On a blogger conference call today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi flatly stated that the Senate must pass a fix to the health care bill before the House will pass the Senate bill. From Greg Sargent, who was also on the call:
On the call, Pelosi was asked by a reporter whether the Senate would have to go first. "Yes," she replied, twice, saying her members had repeatedly said they wouldn't pass the Senate bill if it weren't fixed before they were asked to vote on it.
When asked by a different report how many votes there were for the Senate bill in the House without the fix, Speaker Pelosi replied "very few." When asked if there were any parliamentary obstacles to the Senate acting first, she told Brian Beutler:
"No. It is not an obstacle to this path forward."
In closely related news, at least 15 Senators have now made public statements in favor of fixing the health care bill through the reconciliation process.
Later on in the call, when asked if she believed the Senate bill was worse than no bill at all, the Speaker said "there are many members who will not vote for the Senate bill" without the fix.
When asked by another reporter if there was enthusiasm about the public option in her discussions with the White House, Pelosi cryptically replied "I will leave that to you to decide." The implication is that no, there was no enthusiasm from the White House, and that the public option would not be part of any bargain with the Senate. She also reiterated that she will do what it takes to reach 218 votes.
Although I was unable to ask a question on the call, I have placed a follow-up question about whether the Speaker believes it is possible to pass the health care bill without adding the restrictive, anti-women's health language pushed by Representative Stupak. Further, I asked about the dozen or so members who supported the health care bill in November only on the condition that Stupak's language was included. Would those members be pushing to add the language to a series of regulatory measures, such as the repeal of the anti-trust exemption for the health care industry, that the House will take up next week? When a response comes, I will publish it on Open Left.
The end game of any major legislative fight such as what we're going through on health care- when the final deals are being cut on the inside, and the rumors are flying around like starlings- are what I call the crazy season. It's a time that's generally very maddening for all the grassroots activists who have been working on the legislation like crazy, because it really is tough to figure out what is true and what is not. Here are some general rules that hopefully help you understand this season a little bit more:
1. There are probably a hundred rumors a day. 90 of them are just flat out false, spread either because someone misunderstood something, or someone is trying to promote some pet project or kill something, or just because rumors spread on Capitol Hill for no particular reason at all. Maybe nine of them have a seed of truth, but the seed is cross-fertilized with a lot of, well, fertilizer. One of them is probably pretty close to true, but you never know which one it is, and it may well not be true the next day.
2. Don't base any of your assumptions on the words being used. Certain words are code for other things, and politicians are also looking to cover their political bases or even (I know its shocking that there is gambling in this casino) misdirect people from their true intent. In this health care crazy season, I have seen "public options" that don't look anything like a real public option, "triggers" that look a lot more like a decent public option, Stupak "compromises" that are worse than Stupak, and "Stupak language" that is actually an okay compromise. When people hear certain buzz words, don't assume anything because the actual legislative language might be something very different.
3. Don't assume any deal is ever done. Everything- every single thing- remains up in the air. The best way to get to a compromise on one important thing may be to change the language on something else in the bill entirely different.
4. Keep an eye on the fig leafs. A lot of people on every side of this bill have walked a long way out on rhetorical planks over the course of this debate. In order to get a bill passed, at least some of them are going to have to find a politically acceptable way to walk themselves back. The key is to watch who is walking themselves back via a fig leaf compromise, and who is getting most of the substance they wanted.
5. Don't assume that anything in either the Senate or House bill is in there for good. Some things are inserted into bills specifically to be traded away at conference committee time.
6. Don't panic over anything, just keep organizing for what you want. A lot of groups are doing list building right now, seizing on real or imagined rumors to try to panic people into signing petitions or giving money. Most of these panic attacks are phony. My advice to activists out there is to just keep working hard on grassroots organizing around the issues you care the most about, and not worry too much over the panic attacks.
I know it is frustrating trying to follow what's going on with a debate like health care. There are tons of movable parts, and the traditional media gets a lot of things wrong. The good news is that millions of activists keep fighting to make this a strong bill, and that we still have a good shot at getting that done.
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.
