Being into the whole history thing enough to have written a book on it, I tend to take a long view on the big policy battles we fight today. As I wrote the other day, no piece of legislation ever gets to perfection, and on plenty of them you can have a perfectly legitimate debate even over the most well-intentioned bill over whether it does more harm than good. In addition to the actual policy particulars, lawmakers have to weigh (if they care about political survival) a wide range of other factors, including the political implications both nationally and in their home districts, the symbolism of what they are doing, how the interest groups and donors that matter the most to them are impacted, and how the media nationally and back home are treating the issue. Trying to factor in all these things is intense, and it is understandable that politicians sometimes have trouble making up their minds.
For reasonably progressive-minded advocates and lawmakers on a huge issue like health care, after you factor in all of the above, at the end of the day you also have to ask yourself two very big questions. The first is whether the passage of this legislation sets the stage on other issues for better or worse things to come. The second is whether the legislation, even with all of its flaws and compromises, creates a platform to build on in the future.
Look at that, Obama went on FOX News after all, as it was reported he would! I guess I was right, White House denials don't exactly hold a lot of water.
Anyway, on the substance of the interview (almost had to link to FOXNews.com there), there was nothing spectacular except improving FOX's ratings, although there is a nit I want to pick with him and members of Congress over the Stupak and Hyde amendments.
GARRETT: Will you sign legislation on health care that includes the Stupak language?
OBAMA: You know, I think that there is a balance to be achieved that is consistent with the Hyde amendment -- what existed before we reformed health care.
I believe in the basic idea that federal dollars shouldn't pay for abortions. But I also think we shouldn't restrict women's choices, so, I think there's some negotiations going on, not just on the Democratic side, but I think among people of good will on both sides, to see if we can arrive at something that meets that criteria and I'm confident we can do that.
This goal- essentially, we should use Hyde as our baseline and if we get back to that, all is well- was repeated by Sen. Boxer immediately after the Stupak vote:
This amendment is unfair and discriminatory toward women. It singles them out as a group and would deny women access to a legal medical procedure by dictating what a woman can do with her own private funds. We've had a compromise in place for decades that has been fair. Anything that disrupts that compromise is a huge step back for women.
What I question is why that is our goal. I understand that as an organizing mechanism, if I'm trying to defeat Stupak, I should reassure colleagues that the pre-Stupak bill won't change Hyde to get them to vote against Stupak. Fine. But there's a difference between that and endorsing Hyde as a great, sacred compromise in the public realm. Here's what they should be saying instead: "you know, Major, I think the Hyde amendment is a terrible restriction on the rights of women. But the health care reform bill without the Stupak amendment will NOT affect existing Hyde regulations." Period.
This is an opportunity to talk about how restrictive Hyde is, not endorse it, and no one is taking advantage of it- not our national pro-choice organizations, not many of the most pro-choice members of Congress. I'm not saying the votes are there to repeal Hyde. I am saying this is an opportunity to explain to Americans around the country how screwed up women's reproductive health for a huge percentage of the workforce. I didn't even know the entire federal workforce, their families, military personnel, and women in DC are denied coverage under Hyde until this vote happened. It's also an opportunity to educate the views of pro-choice members of Congress, because as Rep. DeGette told Paul Rosenberg, referring to her colleagues, "So they thought, 'Well if this is just Hyde, then no big deal.'" That is crazy that even pro-choice members of Congress would think that.
We have some work to do, and endorsing Hyde as acceptable should not be the goal.
Interest groups, too, deserve opportunities to make their cases, Stark said. He singled out the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
The health insurance industry, Stark predicted, would never support a Democratic health reform effort, but he said they could be easily overcome.
"They're going to be easy to roll because nobody likes insurance companies," he said.
Hmm. That one didn't quite work out.
As you might have noticed lately, I am big on accountability, learning from our mistakes, and improving tactics. What is interesting to me about health care reform in the case of insurance companies is whether the game was fixed, or an opportunity was missed.
On the one hand, you could make the game was fixed argument that insurance companies are more moneyed and powerful, have more lobbyists and connections, etc. I've also heard the campaign finance argument, which is we'll never achieve fundamental reform not just on health care but on lots of other issues until we have fundamental campaign finance and lobbying reform to establish public financing of elections, eliminate the revolving doors between members of Congress and K Street, and so forth. Therefore Pete Stark is wrong that they could be easily overcome because he forgets that issue.
On the other hand, I recall that when Obama gave his late October radio address ripping insurance companies, the first thought in my head was "it's about time". Other friends said that with his cutting of all these side deals with pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, insurance companies to find cost savings, he in turn agreed to shy away from such rhetoric, which was a mistake. Therefore Pete Stark was right that insurance companies are easy to demonize, it's just that our side never took advantage of it.
I tend to think it's actually something of both, but it's worth thinking about for future fights.
Natasha's post last night on the DNC/OFA throwing pro-choice advocates and women everywhere under the bus got me thinking about the role of those organizations in general, and the Administration's choices of late.
There is a general belief, both in the Village and even among some people I know in progressive politics, that the DNC's role is to expand Democratic majorities and that's it. For all my criticism of OFA's role in Maine, I've had a few people say to me they shouldn't get involved in ballot fights. It's a D vs. R apparatus and that's that.
OFA's primary focus is to advance the president's agenda. If you advance the president's agenda that's going to translate politically and help Democrats throughout the country. And frankly keeping people engaged on the issues in an off year is going to translate in a mid-term year. They are going to continue to be engaged.
