There is one significant pieces of news hitting today about FISA and immunity for telecom companies. The fight is being taken directly to the voters through two complementary strategies. In the House, Steny Hoyer has been relentlessly focused on pulling a deal together, one that would probably grant some sort of de facto immunity to lawbreakers in the Bush administration and in the telecommunications industry (though it's often hard to tell the two apart). He has so far been unable to negotiate between the White House, Jay Rockefeller, Jon Kyl, and liberals in the House, but every time I make inquiries I hear that there is 'encouraging' news that a deal is possible. By the same token, the ACLU is quite aware of what is going on, and has been lobbying aggressively.
As Glenn Greenwald notes, even Speaker Pelosi is pushing for a deal. The significant news is that this issue is being taken to the voters. There are two strategies being employed to make this happen. One, the Blue America PAC has raised $75k and is blanketing freshman Blue Dog Democrat Chris Carney's district with radio, billboard, print, and cable ads criticizing him for caving to Bush on immunity for telecom companies. The extraordinary television ad they put together is here, and the theme is betrayal.
Two, the following radio ad, and one similar to it, are running in the district of Blue Dogs John Tanner in Tennessee and Bud Cramer in Alabama.
You can hear the radio ad in Cramer's district here.
These ads are put together by They Work for Us, an organization sponsored by Moveon and SEIU designed to hold representatives accountable to their constituents. I consult for this organization, and we are experimenting with some issue-based advocacy around core progressive values. This strategy is designed to be a positive encouragement to Congressional representatives to refuse to give immunity to the phone companies. The script is at the bottom of this post.
By moving FISA and civil liberties out of the activist space and educating voters through broadcast media, They Work for Us hopes to demonstrate to Congressional representatives that when Democrats stand up to the lawless Bush administration, voters will be supportive. At the same time, the Blue America action is designed to show that betraying progressives carries substantial costs. Glenn puts it well:
That is true particularly if there continues to be no incentive for Congressional Democrats to pay attention to their base and do anything other than support the right-wing agenda, because they perceive that they only pay a price when they oppose the Right. That is the incentive scheme that has to change.
I first noticed this problem in August, 2007, in a piece about the Working Conservative Majority, in which I traced both how the Democratic caucus has become substantially more progressive in the last six years and that it is still controlled by a swing group of conservative Democrats that mostly reside in the Blue Dog caucus (we call the worst ones part of the 'Bush Dog' caucus). Electing more Democrats - exceptional ones like Darcy Burner, Eric Massa, Leslie Byrne, and Martin Heinrich (who spoke out eloquently on FISA here), is part of the solution. Subsequent to August, progressives have defeated a reactionary Democrat - Al Wynn - in a primary and seated a progressive, Donna Edwards, in his place, but at the same time, added three new Blue Dogs to Congress: Bill Foster, Don Cazayoux, and Travis Childers. It's clear that an incentive system designed around rewarding Democrats, Blue Dog or otherwise, when they oppose radical right-wing policies, and criticizing them when they cave, is necessary. And that's what is happening, with Blue America and They Work for Us.
House Democrats continued to block passage of a terrorist surveillance bill today, rejecting a measure by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) to add the Senate-passed FISA bill to the fiscal 2009 Intelligence authorization bill. The amendment was defeated by one vote in the House Intelligence Committee, the latest proof that the Senate bill would pass the House if Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed it to come to the House floor.
There are 12 Democrats on the Committee and 9 Republicans, which means that we lost a Democrat on this vote. The members are Silvestre Reyes, Leonard L. Boswell, Robert E. (Bud) Cramer, Jr, Anna G. Eshoo, Rush D. Holt, Dutch Ruppersberger, John Tierney, Mike Thompson, Jan Schakowsky, Jim Langevin, Patrick Murphy, and Adam Schiff.
Of these, only two signed the letter asking the House to pass retroactive immunity for telecom companies, Bud Cramer and Leonard Boswell.