I remember the day in 1997 when I listened to my doctor tell me that I had a very large ovarian cyst, also, that I was likely to have a miscarriage. She said it was good that my body seemed to be taking care of things on its own, because the cyst could rupture and hemorrhage and they couldn't operate if I was pregnant because it was a Catholic hospital.
My doctor wasn't mean about it, she just couldn't give me this operation that she'd told me about a minute previous I needed to avert a threat to my life.
I was lucky that I miscarried. As the hormone-induced changes in the cyst caused pain that made it hard to stand upright in a matter of days, it's a good that I didn't have to go through the trouble of finding another hospital covered under my insurance. I went quickly from the terror of waiting to know if I could get that operation to the grim realities of going through it and recovering.
It turned out all right, but I've always remembered since then that I once sat helpless in a doctor's office watching her eyes slide away from mine to the floor as she refused to say anything when I pressed her to tell me what would happen if there wasn't a natural miscarriage. She just skipped ahead to how someone with my blood test results wasn't going to be pregnant much longer.
Opponents of abortion like to center their arguments around the fetus and talk about whether it's a person. Which basically means to me that they don't think women are people with the basic right to determine the conditions of their lives and what will happen to their bodies, who can be forced to suffer or die because it will make someone else feel better.
Fundraising Note: Open Left's incredibly not heavy-handed fundraiser continues, with this brief reminder as I bring you an example of one new aspect of our site, ongoing interview-based reporting on current political developments and their deeper backgrounds. You can DONATE HERE before reading, and feel even better about what you're about to read, knowing you've just helped make more of the same possible well into the new year ahead. We're now over $14,000, enough to take us through mid-April. Our goal is $18,000, enough to take us through late May. This is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. If you think progressive infrastructure is important, that's a lot of bang for the buck. If you don't think progressive infrastructure is important, then you're probably reading the wrong blog.After passage of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and the House Health Care Reform bill, Congresswoman Diana DeGette, Democratic Deputy Whip and Co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus, announced she had sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi signed by over 40 members saying they would not support a final bill with Stupak's language in it. While the controversy over Stupak's Amendment had ebbed and swelled this week, DeGette's letter remains a firm backstop to all other efforts to remove Stupak's language... if one believes that its signers will stick by their guns. So Open Left decided to ask her for her view of how things developed, leading to her drafting and circulating the letter, and why it should be taken seriously. We also asked about her closely-related concern for stem-cell research. Not just a leading congressional advocate, she's the author of Sex, Science, and Stem Cells: Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason.
Open Left:As co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus, what's your explanation of how Stupak-Pitts caught people by surprise?
Congresswoman Diana DeGette: What happened was Bart really moved the goal post, because in the Energy and Commerce Committee in the summer he offered several of his amendments and we defeated all of them. So after that he said that he demendad that the Speaker allow him to offer his amendment on the floor, although he wasn't clear which one. When the bill came up and he said that if he was not allowed to offer his amendment, then he would have 40 votes against the rule. So we went out and very industriously got enough votes to pass the rule. And so the Speaker said, 'You know we've got the votes to pass the rule. So I'm not going to support your amendment being in order.'
Then he said, this was like last Thursday or Friday, at the 11th hour, she said 'We've got the votes the votes for the rule, and it's not going to be in order,' and he said, 'Well, fine, if you don't include my amendment in the rule to bring the bill to the floor, then we're all going to vote against the bill. So he sifted the goal post. And what happened was-and the way it would have worked is that his language would have been a part of the rule to bring the bill to the floor, so all of us would have had to vote for it. We would have all had to vote for the biggest expansion of retrictins on a woman's right to choose in our lifetime.
Open Left:Was it just that he had never indicated that he might do that before and people just weren't expecting it, or...
Congresswoman DeGette: Right. Right. No, no, I mean, he's a Democrat, so we did what we needed to do and then he shifted, so he had never threatened to do that before. And so then the Speaker said to him, she said 'We're not going to give you your amendment in the rule. He said, 'Fine, we're just going to vote against the bill.'