So that expands the definition. What does that mean in terms of OFA's actions of late? Well, they didn't lift a finger to help in Maine- even to the point of diverting resources to New Jersey. They knew about the Stupak amendment for quite awhile and didn't lift a finger. But Obama (if tepidly) came out against Question 1 in Maine and against the Stupak amendment, even pledging to work to remove it in conference. This is the President's agenda. And Sevugan said winning these fights helps Democrats around the country. And that keeping people engaged on the issues- and certainly, choice is an "issue"- helps.
So my question is, why isn't OFA doing its job? I realize OFA is an arm of the DNC. But should it exist to re-elect Democrats, or to actually carry out what Stewart and Sevugan say it should?
There are a number of arguments I've heard against OFA getting involved. One is that OFA should only work on issues that "everyone" agrees on. Another is that pressuring members violates the DNC's core mission of electing Democrats, because having a bunch of people call their members' office and ask the intern to tell the member to vote a certain way will somehow cause them to lose their re-election. Another is that if you "make aware" Obama supporters (also known as citizen engagement) in, say, John Tanner's district that he might suck on women's reproductive health, you'll rile them up and Tanner might lose Democratic votes for re-election, which violates the core mission of the DNC. None of these arguments are very persuasive. OFA could have even done a bland, list-wide "call your member and ask him/her to x". That way you don't name someone specifically, and you can reason that you're targeting all members of Congress because it's such a critical issue, not just Democrats.
The strongest argument I've heard is that OFA pressuring Democrats will cause congressional Democrats to pick up the phone and scream at Obama and screw him, and us, on other legislation. Relationships matter. Okay. But Obama is involved in party primaries, supporting Sens. Bennet, Gillibrand (should she have one), and Specter. His administration is pushing Gov. Paterson to bow out of a re-election bid. George W. Bush got involved in supporting Specter in 2004 and Chafee in 2006 in their respective primaries. Rahm himself got involved in congressional primaries in 2006, and has a reputation for working members hard for votes, engaging allies to pressure them, and so forth. So what's the difference between these actions and asking activists to make phone calls to advance your agenda? Both can damage relationships, both have rewards. If Obama's picks lose, those people can screw him. In this case, the reward is protecting women's reproductive freedom and advancing health care reform. So how come Obama takes a risk by siding with Senate and gubernatorial candidates, but remains silent on core issues of the Party?
In politics, relationships do matter, and I consider that in my own work. But the argument in terms of that here just doesn't hold water. Moreover, we only have a short window in which to enact real progressive change, and I think, within reason and wherever possible, the President should use all available tools to obtain that change and be our "fierce advocate". Please, Mr. President, include OFA among those tools.
I thought it might be useful to summarize the big battles ahead, as well as the list of things that are good policy changes that seem likely to be in the final legislation. I have two lists of both in the extended entry.
Well, that was quick. Yesterday was the announcement that White House interim Communications Director Anita Dunn, who started this fight with FOX, would be leaving. Today is this:
President Obama will give an interview to Fox News' Major Garrett, Drudge reports.
The interview will take place in China next week and comes just one day after it was reported that Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn the so-called general in the administration's war against Fox News will be stepping down.
[...]
Fox News executive Michael Clemente met recently at the White House with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and since then the tensions between the two parties have cooled; senior adviser David Axelrod granted an interview to Garrett last week.
I don't have any place to speculate that Dunn was forced out or this is some gesture to FOX or whatever, but it certainly doesn't look good. And how exactly have tensions cooled? Like I wrote back when this first started, this is akin to spanking FOX, sending them to their room, and expecting things to change. They are, and always will be, either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party (and those aren't even mine, those are Dunn's words, speaking for the White House!). They were before Obama came. They will be after Obama leaves. This is a long-term issue, which doesn't justify the White House's "FOX is being mean to us so we spanked them and they'll do better" mindset.
And by the way, what about the rest of us out here? FOX's hosts will continue to smear ACORN, Alan Grayson, Democrats in Congress, SEIU, and on and on and on. Even if the White House argues that FOX will play nice with them from now on, the rest of us still get thrown under the bus.
So I said it before, and I'll say it again. This was a job half-assed.
Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign, was in Maine for the election and he and I sat down for some chatting. I'll have more clips up this week of what we talked about, but let's start with Joe talking about the Democratic Party's commitment, or lack thereof, to LGBT issues in response to the OFA/DNC fiasco.
As I've written before, OFA and Obama's refusal to get involved in a major way was not just disappointing but a slap in the face on top of what the Administration (and by extension, the campaign through actions like inviting "ex-gay" homophobe Donnie McClurkin to speak at their rallies) has already done. The Maine fiasco was, for me and others, the straw that broke the camel's back, and in response, John and Joe at AMERICABlog have launched a donor boycott of the DNC until the Administration accomplishes legislative priorities.
Now, I've called for more patience on LGBT legislation, and I don't entirely agree that DOMA can be repealed "today" as they do, but I think these kinds of actions are on the right track, and the Administration is going to see a lot more of this coming down the pipe. HRC gave a tacit endorsement of the action as well.
But what really gets me is the smaller, stupid things they do to smack gays around. As Solmonese said, taking action in WA and ME "is by no means a risky strategy, and at the core of what they ought to be doing." It would not cost them anything to ask for a No vote in the Maine e-mail blast. Obama called for a No vote on Prop 8 but the tepid statement they issued regarding Maine didn't even mention the words "Maine" "No" "Question 1" or anything that would actually influence voters. Rick Warren at the inaugural, Donnie McClurkin, abolishing White House and DNC LGBT liaison positions, refusing to interview with LGBT press, or even apologize for any of these actions... the list goes on and on. In fact, John and Joe have a full list here.
