With summer nearly over, the nation's college campuses are bustling once again.
For many students however, the rites of passage associated with higher education won't be rushing a sorority, winning the big game or planning a spring break trip to Florida.
No, looking back, a growing number of students will regale their children with horror stories about being ripped off by a for-profit college.
Of late, the U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee has beeninvestigating the booming multi-billion dollar for-profit college industry -- think Kaplan University or DeVry for example. What it has found thus far is not pretty.
Last Thursday, the Senate voted 53 to 47 to defeat the Murkowski resolution that would have undermined the EPA's ability to reduce global warming pollution. The vote provides a useful guide to how senators might act on a climate vote.
Of course, it is not a clear-cut comparison because some people voted against the flawed resolution to make a point about process or simply to support the science. It is significant to note that we have 10 more votes in favor of reducing carbon emissions than we did the last time climate change was discussed on the Senate floor two years ago.
But here is what I find most interesting about last week's vote: the number of Senators who have all publicly exclaimed that global warming is a pressing problem but who voted to block the EPA from dealing with it. Are they sitting on an "election year fence" or are the deep pockets of Big Oil & Coal companies propping up their campaign contribution fences? The question must be asked - Why do these senators benefit from burning caveman fuels?
Senator Rockefeller, for instance, said: "I am not here to deny or bicker fruitlessly about the science... In fact, I would suggest that I think the science is correct. Greenhouse gas emissions are not healthy for the Earth or her people, and we must take significant action to reduce them. We must develop and deploy clean energy, period."
And yet the man voted to hamstring the EPA. Indeed, Senator Rockefeller intends to push his own bill that would put the EPA's effort to confront global warming on hold--giving West Virginia's coal industry a free pass for two more years.
Senator Chambliss from Georgia, meanwhile, said, "I know the climate is changing." And Senator Hutchison from Texas declared: "As a solution to climate change, we need to work together to promote the use of clean and renewable sources of energy....It is important that we work together. We are the elected representatives of the people."
And yet both of them voted against one of our main tools for combating global warming pollution: the EPA.
I'm sorry, but if you really believe this is a crisis, why wouldn't you want to fight it with every weapon available? Why wouldn't you deploy the muscle of both Congress AND the federal government?
While I was listening to last week's debate, I couldn't help but be reminded of teaching my three-year-old how to tie her shoes. I showed her how to do it with two hands, of course. Why on earth would I suggest she do it with one?
Yet that is what these Senators seem to be proposing. Senator Collins from Maine said: "I believe global climate change and the development of alternatives to fossil fuels are significant and urgent priorities for our country."
Why would she want us to fight global warming with one hand tied behind our back?
On the one hand, these statements are good news - despite the yelping of Inhofe and Hatch, the Senate is not a bastion of climate deniers. There's even a consensus that something must be done. The bad news is they're still not doing it. What is it that these Senators actually would support that isn't just some vague theory?
One question raised by yesterday's financial regulation cloture vote, which as Chris wrote was intended to draw contrasts between Democrats and Republicans, is why not hold these types of votes more often. Many remember the Republicans, at least in the House, holding "dare them to vote against it" types of votes on taxes, balanced budget amendments, social issues etc. that make Democrats uncomfortable and simultaneously dog-whistle to their base.
I think there is more difficulty than it seems to have those kinds of votes in the Senate. There would need to be:
1. Finding an issue that is politically popular among the electorate.
2. And, more often than not, an issue that is at least somewhat popular among Democratic base voters, activists, allies constituency groups, etc. (or at least not strongly opposed by a powerful issue constituency). E.g., it is hard to imagine the Democratic leadership voluntarily holding a vote on a medical malpractice cap.
3. Unanimity in the Democratic caucus on the issue, meaning, making sure your caucus members don't cross the aisle- as Ben Nelson did yesterday- to ruin the political headlines.