Boswell faces a progressive primary challenger, Ed Fallon. An extremely vicious Iowa establishment and a complicit Iowa media has been denying Fallon the oxygen he needs to win because they just don't like him. Fallon and Boswell lawn signs are popping up in the district, with Fallon signs situated next to 'Vote Hope' signs and Boswell signs next to 'Hillary' signs. Boswell is leading by about 20 points or so in the latest polling.
It's a low turnout primary in June, and the media narrative has focused on Fallon's support of Nader in 2000 rather than Boswell's voting record for the past five years. Boswell in fact won't debate Fallon, saying that he's just too busy in Washington to respond to misinformation that would inevitably arise. So Boswell's voting record is completely unscrutinized.
If I were Fallon's campaign, I would be sending an open letter to Boswell asking if he voted to allow AT&T to break the law by wiretapping American citizens. That committee vote should have been 12-9. It ended up being 11-10. Was it Bush Dog Boswell who helped out his campaign contributors and in the process covered up Bush administration crimes? We know he voted for the war, for the Protect American Act, and for hundreds of billions in war funding. We know he's funded by corporate PAC money. It seems like a logical question.
That's right. Bud Cramer (D, AL-05) will not be running for re-election this year, so Alabama will have not one but two open Congressional seats -- Terry Everett of AL-02 announced his retirement plans several months ago. This is going to be a very interesting year.
Sources say Cramer announced he would retire after 18 years in the House of Representatives, citing a desire to spend more time with his family. The announcement is totally unexpected ("a bombshell" according to several local Democrats) and comes with just three weeks left before the April 4 filing deadline.
Cramer was facing Republican Ray McKee, widely regarded as a token candidate, who is running on the fair tax and not much else. A stronger Republican is likely to step into the race now that the seat is open.
As the campaign to reform "Bush Dogs" led by Matt Stoller and the Open Left team moves forward, I wanted to pause a moment to point out something that, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I couldn't help but notice: Of the 40 Bush Dogs, fully half of them are southern white Democrats. (The "South" defined here as the 11 Confederate states.)
Presently, Speaker Nancy Pelosi leads a 230-member Democratic House majority. Of those 230, just 32 are white southerners. That leaves 198 non-southern or minority (black, Hispanic) southern Democrats. And that means the splits for Bush Dog coalition are as follows: About 10% (20 of 198) of the non-southern or minority southern Democrats are Bush Dogs, but a striking 63% (20 of 32) of southern white Democrats made the list. (See chart.)
As I argued in Whistling Past Dixie, this is one of the painful tradeoffs of trying to be a "national" party. Liberals should keep that in mind the next time somebody spews feels-nice, but strategically empty phrases like "Democrats need to compete everywhere"-a "strategy" that is, in fact, the very absence of strategy. Not all Democrats vote the same way- and there are often very clear voting patterns by region. The South/non-South disparity should also be kept in mind when the inevitable arguments arise as to whether 2008 dollars and other resources should be directed toward trying to defeat or replace Republicans like, say, Randy Kuhl or Ray LaHood, or keeping the seats of Democrats Jim Marshall or Gene Taylor. Though Democrats may prefer to do both, politics is often about economics-the need to make decisions about scarce resources-and every seat is clearly not qualitatively the same when it comes time for floor votes in Congress.
Right now, Pelosi has those 198 non-southern and minority southern seats in her delegation; on the Senate side, Harry Reid already has 46 non-southern Senators in his, with upcoming opportunities in CO, MN, NH, OR and elsewhere outside the South. Say what you want about what Freedom's Watch is doing to moderate Republicans on behalf of the White House and the war, but as Eve Fairbanks compellingly argues in The New Republic, it is exactly this sort of clamping down on Republicans that has kept the Democrats from achieving much in the 110th Congress thus far. There's a lesson in that, as there is in the geography of the "Bush Dog" coalition.