I saw too, she was looking at the votes she had for final passage, and if they didn't vote for it, the bill would have died. So she said, 'Okay, I'll give you your amendment on the floor.' Which the pro-choice caucus said, 'We're not going to vote for a rule that contains this awful language.' And so when she said, 'I'll put it on the floor,' we said, 'Fine, we'll just fight against the amendment.'
I think a couple of things happened. Number one, a lot of people did not realize that this wasn't just Hyde, because Congressman Stupak unto this day keeps saying he's just putting Hyde in there. But this is unprecedented, because now it says people with their own money-either in the exchange or the public option--cannot buy insurance policies that buy abortion. So that's a expansion.
Hyde says that no federal funding. Somehow he thinks that if there's public money and private money, that then the private money's tainted by the public money. So, that's not in current law.
Open Left:So do you believe that that confusion is what accounts for the margin that he was able to win on?
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.
Clearly, an abortion amendment fight in the Senate makes an already complex situation much worse.
We've been assuming that there is a large risk that a Stupak-style amendment would garner a level of support greater than a simple majority but less than a cloture majority; and, as a result, the Senate would be unable either to kill it or pass it.
But is that correct?
If a Stupak amendment does not have simple majority support, the rules give a quick and easy out: kill it using a motion to table.
The motion to table is nondebatable (ie, no need for cloture), and passes on a simple majority.
We need to have a handle on how many Dem senators would vote FOR a motion to table a Stupak amendment.
Not that this is not the same question as whether they support the substance of the amendment.
What we'd hope is that enough antiabortionist-friendly Dems would put the imperative of passing health care ahead of brownie points with the bishops.
Could someone organize such a count?
The form of question, as discussed, is vital:
If any amendment is offered which would have the effect of restricting the availability of abortion, will you vote for a motion to table that amendment?
There has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past day or so as those who follow the healthcare debate react to the Stupak/Some Creepy Republican Guy Amendment.
The Amendment, which is apparently intended to respond to conservative Democrats' concerns that too many women were voting for the Party in recent elections, was attached to the House's version of healthcare reform legislation that was voted out of the House this weekend.
The goal is to limit women's access to reproductive medicine services, particularly abortions; this based on the concept that citizens of good conscience shouldn't have their tax dollars used to fund activities they find morally repugnant.
At first blush, I was on the mild end of the wailing and gnashing spectrum myself...but having taken a day to mull the thing over, I'm starting to think that maybe we should take a look at the thinking behind this...and I'm also starting to think that, properly applied, Stupak's logic deserves a more important place in our own vision of how a progressive government might work.
It's Political Judo Day today, Gentle Reader, and by the time we're done here it's entirely possible that you'll see Stupak's logic in a whole new light.
There have been a number of bills floor action on which has been governed by a unanimous consent agreement stipulating that all or some specified amendments will be need a 3/5 majority to pass.
The purpose of such a UCA is to expedite a bill that both parties want to see passed within a given period.
The Senate GOP want as a matter of partisan imperative to kill the health care bill. The slower the bill's progress, the more chance it will bog down completely.
So the suggestion that the Senate bill is safe from Stupak (as made here) makes no sense: there probably aren't 60 votes for Stupak, but there probably are 51 (or whatever simple majority is required - no doubt a number of senators will conveniently have other priorities on the day).
Of course, Harry could always try to organise a filibuster against his own bill. Though his record with GOP bills in times past suggest rather casts doubt on his chances of success...
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.
The backlash over the Stupak amendment has intensified. In the Massachusetts Senate race, frontrunner Martha Coakley has declared that she would have voted against the House bill because of the Stupak amendment:
Attorney General Martha Coakley said this morning that she would have voted against the landmark health care bill approved by the House over the weekend because it includes a provision restricting federal funding for providers of abortion services.
Coakley's main opponent, Representative Mike Capuano, is attacking Coakley over this:
Capuano, giddy over a discernible difference with the presumptive front-runner, called Coakley's comment "manna from heaven."
"I find it interesting and amazing and she would have stood alone among all the pro-choice members of Congress, all the members of the Massachusetts delegation," Capuano said in an interview. "She claims she wants to honor Ted Kennedy's legacy on health care. It's pretty clear that a major portion of this was his bill."