4. Unanimity in the Republican caucus in opposition to the Democratic position. If what you were going for is to actually enact public policy, it would be helpful to have opposition support, but if you're trying to draw contrasts for political reasons, there is not much use in picking up six Republicans along with the entire Democratic caucus.
5. Making sure holding the vote just for the sake of holding a vote doesn't damage the overall effort. In the New York State Senate, a vote was held on marriage equality, and while that was in part because lots of Senators refused to state a public position and advocates wanted to know who was an ally and who was not, the vote failed abysmally, 24-38. While there is much backstory to the vote-counting on that, the political optics of public perception, headlines, etc. on it led many to argue the vote should not have been held at all unless it were much closer. This is a bit different in the U.S. Senate, where a 51-49 vote, despite falling nine whole votes short of cloture, may look different to the public than a 24-38 defeat, but the point remains the same.
6. Making sure members don't have opportunities to amend the bill to ruin the effect you were going for. While this wasn't an example of holding votes for political reasons, the Ensign amendment eliminating DC gun control laws from the books, added at the last minute, caused many activists, including Eleanor Holmes Norton, the bill's sponsor, to pull support from the DC Voting Rights Act. In this vein, a member could get a vote on a germane pet clause and screw up the bill, those in support and opposition to it, and the intended effect.
7. Getting floor time to hold these kinds of votes with a crowded agenda and multiple issue constituencies clamoring for action on a range of bills.
For these reasons, while there are likely a number of issues out there that fit characteristics #1-5, in reality, doing all that and successfully navigating the floor process of #6 and #7 is likely to not be as easy as it would seem, at least in the Senate.
In the days and weeks after the 1994 election, working in the Clinton White House was a little surreal. After a 1992 campaign, transition, and first 22 months in office when we were moving at the speed of light, being asked to get a million things done, being driven relentlessly to work 18+ hours a day, seven days a week (and always on call!), all of a sudden we were directionless. The inner, inner circle was around Clinton night and day, trying to console him and buck him up simultaneously, taking the brunt of his frustration, trying to figure out what to do next. Those of us the next level down were quite literally adrift for a few weeks. I occupied my time analyzing the election results, writing a memo on what happened and where I thought we should go next, and keeping in touch with group leaders and donors and other democratic activists I was close to. But I wasn't doing any of this because I was being told to, I was just doing what I thought I should, and most of my colleagues were in the same boat.
Democrats on the Hill, having been in control for so long and utterly stunned by the results, were in even worse shape, completely adrift for weeks and weeks. There was no leadership to do anything for a long time.
Even though Scott Brown's victory merely means Democrats lack 60 votes in the Senate, I am getting much the same feeling right now from stunned Democrats. Partly because the path they thought they were on to get health care done suddenly blew up on them, and partly because a sense of panic has gripped a lot of members especially on the House side, Democrats are having trouble getting themselves together. There's a big difference this time, though: first of all, their fate is still in their hands, Democrats still control the Hill; secondly, we don't have time to wander around stunned in the wilderness for the next several weeks. What needs to happen, in a matter of days (not weeks or months), is that Democrats need to (a) calm down, and (b) stiffen their spines. If they make decisions in panicked mode, they will be decisions that seal their fate in terms of losing the House. If they calm down and look at things rationally, they will realize that voters don't like panicked wimps who can't get things done. Fortunately both Nancy Pelosi and Senate leadership seem to understand this, but the worry is that the House rank and file aren't there yet at all.
Democrats have an absolutely clear path to passing a strong health care reform bill quickly that will re-establish their image for being able to deliver real change, begin to rebuild their bond with their base, and allow them to move on to dealing with jobs and the economy. To fail to take this path will lead to a worse meltdown and beat-down than the 1994 or 1980 elections. What they have to do is buck up their courage, stop acting out, and get the deal done.