We got a bunch of coverage for the Bush Dog Democrat campaign, and I'll go into reactions on Monday and what they mean. Let's just say the top two concern trolls were Fox News and their right-wing blogospheric toenail clippings, and anonymous Democratic senior strategists in the Politico (which did write a good article on the campaign).
UPDATE:Archpundit, a terrific and experienced Illinois blogger and activist, has some interesting things to say about Bush Dog Democrats Melissa Bean and Dan Lipinski. Larry is more politically cautious than I am, and tends to situate his politics in much less ideological and much more partisan terms. It's a useful creative tension, and he's a Bean supporter (I am not). Here's his read.
In the case of IL-8 we aren't likely to get a full throated progressive, but it's a significant problem that Bean has voted for issues trying to appear moderate that do not have the support of the political center even in her district. More than that, the 38 people Matt list are mostly in Republican leaning Districts, but even these votes aren't in the center of these Districts-they are well to the right.
With Bean this is especially relevant. It's true that her district is more concerned with taxes and budgetary issues than many others, but neither the bankruptcy bill nor the FISA changes are popular. They do get the attention of the Tribune which Bean uses to demonstrate she is a 'moderate' and so she ends up seeking their approval on everything. She's not going to change the triangulation pattern-it's a winning strategy in that District, but I think she can be moved towards targeting different issues that aren't nearly as destructive as these. In other cases, we just need to take people out-like Lipinski who is in a 59% Kerry District and votes horribly on just about everything.
However, in the case of Bean and presumably her consultants, we need her to be a strong voice for basic Constitutional Protections-protections gutted by the new version of FISA. We need her to not be voting for a bill that makes those in financial trouble because of sickness or the loss of a job even more vulnerable. We need her to stand up against torture. We need her to stand up against an incredibly unpopular President who not only got us into an unnecessary war, but continues to epically mismanage the war. When she does support such policies, she undermines the reason for Democratic control of Congress and the Presidency, but also, and more importantly, the country.
In a District like Illinois 8 I would never advocate a Democrat try and be Jan Schakowsky. I'll give them slack on tax and budgetary issues. I'll give them some slack on social issues to some degree. I'll give them slack on trade to some degree. But I won't give them slack on issues of fundamental fairness and Constitutional Rights. These are winning issues in all, but the very most conservative areas and even IL-8 isn't that conservative.
I've been kicking around the idea with Chris that we should raise the costs of bad decision-making on things like FISA, or when they fold to Republicans on the supplemental or (insert fight here).
It's not much to put up some google ads criticizing these members for their position on FISA. The way Google adwords works is that the ad will only show up for the search terms we select. That means that if we select 'Chris Carney', then people searching for Chris Carney (PA-04) will see an ad criticizing Chris Carney for his vote on FISA. And the people who are searching for Chris Carney are people who want to know more about Carney, like reporters, activists, and constituents. We can even geotarget his state, so only people in Pennsylvania see the ad.
It'll probably run around $100-150 per member for a six month period, which is the amount of time until the law must be reauthorized.
Would you put a bit of money and effort to go after these wayward Democrats? We can't replace all of them with progressive Democrats, but we can certainly annoy at least a few of them and raise the costs for voting against the Constitution.
Aside from money, this will take some work, since we'll have to get posts written about each member that did this. It's not worth doing unless you'd support it. So if you think this is a good idea, put it in the comments or send me an email at stoller at gmail.com. We need support in one of two ways. One, you could throw in a few bucks for this. Two, you could write up a problem Democrat, on this blog or on your own site, and we'd use that as the Google ad advertised link. Let me know if you'd be willing to do either.
Yesterday, I tested out the idea that what we are dealing with in Congress is a nominally Democratic majority but an effective Republican working majority. I mostly pinned this on the Blue Dog swing bloc and a conservative Senate, but there are other important factors at work. The conversation was really amazing, and punctured some holes in my piece.