Just like the "internet left fringe" comment, either don't advance Obama's position among voters or, if they do pick up votes, do so at the cost of endorsing McClurkin and Warren-style bigotry. The White House needs to both push harder for action on LGBT priorities as well as shut this kind of crap down.
Health care reform was always going to be tough as hell, as difficult as any issue that could ever be tackled. As I learned from the agony of the 1993-94 Clinton attempt at health care reform, this issue is so massive, so complicated, so unwieldy that it is prone to be derailed by lobbyists pulling on any one of the hundred hanging threads and unraveling the whole thing. Culture war issues like abortion and immigration combine with issues peculiar to individual districts like having a medical device manufacturer based in a congressperson's district, and all of those things combine with bigger worries about overall ideological and political concerns back home.
When people over the weekend would ask why getting the votes for the health care bill was so hard, I would have to say: it just is - it is the nature of the beast. Every step along the way will be tough and painful and decidedly not easy. Every time we complete a step, like we did on Saturday night, it is easy to look at how hard it was and say, "Oh my God, the next step is even harder, how we will ever get there?"
Determined leadership can find a way through. In the 1993 budget fight, every step of the way was complete torture, and at numerous times it looked like we were completely done for. But we kept battling, took on one step at a time, and we got it done.
Speaking of determined leadership, Nancy Pelosi deserves enormous credit for finding a way to get this done. Like all progressives, I am deeply unhappy with the abortion language that was allowed to be voted into this bill. That language is unacceptable and has to be changed in conference committee. But I was looking at the vote count on Friday night too, and we really were done unless that vote was allowed. There were literally no good choices at that moment, because to let the bill fail or pull the bill from being voted on would have caused everything to get unraveled. We still have a very good chance at stripping this terribly restrictive anti-abortion language in conference committee, and need to keep fighting to do that.
On the final vote, the whipping process was intense and impressive. Democratic leaders I have known in the past have rarely played this kind of hardball, but some kneecaps were broken Saturday night to get these votes, and the Speaker did a masterful job of doing every little thing that needed to be done. She gave no passes to people, and she was very clear there would have been consequences to all who voted no. She got the job done.
I also wanted to commend the congresspeople from tough districts likely facing very competitive races who did the right thing on this vote. It was a good political move on balance because it will help them turn out the base in the 2010 election, but when you are getting hammered by the big money forces against this bill, it never feels like a tough vote like this is going to help you. As a strong progressive, I give more conservative members of the Democratic caucus a lot of flack sometimes, but these Democrats from tough districts deserve a lot of thanks:
AZ-01 Kirkpatrick, Ann R+6
AZ-05 Mitchell, Harry R+5
AZ-08 Giffords, Gabby R+4
CA-11 McNerney, Jerry R+1
CT-04 Himes, Jim D+5
FL-08 Grayson, Alan R+2
IL-08 Bean, Melissa R+1
IL-11 Halvorson, Debbie R+1
IL-14 Foster, Bill R+1
IN-8 Ellsworth, Brad R+8
KS-03 Moore, Dennis R+3
MI-07 Schauer, Mark R+2
MI-09 Peters, Gary D+2
MN-01 Walz, Tim R+1
NH-01 Shea-Porter, Carol R+0
NV-3 Titus, Dina D+2
NY-01 Bishop, Timothy R+0
NY-19 Hall, John R+3
NY-24 Arcuri, Mike R+2
NY-25 Maffei, Dan D+3
OH-15 Kilroy, Mary D+1
OR-5 Schrader, Kurt D+1
PA-3 Dahlkemper, Kathy R+3
VA-5 Perriello, Tom R+5
WI-08 Kagen, Steve R+2
On the other hand, there are some Democrats I am appalled by. As a 30-year supporter of single-payer, and with full knowledge of the imperfections in this bill, I am angry that single-payer supporters Kucinich and Massa were happy to let any hope of health care reform for a generation die because the bill wasn't everything we hoped it would be. To let another generation go by where tens of thousands of people die every year from being under-insured, and have the insurance companies continue to be allowed to screw people over pre-existing conditions, lifetime caps, and recessions is just wrong.
Then there is the large collection of Blue Dogs who care nothing about the President or the Democratic Party's top priority, let alone all those people without insurance. After all that Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi did for these reps in the 2006 and 2008 elections, all the money and time and staff and consultant help they gave them, for those Blue Dogs to walk away on the biggest issue, when they were needed the most, is a sign of their selfishness. These are Rahm's people, recruited by him and supported by him at every step of the way, and they don't care that they are making him look terrible by leaving him out to dry. They are also dumb about their own political fate: if Democrats don't deliver, Democratic base voters will walk away in massive numbers, and it will be the people in marginal districts that will suffer the most.
The health care debate was always going to be a knock-down, drag-out fight, with every stage a harrowing journey to get through. But we survived another big step on Saturday night, and are alive to fight for another round. We will figure out how to win this one way or the other, making history when we do.
Stewart nails it such that I'll even transcribe it for you.
Interviewer: Do you think FOX News is biased?
Valerie Jarrett: Well of course they're biased, of course they are...
Excellent job. Right on message. But watch her retreat into her shell when asked...
Interviewer: Do you also think MSNBC is biased?
Jarrett: Well, you know what, this is, this is the thing, I don't want, actually, I don't want to just generalize all FOX is biased, or another station is biased...
Wow, that was a train wreck. Jon Stewart dissects:
Stewart: Just say of course MSNBC is biased, but they agree with us! So we're not fighting with them! And by the way, MSNBC wishes they were as good as FOX. They're the Toledo Mud Hens to the FOX's Yankees. MSNBC doesn't even realize their morning show is hosted by a conservative. Obama administration, do you even know your role in all of this?