The path, which has been suggested by many other people as well as me, is to simply pass the full Senate bill, and then immediately pass a clean-up bill through the reconciliation process, which requires only 51 votes in the Senate. The clean-up bill could include the provisions that progressives in the House and Senate, as well as wide majorities of the American people, have been demanding: the compromise on the benefits tax issue, more affordability for low and moderate income folks, ending insurers' exemption from anti-trust laws, a national insurance exchange instead of the weaker fragmented state run exchanges, and yes, some form of that public option that voters and activists keep saying we want. Doing this kind of double bill approach would allow all the good insurance regulations and other provisions in both the Senate and House versions of the bill that can't be passed through the reconciliation process because of Senate rules to still get done, while making the bill far more politically popular with voters and healing the rifts caused with the base because of all the bad compromises forced by Lieberman and other Democratic conservatives in the Senate.
If the Democrats turn from this path and give up on comprehensive reform after spending the last year working on it and coming so close, it would be one of the greatest tragedies in American history, a historic failure of nerve so unforgivable that I think it might literally break the party in two. If after spending a year on this, and putting Democrats' votes on the board in both houses in favor of it, they walk away and get nothing, they would be seen as utterly incompetent by swing and base voters alike. And don't think that going back to the drawing board and trying to get a scaled back bill that "everyone is in favor of" gets anything done. Having been successful by being the party of no, what exactly is it that the Republicans- any of them- would agree to? Olympia Snowe got every single thing she asked for in the Senate bill after delaying the bill for six months, and she still voted no. What makes anyone think she or any other Republican would vote yes for anything in an election year when it's working so well for the Republicans to say no to everything? And how long would it take to work out a deal with Republicans when we tried for a year and not one of them agreed to anything? While I'm asking questions, let me ask another: exactly which voters do Democrats think we pick up by walking away from health care reform after a year of work and already recorded votes on it in both houses? Certainly not the desperately disappointed base. Do Democrats think swing voters will reward them for spending a year on something, and then giving up on it and getting nothing? Swing voters are wanting results and real change. How does delivering nothing changing nothing on the main thing they have worked on the last year help them with those voters?
Okay, enough of asking rhetorical questions. As President Obama likes to put it: let me be clear. Democrats need to calm down, pull themselves together, and pass the Senate bill and then a parallel bill to clean up the problems in the Senate bill. Progressive leaders like Raul Grijalva need to stop making threats, join hands with their Democratic brethren, and just get this done. Conservative Democrats had their way in the Senate, but now they need to stop complaining and telling Democrats they should give up on passing anything, and get with the program. The President needs to settle down and stop having a failure of nerves, and sending negative signals to Congress. It is time to take the path available to us on health care, do what we should have done four months and get it over with, and move on to jobs, banks, energy, and immigration. By actually delivering on the change we promised, by actually taking on the special interests we said we would and solving problems, Democrats can rebound from this bleak moment and do fine in the next election. All it takes is a little bit of courage and common sense to take the path in front of them.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has privately told her politically vulnerable Democratic members that they will not vote on controversial bills in 2010 unless the Senate acts first.
After a year of bruising legislative victories that some political analysts believe have done more to jeopardize her majority than to entrench it, Pelosi is shifting gears for the 2010 election.
The Speaker recently assured her freshman lawmakers and other vulnerable members of her caucus that a vote on immigration reform is not looming despite a renewed push from the White House and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The House will not move on the issue until the upper chamber passes a bill, Pelosi told the members.
But according to Democrats who have spoken to Pelosi, the Speaker has expanded that promise beyond immigration, informing Democratic lawmakers that the Senate will have to move first on a host of controversial issues before she brings them to the House floor.
"The Speaker has told members in meetings that we've done our jobs," a Democratic leadership aide said. "And that next year the Senate's going to have to prove what it can accomplish before we go sticking our necks out any further."
[...]
Pelosi's promise could dim the prospects for other White House priorities as well, including the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) - known as "card check" - and the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" prohibition on gays serving openly in the military.
"There's not going to be a ton of stuff legislatively next year either way," a House leadership aide said. "But on EFCA - even though the House has demonstrated its ability to pass it - and on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Senate is definitely going to have to act first."