The fact is, things have changed quite a bit. I'm friendly with a lawyer in a major executive branch agency, and she told me that the investigations going on by Congress are allowing her to do her job. Steve Novick, candidate for Senate in Oregon (who is really quite terrific), told me the same thing about friends he has in the Federal bureaucracy. Governance itself is getting better, or at least has stopped getting worse. So Blue Dogs are not Republicans.
There are other weaknesses in what I wrote, and the commenters pointed them out. In particular, this comment by Paul Rosenberg is I think accurate, as he argues that we are facing a conservative but not right-wing Blue Dog/DLC bloc combined with an anti-progressive elite consensus in the form of a hostile media establishment, a hostile think tank and academic structure, a hostile regulatory structure, a hostile set of cultural leaders and a set of old world economic incentives for elites.
I'm going to revise my earlier title, and argue that while we don't have a Republican working majority, we do have a conservative working majority to contend with. Most of the strategic problems I highlighted in the original piece remain, with the additional need to attack and/or subvert elite structures. The irony, or perhaps the not entirely-coincidental pattern of the Open Left, is that we're all at once going after the right-wing, their Blue Dog enablers, and the elite structures that love them.
I'm beginning to explore an idea that I'm not entirely sold on, which is that in the House, while Democrats are in control, there is effectively a Republican working majority. If true, this has a number of implications, both electoral and political. But first, I'll illustrate my thinking, which basically boils down to the fact that politically speaking, Bush is effectively using the surge model to govern in all policy arenas. Take tax policy.
President Bush said yesterday that he is considering a fresh plan to cut tax rates for U.S. corporations to make them more competitive around the world, an initiative that could further inflame a battle with the Democratic Congress over spending and taxes and help define the remainder of his tenure.
Advisers presented Bush with a series of ideas to restructure corporate taxes, possibly eliminating narrowly targeted breaks to pay for a broader, across-the-board rate cut. In an interview with a small group of journalists afterward, Bush said he was "inclined" to send a corporate tax package to Congress, although he expressed uncertainty about its political viability.
It's a simple pattern. When Bush loses ground politically, he simply changes his ask. It's the equivalent of negotiating with someone to sell them a bike for $50, and when they find a problem with the bike, changing the price to $75 and negotiating the final price to $65. It's bad faith negotiating, but it's working, because Democratic leaders aren't able to walk away from the table out of a mixture of fear, incompetence, and insufficient liberal voting strength. They always stupidly buy the bike at the higher price.
The FISA bill debacle is a good example. I've been in email contact with a variety of sources inside the House, and there's certainly tremendous bitterness at what happened with FISA, as well as a recognition that the 'stand up and cave' rhetoric strategy is now a clear pattern for this Congress. Steny Hoyer is the weak link in the House leadership, and though I can't read tea leaves that well, I think that Blue Dogs are essentially threatening a revolt against Pelosi if she tries to impose real discipline. In addition, the Senate is making it nearly impossible for her to stand up for liberalism. With a reactionary Senate that has about 10 neoconservative Democrats and a neoconservative President, liberals cannot govern except on the most clear-cut and non-controversial issues, like poor children's health care (which itself might be vetoed).
So while we may have thought we gained a check on Bush in 2006, we actually didn't. What we gained was a more progressive Democratic Party, but we started from such a low base that the Republicans essentially can still govern. Now, holding the majority is nice for subpoena power, and that matters. But when you combine a conservative Senate, a Blue Dog swing block, and an extreme White House, you may have a situation similar to the Boll Weevil Democrats in the early 1980s and their working relationship with Reagan. I'm not sure how well the analogy holds up since I've never studied that period in history, but regardless, Bush has realized that his conservative governing mandate is still intact.