Jarrett: What the administration has said very clearly is, we're going to speak truth to power...
Stewart: What the %!$@?! Truth to power! You're the White House! You're the power! Here's how it goes in the truth to power statement: it's your job to %!$@ up power, it's FOX's job to %!$@up truth!
One of the interesting elements of the battle with FOX- which I think the Administration is running half-assed, so far- is how people immediately get tripped up when asked about MSNBC. Some say yes, some say no, some say yes but not the same way FOX is. I've never seen anyone be able to answer that dreaded MSNBC follow-up. But this isn't rocket science.
Here's my advice to the Administration. First, sit down together and get yourselves a single set of talking points on this issue. Second, they should say the following: "Every cable news show invites on people with opinion. What makes FOX different is that every element of their show is biased opinion, from their anchors to their commentators to the stories they choose to cover. That's why they're not a news channel, they're an opinion channel that operates as an arm of the Republican Party, and that's why the White House is treating them we do any other biased opinion channel."
With the Republicans becoming locked into being the party of No/Hell, No/Not Ever/Nada/Absolutely Not/Never Ever, Democrats are going to need to seriously consider revising the rules of the Senate at the beginning of next term. The gritty reality of the Senate rules minefield is making the passage of health care reform way too complicated. But it's virtually impossible to change the Senate rules in the middle of a term, so we are stuck with getting this thing done with the rules we have.
Fortunately, the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill and at the White House are completely bound and determined that they will pass a health care reform bill by any means necessary. We have come too far, spent too much time and political capital, to turn back now. I think almost everyone in the party (except maybe 3 or 4 Senators) understand the disastrous consequences of not getting a bill passed.
There are, however, two realities that in combination make getting the deal done really complicated.
The first is that the progressive wing of the party is as dug in as I have ever seen them on having some form of a public option in this bill. This reality, which has been building for months now because of stronger progressive leadership in Congress and a powerful grassroots campaign to push for the public option, has been slow to dawn on the Washington elite, but my sense is that progressives are getting more determined on the issue every day , not less, and that with their rhetoric, their promises to activists, their signatures on letters promising to oppose anything without a public option, that their willingness to give on the issue has gone out the door.
The other reality is that getting the final four or five moderate Senators to vote to let this bill get passed at the end of the process- whether to take it to conference committee or for final passage- is extremely difficult. Between a range of factors including genuine policy and ideological concerns, worries about conservative home state politics, fears about money being cut off from the insurance industry for their campaigns, desire to extract every possible concession on every possible subject, and the egos of being a Senator, getting every last Democratic Senator is a massive challenge. This would be true, by the way, with or without the public option, but the high-profile symbolism of the public option just raises the degree of difficulty with some of these Senators.
I actually think Harry Reid is doing a remarkable job working with the holdouts. He has gotten a lot of criticism over the past few months, but given the Senate rules, he is doing a remarkable job working every last angle to get this bill moving (beginning of next term, you gotta get the rules changed, though, Senator). He is now really close to getting the 60 votes to get this bill to the floor for debate, and I think that will happen.
The biggest question, though, is what happens next. No one wants to go the reconciliation route because given those ugly Senate rules, it is just a convoluted mess to do things that way. It would take more time, create enormous logistical hassles and tie-ups, and almost certainly force the bill to be broken into two parts, one that would go through the reconciliation process and one that could not because its provisions aren't directly related to the budget. I can understand why Reid and the White House would rather not go down that path unless they absolutely must.
Unless all 60 Democrats stick with Harry Reid, though, that's what they will have to do. Getting this omelet done may require breaking a few Senatorial eggs. Having talked with some Senate staffers, I know they are preparing for every contingency, including reconciliation, and that's a very good thing, because I think that's what this will probably come down to in the end. I know it's a messy, irritating, uncomfortable way to get the deal done. But if any of those Senators decide they want to say no, and don't want to be players on the most important piece of legislation in at least 50 years, so be it. This legislation is too important not to pass.
I just got back from the White House, where I went to see Obama speak about his signing the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act Act, which expands federal oversight of hate crimes to include sexual orientation and gender identity. It was rolled into the defense authorization bill. A couple of reactions:
1) I wrote earlier disagreeing some complaints in the LGBT community that the Matthew Shepard Act wasn't done as a stand-alone bill. The funny thing about progress is, when it's all said and done, no one cares. None of the folks I spoke to at the reception cared one whit about the defense bill- they were simply happy to have gotten to this day after 13 years of working for it. It relates a bit back to what I say about how much voters care about bipartisanship- no one could tell you the vote count on Social Security (an extremely partisan vote). All they can tell you is that they like the result. In other words, policy matters more than process- even to the most die-hard activists.
2) Obama quoted LBJ upon his signature of Civil Rights Act of 1968- "Through this law the bells of freedom will ring a little louder". Very moving and very true.
3) I guess the "HRC hasn't accomplished anything!!" meme can officially die now, even to the most ardent critics. HRC has worked closely with the Shepard family, reached out to the family of James Byrd, Jr., and worked for years to round up the votes. Lots of people and organizations, including Cathy Renna, who originally did the press around the Shepard murder, and GLAAD, deserve congratulations, but HRC deserves a huge slap on the back.