If the report is accurate, that can spell trouble for plenty of issues. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is certainly one- the Senate companion bill to the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2009 (which may be rolled into the defense authorization bill) doesn't even have a Senate sponsor yet. I also feel this further jeopardizes ENDA, the House markup of which has already been postponed into next year.
As an organizing mechanism, it raises an interesting question. Perhaps the famous instance of the "make the Senate go first" theory comes as a result of the BTU tax episode, a 1993 energy tax whose chief proponent was then-VP Gore. The House voted first on it and the Senate never took it up, hanging lots of House members out to dry and helped defeat them in 1994 over that vote, or so the story goes.
I'm not sure it should always be so, though. I've watched in the ongoing New Jersey fight around the marriage equality bill how they don't have the votes in the State Senate after it passed committee, so they're buying time by making the Assembly pass it first, in part to do more lobbying, and in part in the hopes that the Senators will look at the Assembly vote and get some cojones. That option should always be available at the Congressional level.
Carl Hulse also reports that House Democrats are frustrated at the pace of business in the Senate. Never acting on critical bills like immigration, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, ENDA and others until the Senate does is a good recipe for never getting anything done and even more frustration, including from the "base". The Senate has and always will move at a pace just slower than molasses. While it's true the House can take up and pass bills much quicker, that doesn't always ring true, as we've seen in the drawn-out negotiations over health care and the recently-passed financial reform bills on the House side, both of which took months. The Senate could take a long time to pass a bill that, if it's complicated like immigration reform, could completely change the House approach, leading to a long process there. I'm not a fan of the House sitting idly by waiting for the Senate to send them important pieces of legislation. Plus, sometimes the House going first can influence what the Senate bill will look like, and with the House generally being more liberal, that can be advantageous. There needs to be a balance between legislative organizing and electoral protection.
I am still in a haze over the deal struck last night on the public option, not helped by the fact that they are keeping the details close while CBO scores the bill. As anyone who has read my past blog posts knows, I think the "details" on all these deals are incredibly important, and I don't believe in rushing to judgment until we have had a chance to analyze them. Clearly, though, there is both a lot of bad news in the reports coming out so far, and some good news as well.
The worst of the news (obviously, from my perspective) is the demise of the public option. Without knowing the details, it is hard to assess just how bleak things are, but the early reports make it sound like they have come close to killing it for everyone under 55, and above 150% of the poverty line. The one thing that could still salvage something decent is the nature is the trigger language, but I'm not hearing encouraging things about how good it is. And I am not going to sugarcoat this for you: this is a bitter disappointment. The result is a deeply flawed bill that will not control costs or provide a check on insurance company power the way it could or should have. I also think the politics of this are going to be very tough for the Democratic Party in both 2010 and 2012: people mandated to buy insurance without a public option they can go to will result in a lot of heartache for Democrats with middle class voters, and the disappointment the base feels on this issue will mean it will be much tougher for Democrats to recruit volunteers, raise money online, and turn out the base vote. They have just screwed themselves politically with this deal. Joe Lieberman, the conservative Democrat who absolutely refused to compromise or bargain in good faith, has just leveled a tough blow to his entire party.
However, there is some good news in reports of the compromise (again, waiting on the details):
opening up Medicare to people under 65 for the first time would be an important substantive and symbolic victory, and would allow progressives a wedge to keep pushing in years to come to open it up even further.
forcing insurers to pay out at least 90% of their revenue out in benefits (compared to the 82% on average they pay out now) is a very big and important victory, stopping the private insurance race to the bottom in terms of providing benefits that has been plaguing us for the last couple of decades.
forcing insurance companies to offer more choices, similar to what federal employees get now, is actually a significant victory even though there is no public choice. Members of Congress are always going to make sure there is decent competition for themselves, and if getting a package like theirs means we get more competition for everyone, that helps.
I will be writing more on this in the coming days. The loss of a public option is a bitter pill to swallow, but there is still plenty of good in this package. As details emerge, we will know more.