"If she's not going to vote for any bill that's not perfect, she wouldn't vote for any bill in history," Capuano added. "She would have voted against Medicare, the civil rights bill. Every advancement this country has made has been based on bills that had flaws in them ... Realism is something you have to deal with in Washington."
Capuano should have stopped after his first paragraph. Extrapolating from Coakley's statement that she would have voted against Medicare or the Civil Rights Act is ridiculous.
Coakley doesn't seem like she is alone, either. Forty-one House Democrats have sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi declaring that they will kill the health care bill if the Stupak amendment is in the conference report:
Dear Madam Speaker:
As members of Congress we believe that women should have access to a full range of reproductive health care. Health care reform must not be misused as an opportunity to restrict women's access to reproductive health services.
The Stupak-Pitts amendment to H.R. 3962, The Affordable Healthcare for America Act, represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women's ability to access the full range of reproductive health services to which they are lawfully entitled. We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women's right to choose any further than current law.
While it is unclear who the 41 Democrats who signed this letter are, there is clearly a growing backlash, led by women, against Bart Stupak's regressive block. Keep in mind that all but one of the Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment are men--Democratic House women voted 58-1 against it. A major gender divide seems to be opening up in the House Democratic caucus.
Returning to the Massachusetts Senate race for a moment, Mike Capuano appears tone deaf to this gender divide. 58% of the Massachusetts primary electorate is female, and it is highly unlikely they are going to turn against Martha Coakley for a statement like this. He is way down in the polls, and needs to seize on something in order to become competitive before the December 8th primary. However, this is unlikely to do the trick, especially given the post-Stupak environment among progressive activists. While Capuano argues for "realism," Coakley is tapping into the anger.
In the earlier diaries I posted today a number of issues have come up that I think deeserve further reflection and response. So I'm going to deal with several of them.
First up, some folks argued that the Stupak Amendment was no big deal, really, or at best overblown as an issue, even a red herring. But Digby had is exactly right --the Stupak Amendment is establishment payback for getting uppity [emphasis added]:
One of the things that those of us who follow politics from afar tend to see that those who are involved in the minutia often understandably miss, is the over arching themes that guide the politicians and the villagers. I don't suppose that they are necessarily aware of it, although some of the influential strategists may be, but it's there nonetheless.
I knew that after all the sturm and drang over the past few months over the public option, the number one liberal priority in the health care debate, there would be a price for its success. The ruling elite could never allow an unambiguous liberal victory. It would endanger their narrative that says fealty to business, religion, military and other authoritarian structures is democratically inspired. They have to maintain the fiction that the people prefer to be subjects. If politicians aren't convinced that there will be a price for being liberals, they might get the idea that they can actually govern liberally.
Second, another major issuse concerned the efficacy of challenging and defeating reactionary Democrats. For the most part, this concern is either born out of chronic cynicism (in which case, I have to ask, why are you posting at Open Left?) or misunderstanding. Challenging and defeating reactionary Democrats is not a silver bullet. It's just one task among many. In Digby's post just referred to she essentially talks about hegemonic struggle, and about why the establishment can't tolerate allowing a clean liberal victory. Extracting a penalty in response to their penalty is just one part of the larger struggle we need to be engaged in. And even if candidates do lose, their campaigns represent an opportunity to educate voters. As I wrote in one of my comments, this is precisely how Bernie Sanders moved, over time, from getting 1% of the vote in his election to being a US Senator.
Third, some have complained that this is bad strategy. That (a) it's already too late in the cycle, (b) we should be targetting other issues--such as economic ones, (c) we should be postitively supporting existing progressive challengers instead. Both (a) and (b) have some truth in them--but this simply reflects the numerous ways in which the system protects itself. The point is that this pair of votes--the Stupak Amendment and final House passage--have provided a rare opportunity in which points that are usually intentionally muddied for the general electorate have become strikingly clear. And just because the timing is not optimal, and issue is not squarely in the middle of where voters are suffering most does not mean we should ignore this opportunity. Sieze whatever opportunity you can grab hold of--especially the opportunity to strike back at the sort of move that Digby describes. As for (c), it's most certainly true, but a case of walking and chewing gum at the same time.