4) I have something of a working theory on how much LGBT individuals who live in places where you rarely see hate crimes- liberal urban areas like where I live, for example- will care about this getting done. Or how much those who work in environments where they don't live under the fear of being fired for coming out will appreciate ENDA when it's done. To some of my friends here, hate crimes is small-ball. One friend even called the Matthew Shepard Act "soooo 1996". To them, they care a little bit for people who live in constant fear of harassment or violence, but care more about DOMA and DADT being repealed- something that affects them more directly. I'll be interested to see if the reactions of the LGBT community at large are the same.
Following Chris' five process questions yesterday on the news that Reid will include an opt-out public option in the merged bill, I have five organizing questions of my own that I think are critical to making sure this bill is a success. As he wrote, a lot about the opt-out structure remains unclear, and I think the devil is in the details. These should serve as possible targets for amendments during the floor fight.
1. The date in which this starts. Availability of the public option is due to start in 2013. I see this as some bad and some good. On the bad side, there is limited help for people who need it now. It's also not clear to me that the bill itself gives Democrats a lot to work with in the midterm elections in terms to being able to demonstrate how health care is more affordable in November 2010. On the good side, things are going to get worse before they get better, so the "help is on the way" argument is useful, but not terribly compelling. Our side needs to make sure the date is as early as possible.
2. The timeline of opt-out. It is imperative that we push for states only being able to opt-out after the public option starts. People need to try this first before their state makes a decision. If there is no tangible benefit for people who need it, there will be no push to keep one's state from opting out.
And strategically, I prefer to only allow states to opt-out after their fellow residents have suffered under four more years of things getting either somewhat better or dramatically worse. The date in which states can opt out should be as late as possible. Let's dare the teabaggers and conservative legislators to look in the face of those who are getting screwed by insurance companies and tell them they aren't going to try something to help.
3. The ability to opt back in. Perhaps even more important is allowing states the ability to opt back in if results of the public option in other states show that others like it, and that it has improved the situation dramatically. For policy, political and moral reasons, we cannot permanently leave states on the outside looking in.
To some degree, I say this may be even more important than the start date of the public option, because if things are going to get worse before they get better, there may be a clamoring in current "red" states for opting back in, even if a state opted out the first day it could. I am also concerned about the success of the program if lots of states, including places like Florida and Texas, opt out, leaving a smaller pool of people participating. Political situations in states also change- we could see a surge of progressives elected in states that opted out, some running on the platform of doing something on health care. They need to have the ability to opt back in.
4. The manner in which states can opt out. What I've heard so far is that this will be by regular legislative action and gubernatorial signature. What about a requirement for a 2/3 vote in the legislature? What about the ability to put, or not put, the issue on the ballot? This may all be moot if Congress doesn't want to "interfere" in states' rights of passing legislation or whatever, and could mess up the whole fragile package of support in the Senate, but it's worth thinking about. We should try and dictate the manner in which states can opt out as much as possible and set up as many roadblocks as possible.
5. Organizing against opting-out. One of the real disappointments I have with the opt-out is that it means we're going to be now taking the fight to the state level on a number of fronts to ensure states don't opt-out. Lobbying, public pressure, whip counts. Some of you might see this as great fun, but I see it as more expenditure of resources that should be going towards other important fights coming up. This is all in the future, but we should start thinking now about the structure of such campaigns and the role the netroots can take in them. We should also start thinking about the current fight and what we could do better. The fight to keep states from opting out could start as early as next year. Or it could be happening in 2013. Our own self-examination now may help us think about what kind of policy amendments we should be focusing on to make sure we are prepared to fight these battles.
Okay, folks, we progressives got what we wanted. A comprehensive health care reform bill with a reasonably strong public option will be going to the floor as part of leadership bills in both the House and the Senate. We don't yet know whether we will get the best version of the public option in the House bill, and the Senate version is not as strong as progressives have been pushing for. But strengthening the form of the public option can be negotiated over in conference committee, once we get there.
For now, we can thank Harry Reid (HCAN has a page here) and Nancy Pelosi for their gutsy leadership, and fight like hungry dogs to win the floor fight and deliver on this hope. In the coming weeks we will have an all-hands-on-deck, all out public war with the insurance industry over whether we finally pass comprehensive health care reform or once again fall short at the bitter end after coming so far.
Here's where things are as we head into the floor fight:
1. White House staffers confirmed for me this afternoon that they are backing Harry Reid's decision "100 percent." Now that's not to say they aren't a little nervous about it. I suspect that there are still some feelings by some people working in that building that progressives should have given up and rolled over, and let them cut a deal with Olympia Snowe on her trigger-written-never-to-trigger. That would have been easier than sweating what will undoubtedly be a very tough battle to get all 60 Democrats to go along with the rest of the party. But us irritating progressive folk got in the way of doing that, and now Obama knows it's time to stand and deliver. I believe my friends at the White House when they say they will do an all-out fight for this bill. They know that starting down this path, and not being able to pull it off, would be a huge embarrassment and destroy all the momentum we've built by making it this far. They are all-in, and know how much is at stake. Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina are famous for twisting arms and doing everything in their power to get the votes that are needed, and now is their time to deliver.
2. The entire progressive movement has to go all-in supporting an up or down vote on health care reform. We should try to strengthen this bill with an amendment strategy on the floor, and we should be prepared to fight for a strong, tough negotiation strategy in conference committee. But first, we should be putting every ounce of work, dollars, and muscle we can to convince all the Democrats in the Senate to support Reid on the cloture vote in the Senate. The White House and Reid are on the line to deliver, but so are we. This is a history- making fight, one of those huge moments in American history, and if we win, this progressive movement will be written about in the history books the way the big change movements of the 1960s, 1930s, 1900s, and 1860s are. This is our time to deliver, too.