Each painful step, this health care keeps moving forward. As I've written, it is destined given the nature of this issue that every single step will be difficult as hell. Somehow, though, we keep making our way toward getting a bill done.
Harry Reid deserves the lion's share of the credit on getting this step completed. Say what you will about the messiness of the process, the ridiculous Senate rules, the deal-cutting at the end, but Harry Reid figured out how to make it work and get over one more hurdle. One of my very favorite sayings in the world, which comes from my dear friend Paul Tully (who were he alive today be involved in all this every step of the way, and loving every minute of it) is that you can't take the politics out of politics. It's especially true on a crazy quilt, complicated issue like health care.
Given the stubborn logjam between progressives and conservatives on the public option and other issues, I can see about half a dozen different scenarios for what happens next:
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.
One of the truisms of life in DC is that whenever one party controls the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, it is virtually certain that the last of those three institutions will be the toughest nut to crack in terms of actually getting anything done. Between the filibuster, a variety of other arcane procedural rules, the clubby atmosphere of the chamber, and the six-year term making Senators less concerned about the year-to-year swings of their constituents, the Senate is inherently slower and more resistant to change.
That well-known fact to political insiders has congealed into a hardened nugget of conventional wisdom about the health care fight, which is that there is no way a strong health care reform package, including a public option, can make it out of that body. However, if you really look at reality, at what we actually know, that piece of conventional wisdom is mythology.
The Baucus mark-up only adds to this conventional wisdom, of course. But keep in mind that Senate Finance is almost without question the most conservative committee in either house of Congress right now. Its chair, Max Baucus, is in the top five Democrats in terms of conservatism, and has been historically very close to big business and the ranking Republican on the committee (Grassley). He was happy to cut the deal with Grassley in 2001, against the wishes of the vast majority of the Democratic caucus, for the massive Bush tax cut for the rich that was the main cause of our massive federal deficit over the last few years. Other key committee Democrats like Conrad and Bingaman, of the Gang of Six fame, aren't exactly liberally stalwarts either.
But in a soon-to-be-60-Democrats chamber (when Kennedy is replaced), the most conservative committee does not determine things for the rest of the Senate.
Let's look at the actual facts in terms of passing a bill acceptable to most Democrats:
There are between 44 and 50 Senators, depending on how you interpret their public statements, who have said they would support a public option if it was part of the health care package.
There are six other Senators (plus a new Massachusetts Senator, likely to soon be appointed by Deval Patrick once he law re Massachusetts appointments is changed) who have stated no public position on the issue. At least some of these are likely to be open to it with the right amount of arm-twisting by President Obama and Harry Reid.
Depending on how you interpret their various muddled statements, there are three Democratic-caucusing Senators (Lieberman, Landrieu, Nelson) who have stated outright opposition to a public option.
There are no (zero, nada, not a single one) Democratic Senators who have announced that they would join a Republican filibuster in the event Democrats decide not to go to reconciliation to pass a bill. That's not to say it couldn't come to that, but no Democratic Senator has said they would.
Reconciliation is a very live option. Many experts in Senate rules think it can be used to pass the financing and public option parts of the health care bill, and Reid has indicated a willingness to use any procedure available to him.
These are the facts about the Senate, facts which apparently are not being considered by every pundit and every public official who says the votes aren't there for a public option. The conventional wisdom- fed in no small part by well-connected insurance industry lobbyists who spend every day running around Washington telling every reporter and political insider they know that "the votes for a public option aren't there"- is simply false.
One of the reasons so many House and movement progressives are a little peeved about all the unnamed Administration sources and the signals that the White House is backing off on this issue is that it is apparent that the Senate can be won on this issue with just a little bit of elbow grease and arm-twisting. It won't be easy, but getting this bill passed is within reach, if the White House and Harry Reid fight for it. The clubby nature of the Senate might have to be shaken up, the bipartisan comity might have to be given up, and insurance industry lobbyists/contributors might have to be angered. But passing a strong, comprehensive bill, with a public option, through the Senate is eminently doable.