This is a followup to my earlier diary, "Targetting Dems In 2010", which featured three different sorts of a spreadsheet of Democrats who voted for the Stupak Amendment. In this diary, I want to clarify my proposed overall approach, discuss some options within that framework, and encourage discussion of some particular points that need to be further clarified.
First, The Overall Approach:
(1) My intention here is to develop a methodology for supporting a plurality of strategies for building progressive power and getting rid of bad Democrats. While different people may feel strongly about different aspects of strategy (for example, "don't target Dems in GOP districts, because you can't expect better"), I think it's important to realize that it's impossible to expect everyone to agree on strategy. So we should support a plurality of strategies, looking for the best targets for each strategy.
(2) My use of spreadsheets is heuristic, not determinative. It's mean to guide our decisionmaking toward the best targets and away from the less promising ones, so that we can better focus our resources. But it's meant to assist us in reasoning consistently, and making reality-based decisions as much as possible. It's not meant to do our thinking for us, or to rule out the role of passion or of intangibles. It's a tool, nothing more, nothing less.
(3) I am not wedded to restricting ourselves to those who voted for the Stupak Amendment. It simply represented a very good pool of portential targets to start with. Another such pool would be all those who voted against the final bill (though I certainly do not support targetting progressives like Dennis Kucinich for voting against it becauseit was too weak.)
Second, Additional Factors To Consider:
(1) Add a category to identify leadership positions, such as committee or subcommittee chair.
(2) Add a category to indicate length of tenure.
(3) Add a catetgory to identify those who may be running for higher office.
(4) Add a category for those who seat is likely to be redistricted in 2012.
(5) Add categories for specific issue area Progressive Punch scores.
(6) Add a free-form note column for noting particularly eggregious actions.
(7) Add free-form note columns for recording on-the-ground attitudes and perceptions.
(8) Add columns with the filing date, primary date, and filing date for a general election challenge.
Comments are welcome regarding other factors we should track.
Third, Potential Options--With Rationales:
(1) Focus on those who won with a very small margin, as these are easiest to defeat with an independent progressive candidate in the general election, should a primary effort fall short.
(2) Focus on those in Dem districts, as a successful primary will almost certainly be elected in the general election.
(3) Focus on those with leadership positions, as this will strike at the organization heart of the conservadems.
(4) Focus on those recently elected (such as last 2 cycles), as these will be more easy to defeat.
Comments are welcome regarding other rationales--they need not be single-factor rationales such as those above.
To begin the process of focusing our anger toward productive corrective action in next year's elections, I've compiled a table with some relevant information about Democrats who voted for the Stupak Amendment.
In the wake of House passage of the health care bill & the Stupak Amendment, we clearly have our work cut out for us. Yet, at the same time, we have a tremendous opportunity: a very sizeable number of bad Dems have very publicly identified themselves in a way that average voters can readily grasp. Whether or not they can be defeated in primaries next year, they can clearly be organized against, and that means that progressive infrastructure can be built in their districts, to increase pressure on them in the future. And in some cases--where their general election margins are small--independent progressive candidates in the general election can be enough to defeat them. Newly drawn districts in 2012 will mean that more progressive replacement candidates will have a much better shot as a result. It's quite clear that we need to do this. There is really no other way to ensure that House members will show any loyalty whatsoever to those who elected them. And so here is a preliminary list of those who voted for the Stupak Amendment, along with some pertinent information for gauging who might be the highest priority to concentrate on getting rid of.
Some of these people--such as Stupak himself--have designs on higher office next year. Making sure that they fail should be a top priority for us. Narrow general election victories and low Progressive Punch scores indicate vulnerability to general election challenges and disappointed core constituencies, respectively. Crucial vote scores for this current session are particularly salient in terms of potential for recruiting activists to work against them. Another re-sort according to general election percentages is presented on the flip.
After passage of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and the House Health Care Reform bill, Congresswoman Diana DeGette, Democratic Deputy Whip and Co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus, announced 