3. Senate Democrats who are reluctant to support this need to be clear: there are plenty of things none of us like in this big, sprawling bill. Personally, I think the idea that states could opt out of the public option is a tragedy, and I will fight for a better bill in conference committee. There are plenty of other provisions I don't love as well. But to step on history, to stop the entire rest of the Democratic party from making history because you don't like one provision in a bill, is fundamentally wrong. Go ahead and vote against it on an up or down vote, but do not stop this incredibly important, incredibly historic bill with a filibuster. And as a loyal Democrat who wants all Democrats to win, I want you waverers to be very clear about the political consequences. There is a huge political upside to supporting Reid on cloture, and an even bigger downside to not doing so. I don't speak for the entire progressive movement at all, but I have spent my life working in it, and have a pretty good sense of it, and I will tell you this: this is of truly massive importance to progressives. If you think this is just another issue, you are dead wrong. You will be helping yourself an enormous amount with progressives by letting this vote happen, and letting the Democratic party and the president get a huge win. It would be harder to raise money for anyone running a primary against you and easier to get our help in any tough general election you might face. On the other hand, if you screw us on this issue, you are opening yourself up for enormous political problems. The odds of serious primaries, with a ton of funding, go up dramatically, just as the odds of ever getting help in a tough general election fight go steeply down. The likelihood of people and organizations trying to block anything politically you are trying to get for your state go up exponentially, from judges you are trying to get appointed to highway money you are trying to get. Look, I am not trying to make threats here at all, I am just a lowly consultant. What I am suggesting is that everyone in the progressive movement is going to have very, very long memories about this highest of high priorities for us.
This is the fight of our lives, and after all the preliminaries, we have made it to the finals. Reid and Pelosi have delivered. The White House is ready to roll. Now let's get this done.
The intensity is ratcheting ever higher as we move toward the final stages of the health care fight. It's been a good week for reformers overall. Pelosi and Reid are both whipping for strong bills, including a very strong public option (in the House) or a respectable public option (in the Senate). Progress is being made on other key components of the package including the affordability issue. Even traditional media sources like The Washington Post and the New York Times are waking up to the fact that even though they have been declaring health care reform on life support and the public option dead for six months, something decent might actually pass.
The only down moment of the week has been the confusion caused by the White House on the Senate strategy. This whole muddled are-they-or-aren't-they backing Harry Reid or backing Snowe's trigger-designed-not-to-trigger mess was just a poorly handled distraction. I mean, look, anyone who has been in DC longer than a week knows that if you have a meeting at the White House with more than five people in it, that certain folks with their own agenda will start leaking stuff to the media, so whatever the intent of all that was, it was bound to undermine Reid and our overall momentum. The White House is now on the record denying that was their intent, and folks there have sworn to me they are backing Reid to the hilt, so I believe them and that's all good, but it was still a mess.
I think we're still moving forward, though. The next few days will tell us what kind of deals can be cut, but no matter what, I think the strategy for progressives remains the same as it has been from the beginning of this fight (more in the extended entry):
At a retreat this last weekend sponsored by the Roosevelt Institute on financial reform issues (I have to take a break from health care every once in a while to keep my sanity), I met a very impressive guy named Bill Black, who as a regulator was a major reason why the Savings and Loan fraud of the 1980s got discovered and prosecuted. When I got home, I discovered this incredibly smart piece Bill just posted, along with another terrific piece, this one by Bob Creamer, posted earlier that day. Everybody who wants to know how important the battle for financial reform is should real these posts.
The bottom line for me of these articles is that there should be one central goal that drives all policy and legal initiatives for progressives in the coming fights over financial policy- that the biggest banks on Wall Street should have less economic and political power. These companies are already responsible for wrecking our economy, not just in the big economic collapse of last year but in all the ways Black describes regarding the impact on the real economy. If left unchecked, they will continue to drain jobs and income from the rest of the economy, and they will--sooner rather than later, within a few years not a generation or two--cause another major economic collapse, this one almost certainly worse than 2009 because our economy has already been so weakened.
The preliminaries are finally over in the battle to finally, finally, finally- 97 years after Teddy Roosevelt first proposed it- pass comprehensive health care reform. I think the right sports analogy to use is the extended, exhausting, NBA playoffs: after 82 regular season games, 16 playoff teams play in a best-of-7 series to get to the second round, and then the remaining eight teams play best-of-seven to get into the conference finals for another exhausting best of-7 series. I think that's about where we're at, the conference finals, where the coming days will seem like a long tiring 7-game series that is only the preparation for the even more intense final championship round.
I am excited, though, because this is a whole lot further than we got to when I was in the White House health care war room in 1994. We got the bill out of some of the committees, but never out of Senate Finance, and never had a realistic chance to have a floor fight.
So now come the machinations and maneuvering to figure out how to merge the two bills in the Senate and three in the House. The strategy now looks to be to get through on the Senate side with the 60 Democrats and maybe Snowe, but to continue to hold reconciliation (where you only need 51 votes) out as an option if needed once the conference committee comes back.
As I had predicted awhile back, Baucus' initial bill in Senate Finance was an ugly mutt of compromises and decisions, but it got a little better in the committee process, as he gave the progressives on the committee a few solid improvements here and there. Reid will now merge the two bills, and I am convinced that he will work to create a better bill in the process, and then we have the floor fight and finally conference committee. At every stage, I think progressives have the ability, if they stick together and negotiate well, to make progress.