I want to tell a quick story about what inspired me to work in politics, and make a short case, too.
I used to intern on Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Ted Kennedy's (or as we called him, EMK) committee staff. He was then ranking minority member. I started in January 2005, as Bush was gearing up to gut Social Security through privatization. Most people think of interns as answering phones, running memos, getting coffee. I did a little of that too, but on the committee staff, you do very real, substantive work. One of my principal responsibilities was to do research showing how privatization would hurt Massachusetts seniors, or single mothers, low-income folks, other communities. I would then make these into Powerpoint charts, run them down to a Senate office that had them printed up into large posterboard charts that the Senator could take on the floor. Then I would bring them back to the office for his legislative assistant to take to the floor with him, and since he liked to have something to hold during his speeches, we would decide what to give him to take to the floor, which he would usually shake to punctuate his speeches- a magazine article, or a newspaper clipping, for example. If he didn't have anything, he would rip off his glasses and gesture with them passionately.
Then he would take to the floor and we'd see our efforts culminate as he quietly stood up, said the usual "Mr. President, I rise today..." and launch into a diatribe about economic fairness, about FDR's legacy, about the plain economics of how this was the l last leg of the three-legged stool on which Americans' retirement now shakily stood. He would get more and more passionate until you could actually see members of the Senate standing behind him, watching, on C-SPAN2. I remember going to other offices on errands during my tenure and their Senators would be on TV, but they'd be going about their work. I found that odd, because when Ted Kennedy came on TV, our office would literally stop. One of the Senator's disability staffers would come out of a meeting, the committee minority staff director in our office would stop his crazed day, we would all look up from our computers and watch. Then we would all go back to work, a little more inspired by his passion and idealism. I remember that most about him- his ability to inspire. He made us all feel our work was doing some good. My tenure there convinced me I wanted to work in politics full-time.
The other thing I want to say is about what comes next.
I remember when a member of the House died- an Ohio Republican, I think- and Chris posted it and offered some thoughts about the replacement procedure and opportunities to pick it up. A lot of folks in the comments angrily accused Chris of being a heartless politico.
After we've all had a little space, I don't think we should hesitate to think about- in the coming weeks- what comes next for Sen. Kennedy's big shoes, and take action if we have to. Let me tell you why.
At the end of my tenure in the Senate, all the interns had a chance to sit down en masse with the Senator to chat and take photos. He asked if we had any questions, and I raised my hand and because I was writing a term paper on the 1993-94 health care fight, I asked him what went wrong and what should be done differently next time. He sat up straight and went on for a good 20 minutes about the policy issues in the bill, what the Clintons did wrong politically, what he did wrong, where our allies went missing. I noticed a number of my fellow interns start to get obviously bored with the wonky discussion (clearly most of them expected to talk about his two dogs and the Red Sox), but he just kept on going. This, clearly, was at the top of his wish list to do one day.
We now face a critical process in making sure that wish gets filled. I do not think Ted would want us to miss having his vote on a strong health care bill- or, for that manner, a number of other important issues coming up, including immigration. I think that's why he asked the Massachusetts legislators to change the succession law. And that law is a problem for getting health care done, as may be a fair number of people I have heard wish to take his seat with regard to other issues. So I don't think we should hesitate, if it becomes necessary, to put pressure on the Massachusetts legislature, or support the most progressive candidate we can find who is willing to run for Sen. Kennedy's seat. He was known as the liberal lion, and it I think it would be a disservice to his legacy to replace the great progressive icon with someone who will not continue that legacy.
Meanwhile, I will keep fighting the Senator's fight with all my heart, and continue to be inspired by his work.
I take history very seriously, have studied it closely, and I am not given to hyperbole (as awful as George W. Bush was, for example, I still hesitate to join the many historians who call him the worst President ever, because James Buchanan was truly horrendous). But with Teddy Kennedy, I don't think there is much debate.