In 2006, the midterms registered a clear antiwar message, but instead of listening, Bush surged troops, and politically speaking, it worked. No one stopped him. Bush, weaker than he's ever been as President in terms of popular approval and credibility, is governing this country through a mix of veto threats, bad faith negotiating tactics via surrogates like Mike McConnell and David Patraeus, and Blue Dogs. This is true with Bush's rampant lawbreaking and authoritarian criminal impulses. No one stops him. I'm no longer content to think that Blue Dogs are acting out of fear of being criticized, at this point I am going to take the Heath Shuler's at their word and recognize them as right-wingers.
To be clear, there's reason for optimism, as this is a temporary situation and we've made enormous progress since 2002. There are more self-identified liberals today than there have been since 1972, independents are swinging far to the left, and the base Democratic vote is making the difference in elections. The Democratic Party of 2007 is much more progressive than that of 2002, and at the rate we're gaining reliable liberal votes (10/year), there will be an unbreakable progressive House majority by 2012. The overall intellectual environment, the shattering of the right-wing careerist foreign policy community, the increasing efficiency of liberal advocacy groups, the increased participation of progressive economy sectors in the political sector, and the liberalization of the White House and Senate, can also have significant effects. Our politicians are obviously behind the curve, with Clinton quasi-supporting the surge and Obama in his most recent Iowa ad doesn't call himself a Democrat. But this is temporary.
I don't have a good strategy on how to 'fix' the Senate, but to get to a progressive working majority in the House, we need to pick up 41 more reliable votes, either by beating Republicans or by converting or beating Blue Dog Democrats. If we can get to an uncompromising progressive majority in the House, then the Senate will be dragged along through conference committees and a Democratic White House. In the Senate, we'll need 16 for a clear progressive majority, but because of institutional dynamics we'll probably need less to have a working majority.
There are several paths to making this happen in the House.
Pick Up Safe Seats Progressives: This is what we are trying to do in Massachusetts 5th, where a reactionary Niki Tsongas is facing four other candidates, including progressive Jamie Eldridge. There's also a primary in TN-09, Harold Ford's old haunt.
Convert Reactionary Democrats: Both Al Wynn and Ellen Tauscher are good examples of how this can be done, and this is continuing against Daniel Lipinski, Al Wynn, and Henry Cuellar.
Beat Republicans: In 2006, Democrats picked up 30 seats in the House. Out of those pickups, 11 voted for the FISA expansion, and 19 didn't.
Convert Republicans: I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq is trying to crack Republicans, but this is very very difficult. Republicans have run right-wing primary challenges against dissidents for 30 years, since 1978. Countering that is extremely tough, though recent moves by the Mainstream Partnership could have effects.
If there is a Republican working majority, with the Blue Dogs as the swing group, that should have one very significant effect on our strategy. In a House with a minority role for Democrats, electing a Blue Dog Democrat is far superior than electing a Republican. But in a majority Democratic House where conservatives have a governing working majority, electing a Blue Dog Democrat is little different than electing a Republican when it comes to public policy choices. Electing a Blue Dog is not going to help us restore out Constitutional fabric, hold these people accountable, deal with global warming, energy, health care, or restore a progressive tax code. More significantly, more Blue Dogs aren't going to give someone like Pelosi the leverage she needs to do any of these things.
What this means is clear. No longer should we as progressives particularly care whether a Democrat is in a swing district or Republican district when considering how to evaluate them. It is more important to elect progressives and destroy the power of Blue Dogs than to increase our partisan advantage in the House, though these goals are complements and not substitutes. The Colorado example, of turning a libertarian-esque red state into a Blue Dog state at the behest of wealthy billionaires, is not something to emulate. Rather, we should look at the New Hampshire example, which has turned a libertarian-esque red state into a deep blue progressive libertarian area.
There's one other important rhetorical consequence here. When Blue Dogs vote with Bush, they are not 'betraying' us any more than Republicans are when they vote with Bush. Blue Dogs just don't agree with us. And when they vote to expand wiretapping or to cut taxes for the wealthy or to support endless war, they are acting like Blue Dogs, and Blue Dogs support President Bush and the conservative movement.
STATE BLOGS
That's right. 