On the highest profile and incredibly important public option issue, I believe we are now well-positioned to have a public option in the final bill. We have come a long way since those summer months where all the conventional wisdom repeatedly said the public option was dead, but I think we are now at a position where the biggest question is more likely to be how good the public option is, not whether we will have one. There will continue to be conservative Democrats who want to placate insurers and Olympia Snowe by dropping the public option, but I think progressives can stop that from happening. The key, as it has always been from the first day of this fight, is for progressives, especially in the House, to stay together and stay strong in the negotiations. In fact, I will go so far as to say this: progressives should not panic if the Senate bill isn't great on the public option issue, and Democrats in general shouldn't panic if the conference committee is a long drawn-out affair with lots of fussing and fighting. We have come too far not to get a bill, and as long as House progressives stay strong and stay together, that bill will have to include a pubic option.
The conference finals are about to begin, but I'm not going to tell you to pull up a seat, because we need every progressive to stay in the game (yes, I will torture this metaphor to the end). It is only because of the progressive movement that health care has been on the agenda, and only because of that movement that the debate has not drifted inexorably to the right. We have a shot at passing a strong bill that will actually cover all Americans and create competition and a check on the power of the insurance industry. We have a shot at making history. Let's stay on the court until the victory is won.
Albuquerque, a fairly Democratic town, just elected a Republican mayor because of low Democratic voter turnout. Democrats are in danger in both of the big gubernatorial races coming up in New Jersey and Virginia. The generic congressional polling numbers are in a statistical dead heat, and Democratic base voter enthusiasm is trending down.
There is no reason for Democrats to panic, as demographics are still trending in our favor and the Republican brand is still in tatters, but the warning signs for my party are out there and should not be ignored. What Democrats need to be extremely well focused on is short term deliverables for real people. On health care, on jobs, on banking legislation, on immigration reform, on climate legislation - on all of these major initiatives and more, they of course should be thinking about what's best in the long term, but better damn well be focused on delivering real and tangible benefits to voters before the next election, or Democrats will suffer a bruising defeat in November 2010.
Let's start with health care. When you are working to re-structure 17% of the American economy - and probably the most byzantinely-structured 17% there is - there are a lot of complications, and it is obviously going to take some time. Some of the features of the plan will need time to phase in, which is understandable. But some of the benefits need to be apparent to Americans right away too. If we spend a year and a trillion dollars passing health care reform, and no one sees any benefits to them by November 2010, we Democrats have a really big problem in the next election.
Another key point on this issue: if a public option doesn't go into effect for a while, say until 2013, insurance companies better not be free to raise their rates at will until they finally have competition, when the public option enters the scene. There is nothing that will guarantee voters turning away quickly from health reform, and the politicians who voted for it, more than letting insurance companies hike up their insurance costs over the next four years, and we know they would have because they already promised to do it.
Health care reform needs to have immediate benefits - no pre-existing conditions, no lifetime caps, all of those insurance regulations we've been hearing about need to kick in immediately. But even more importantly, if a public option gets delayed, there has to be a short term way to keep insurance company greed and power in check. To leave the public utterly at the mercy of the arrogant insurers who have already promised they would raise their rates after this is passed - like consumers were left at the mercy of credit card companies for many months after the consumer protection bill passed - is not only unfair to people but is truly terrible politics. If you think these insurers won't jack rates through the roof, and then blame the rate increases on reform, you are truly naïve. Don't make voters feel like it was a bad idea to pass health reform because they are seeing only the downside in the short term.
On the economy, the macro-economists in the administration like Larry Summers love to say that, "jobs are a lagging indicator", that eventually in the long run, that jobs will start getting created. Even if they are right (and I tend to be skeptical when economists tell me that in the long run, things will eventually trickle down to working people), neither the economy nor the Democratic Party can afford for there to be another year where no jobs are being produced. To have that many people in trouble exacerbates the foreclosure crisis, weakens the housing market, forces more cuts in the state and local budgets, and a higher federal deficit: and it is a complete political disaster for Democrats. Jobs need to be created ASAP, lots of jobs, not a few here and there, and should not be seen as the lagging indicator that will take care of itself someday. In the long run, as John Maynard Keynes liked to say, we are all dead, but the Democrats will be dead in the short term unless we start producing lots of jobs quickly. The stimulus is certainly helping, and Obama deserves credit for that, but it is not enough. Democrats need to think bigger on creating jobs.
On financial reform, as with health care, much of what needs to be reformed will take a long time to kick in, and in fact much of the goal will be to keep disaster from happening in the future - a harder thing to get credit for. (Which by the way, is the main thing the Obama White House is claiming about the economy - that we would have had a disaster if not for the US. It's a hard thing to win votes on.) But a strong policy of consumer safety in financial products will be noticed by people who went through the outrages of being ripped off over the last few years, and there are other things that could be done that voters would notice and cheer. How about a tax on financial transactions, structure to cost the most for the biggest traders, where the proceeds would go to new job creation? Based on private polling I was shown recently, that would get about 85% support. How about anti-trust actions against the biggest banks? How about throwing some of the worst violators of the financial system in jail, and returning their ill-gotten gains to the people they ripped off? There are plenty of things to do in the financial sector that would get voter attention and would be seen as an immediate benefit.
On climate change, the first item of business should be dramatically expanding green jobs. On immigration, families ought to be reunited right away. On issue after issue, we need to get things done, and make sure that what we get done has immediate benefits to regular people.
George W. Bush was a disastrous President, rated by many historians as the worst President of all time, and he handed Democrats a terrible mess that we will be digging our way out of for years. But blaming the other guys for bad times doesn't cut it in American politics, and it shouldn't: we need to deliver real things to real people. Trying to convince voters that it would have been so much worse if it wasn't for us, and that our policies will help them someday in the long run, is not a winning strategy. We need to deliver things that make a difference in voters' lives now.