There were other Senators who served a very long time and have many notable achievements to their credit. There were others whose oratory and personality dominated the Senate chamber for awhile. There were others who were held in great esteem by their Senate colleagues. There were others who became a recognizable face as a representative of Senate traditions and honor. But no one in all of America's great history combined all of these things with getting more tangible things that mattered accomplished for the American people.
On issue after issue, Ted Kennedy was at the center of the debate, and he delivered one great piece of legislation after another to all of us. There was not a single significant issue that he didn't play an important role on in the past 45 years.
It saddens me beyond words that he passed before seeing health care reform finally get passed, as it had become the great passion of his life. I hope we can finally get it done for him now.
(The "voter fraud" fraud is shaping up to play a bigger role this year than it has in perhaps a 100 years, and progressives have yet to seriously respond to it, as it remains a focus of attention for far too few. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters
Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
A year has passed since the U.S. Attorneys scandal first gathered steam for the firings of nine federal prosecutors - at least two of whom claim being "pressured by Republicans to bring charges of voter fraud against people who intended to [vote] for Democrats." But the issue is far from settled. This week, the phantom issue of "voter fraud" emerged in the guise of news stories, editorials, memos, blogs, legislation, and even a Senate hearing either extinguishing or inflaming the alleged election integrity problem, particularly regarding voter identification requirements. Ultimately, what has become most evident in the last year is how far partisans are willing to go in order to legalize voter suppression tactics through the smoke-screen of "voter fraud."
In my blog today, Ed O'Reilly Blog, I discuss the decision by Secretary of State Rice, to implement simple "rules" rather than "rules of law" relative to private security agencies operating in Iraq, the Military Commissions Act if implemented in Iraq, as well as the Iran Warmongering by the Bush Administration.
The decision today by Seceretary of State Rice to implement "rules" relative to security agencies operating in Iraq clearly rejects suggestions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that security contractors be placed under military control. U.S. military commanders and officers in Iraq have sharply criticized the contractors, and North Carolina-based Blackwater in particular, for behaving like "cowboys" and undermining U.S. objectives for bringing stability to Iraq according to today's Washington Post
I have a question: If Iraq had a Military Commissions Act as we do here in the United States, could people serving in Blackwater and other "security" companies be categorized as illegal alien enemy combatants? If so, it would follow that these American Citizens would then be subjected to a legal system that excludes the protections of the Geneva Convention, denies Habeas Corpus and the right to a civilian attorney, and could leave them imprisoned for years without a right to a speedy trial. In reality, as the law now stands in Iraq, murder by these contractors could arguably be above any law.
In terms of Iran, VP Cheney and President Bush seem to be proceeding with the rhetoric that will lead us into some type of military conflict with Iran. The propaganda is not meant to sway the European Community, as both Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are stating, but to convince us, as Americans, that we must use military force against Iran. We must respond to this war mongering in order to stop the momentum at its earliest stages.
I firmly believe that this Administration is intent on military action against Iran, not to protect Iraqi civilians or our troops, but to protect the oil industry in the southern part of Iraq--prior to their leaving office.
As a U.S. Senator, my voice would be loud and clear on this issue. The beating of the drums of war must be silenced by rational dialogue and aggressive diplomacy.
Ed O'Reilly
Democratic Candidate for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts Ed O'Reilly's Website
As a Democratic Candidate for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts running for the seat currently held by John Kerry, I was appalled by the Democrats failure to address a tax loophole Washington Post
for some of the wealthiest people in America. This tax loophole for billionaires has been called the size of a Mack truck by David Sirota
It is a sad day in America when the only common ground that Republicans and Democrats have found is the bowing to powerful special interest lobbying. John Kerry skipped out of the Senate to start his vacation a day early on August 3rd and was AWOL on the important FISA vote which took a big chunk out of our Constitution. Again, it is the non vote that really defines the lack of leadership and absence of the courage of convictions. Should not the U.S. Senate have shortened their month long vacation while we are at War to take up a loophole that could pay for the health care of every low income child in America through the age of 12?
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