this aspect of health care reform, that public stance acts as pressure not to change, for fear of looking spineless. Once enough Senators are taking positive public stances on an important, popular issue, others feel peer pressure to do the same.
There is simply no way that I could get every Democratic Senate office to respond to this sort of survey on my own. However, as a group, I believe we can get it done, because Senate offices take constiuents seriously. Back in January and February, when I was trying to gather this sort of information purely through reporting, about half of all Senate offices never returned my inquiries. I'm sure that part of it was due to my own inexperience as a journalist, but in other cases it was connected to their unwillingness to treat blogs as a legitimate news sources. (For example, everyone I contacted asked blog irrelevant questions like "what is your filing deadline?" as though my boss is going to chew me out if I don't have this done at a certain time, or as though my blog only allows me to post articles during certain times of the day.)
So, now I want to know what you think of this idea. Should we give this a try, or not? Also, what questions should we ask? If there appears to be enough support, and if we can get a clear, short set of questions that would provide a solid outline of where the relevant Senators stand on the public option, then we can start this campaign as early as this afternoon. Natasha and I already compiled a list of links to the online contact forms of the 61 reachable Senators for this purpose.
Let me know what you think, and what questions we should ask.
Poll
Do you think this is a worthwhile campaign to attempt?
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