The insurance industry inadvertently gave health reformers the best argument we ever could have had to pass a public option and the strongest possible regulations on insurers. Declaring that rates will go up dramatically if reform passes, insurers launched a full-scale open assault on the idea of any reform at all yesterday, except I guess a reform plan especially tailored to them and their profitability. What they left out of their little study is that they are the ones who decide when rates go up because the biggest companies have very little competition in most of the markets they are in. There is no federal rate regulation, there is no anti-trust enforcement in insurance (they are specifically exempted from it in the McCarran-Ferguson Act), and unless there is a public option, there will be little competition. They will be the ones who decide if the rates go up, and they have just guaranteed they would raise those rates if we don't stop them from doing it.
It's sort of like the sheriff in Blazing Saddles holding the gun to his own head, and saying "back off or I'll shoot." The insurance industry is saying that if they don't like what's in the bill, they will just decide to arbitrarily raise the rates. But we can stop those rates from going up by checking the insurers' power. That's why a public option, real competition for an arrogant out-of-control, way-too-powerful industry, is so essential. Without it, we are left to their whims, and anytime, for my reason, they will just jack up their rates. If their stocks go down, if they just want more profits, if some regulation they don't like is passed, they will just raise their rates. With a strong, robust, nationwide public option, we can force insurers to the table, and give them real competition.
Personally, I think we ought to repeal McCarran-Ferguson and impose tough rate regulation as well. That would really open up competition and guarantee lower prices. But at the very minimum, we have to have a strong national public option. The insurance industry has just reminded us as to why that is. Thanks for the help in making our case, friends.
By the way, it's not just me who thinks this. Voters do not support being forced to buy health insurance unless there is a public option- at that point, as the polling clearly documents, voters are fine with an insurance mandate. As long as there is real competition with a public option, voters are fine with being asked to buy insurance. Sometimes I think regular voters are smarter than the politicians they elect to govern them.
So the White House responded to John Harwood's report about progressive criticism being part of an "internet left fringe" with a denial and this statement from Senior Communications Adviser Dan Pfeiffer:
That sentiment does not reflect White House thinking at all, we've held easily a dozen calls with the progressive online community because we believe the online communities can often keep the focus on how policy will affect the American people rather than just the political back-and-forth.
Let me add to it Greg Sargent's commentary in his post quoting Dan:
But it seems clear by White House actions - the hiring of Internet outreach staff, the frequent blogger conference calls, the elevation of Huffington Post at press conferences - that the White House sees the blogosphere as playing a valuable role of sorts.
Dan and Greg miss the point entirely. There is a difference between "playing a role" via things like conference calls, and respect. Pointing out that you work with a community is different from having respect for them. It reminds me of the kid who used to sit next to me in French class, and I would help him conjugate his verbs, and it was the only time in the entire day he was exceedingly nice to me. The rest of the time he made fun of me in front of everyone.
The White House uses the blogosphere and other progressive online institutions to disseminate positive information, form positive relationships, and spin opinion. That doesn't bother me. So does the No On 1 campaign in Maine and any other campaign with a good internet outreach operation. The difference is that the No On 1 staffers I know and work with respect and appreciate our work, and say so. The White House- and Obama campaign during 2007-08- uses online progressive institutions, then pisses on them frequently in public. There's a difference between being used, and being used and respected. The White House has yet to figure this difficult notion out.
So as I sat at our house party to raise money for Maine last night (we raised just over $1,200 on ActBlue and at the party combined, all in small contributions- thanks for those of you who came!) we watched Obama's speech at the HRC Dinner. John Aravosis commented that he thought we had moved past shouting at the TV when Bush left. Last night showed not much had changed.
If you watched last night's speech and compared it to any other speech he gave during the 2008 campaign, you would not have noticed a difference. Shockingly, the President did not take my inner David Gergen recommendations to heart. He did not offer a timeline. He did not announce anything. He did not discuss any state fights we're currently facing. My first reaction, which I wrote on Twitter, was mostly being stunned at the latter: @adamjbink Watching Obamas speech with @joesudbay. Good thing we're at a Maine party fundraiser, bc Obama refused to mention it.
Naturally, you might say, considering so little has been accomplished. But what would have been different is if he laid out reasons things haven't been done. If he laid out that he believed a stop-loss order on DADT was not legal, and that Congress needed to send him legislation to fully repeal the measure, that would be helpful. If he laid out a timeline, that would both reassure and re-energize the community. If he mentioned the critical importance of fights in Maine, Washington, Kalamazoo, MI and here in DC, that would be enormously helpful. None of that.
I opened the WaPo today to read "As Pressure Grows, Obama Addresses Gay Rights Group; He Promises to End 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'". How is that news? One of my fellow bloggers told me traditional media pool reporters at the speech last night were wondering out loud what exactly the news out of the dinner was. You'd be hard-pressed to find any.
I think it is great a sitting President does this. I like to think of the inverse on something like this. Back in June, the Administration extended limited partner benefits allowed under law (constricted by DOMA) to federal employees. The reaction was derided and scoffed at as peanuts nearly everywhere. My thought was, okay, if they didn't offer these benefits, my colleagues would all be screaming how the Administration can't even do so much as offer simple benefits allowed under law. So if Obama didn't speak to places like HRC Dinners, eventually folks would be saying "Obama refuses to appear before gays" or something. So I'm glad he did it, and it sends a positive message, and inspires some young people somewhere. But I'm still not sure what this did to advance much on a larger scale. And I cannot imagine why he did not take a more forceful stroke for equality.
