This question was asked me recently by a good friend. I will now attempt to answer it, and in the process I will make what I think are some very important points relevant to ALL Progressives and Democrats.
A filibuster effectively stops ALL debate on a bill until 60 votes are garnered to break the filibuster. You accuse Democrats of "giving up," but I'm not sure what it is that you think Democrats can do. Take Climate Change Legislation, for example. Republicans have filibustered any realistic form of Climate Change Legislation. What is it that you think Democrats should do about that? I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on this. Tell me what you think Democrats should do and I will evaluate whether or not those actions are feasible and/or would be even slightly effective.
The Health Care Legislation recently passed is another interesting thing to look at. The ideal legislation would have been single-payer, but instead we passed what we shall term "ObamaCare." I assume you would have preferred single-payer to ObamaCare. As would I. But what would have happened if Democrats had proposed single-payer? Well, obviously it would have been filibustered to hell. But . . .what if there were no filibuster? It still would not pass. In order to examine why single-payer could never pass through the Senate, we must look at the make-up of the Democratic Caucus.
Right now there are 60 Senators who caucus with the Democrats. Sounds good, right? Wrong. Take a look at this list of 16 "moderate" Democrats. These are 16 Senators who caucus with the Democrats, but consistently vote against the type of legislation which you and I would like to see enacted. Any Single-Payer legislation would have been rejected by at least 11 of these "moderate" Democrats, leaving less than 50 votes. Single-payer, the only alternative to Obamacare, was/is-currently un-passable. The same goes for the public option, though that one is a little more tricky. If there had been no threat of filibuster, Democrats might have had more success in pressuring 11 of those Moderate Democrats to vote for a bill that included a public option. However, since there were 40 Republicans and a Lieberman who upheld the filibuster, we will never know. My personal opinion is that at least 11 Moderate Democrats would have voted against any bill with a public option. This same analysis applies to pretty much any of the good progressive legislation which you and I want to see passed.
Optics: The funny thing about the previous analysis is what it says about optics. Optics are very important in politics. For example, the optics of Obama's tax compromise make it look like President Obama is a weakling who acquiesced to Republican demands for tax-cuts for the wealthy. Those optics are bad (IMHO the risk of a double-dip recession outweighs the risk of bad optics in that specific situation). I just wanted to introduce the concept of optics here for a second because it is necessary in order for us to understand what I am about to talk about next.
Democratic Senate Electoral Strategy: We are going to talk about this in two subpoints.
A: The system of the Senate automatically presents problems for Democrats. As you know, there are 2 Senators from every state and they are elected by a plurality of voters in each state. This is as opposed to the House, where more populous states have many many more representatives. California, for example, has 53 representatives. This means that, in the House, California has about 26 times more representation than Idaho (as it should, at the very least). Of course, per capita, Idaho's representation in the House is quite a bit more than California's. And when you look at Idaho's representation in the Senate as compared to California's the disparity is STAGGERING. So, already you can see that rural states with lower populations have a massive advantage in the Senate. Of course, rural states have a very strong tendency to vote Republican. In those states, the will of the folks in more urban parts of the states are thwarted by the large amount of folks in more rural parts of the States. In Idaho, for example, Ada County always votes Democrat for Senate, but it does not matter because the rural parts of the state always vote Republican. If the Senate looked more like the House, we would have passed mounds of progressive legislation by now. Simply put, the House is more Democratic than the Senate. The Senate, really, is an unfair handicap for rural (Republican) America.
B: So, we can see that the Senate system is inherently stacked against the Democrats. What should the Democrats do? Well, this is a very interesting question. The strategy that the Democrats have fairly consistently followed for the past few decades is to run "moderate" Senate candidates in the Republican-leaning states where they think they actually have a chance of winning. In Idaho, this is not even an option. In Idaho it really does not matter who Democrats run for Senate if the candidate has a (D) next to their name. But look at Missouri, a Republican-leaning state that has a Democratic Senator. McCaskill joined the Senate in 2006 after a very tough election (about 49-47). It is a fact that a more progressive candidate would not have won that race. This is true of many conservative Senate Democrats. McCaskill is one of those who would likely have voted against any bill with a public option. If she had, she would certainly be voted out of office in her next election (she probably will anyway, but I'll get to that in a bit). It is equally true, though, that conservative Senate Democrats like McCaskill actually do personally oppose progressive legislation. Missouri Democrats nominated her for that very reason. They wanted a candidate who honestly appealed to Missouri voters because they knew that anything less would have much more likely resulted in a Republican Senator from Missouri. There was a similar case here in Idaho. Idaho Dems nominated Walt Minnick because they thought he was the only guy who could beat the embattled and relatively weak Bill Sali (mind you, he did so by a very very thin margin). This pattern has been carried out in Republican-leaning Senate races all throughout the country.
Back to optics: I have not offered any solutions yet, because I need to get back to the implications of the Democrats Senate electoral strategy regarding optics. Prima Facie, The Democrats Senate electoral strategy is not a completely incomprehensible strategy. It is a numbers strategy. This strategy would seem to make sense considering it is numbers which is required to pass legislation. However, it would appear that this strategy has backfired. Democrats do have numbers, but they have accomplished this by watering down their Senatorial Legislative capabilities dramatically. They have 60 Senators in their caucus, but cannot pass any meaningful legislation because 16 Senators within that caucus will oppose. This has three dramatic effects on optics.
A: First of all, if the Democrats are in power and they do not pass any progressive legislation, it looks to the American people as though the Democrats are either a) being sissies, or b) don't actually believe in their own ideas. Neither of these situations are the case, of course. Democrats can't pass progressive legislation because they simply don't have the numbers to do so. Americans don't pay enough attention to realize that this is a result of moderate democrats and that the un-Democratic nature of the Senate has a lot to do with the election of moderate Democrats. To these Americans, the Democrats look simply weak, ineffectual, and maybe even. These optics greatly angers the voters who voted for change.
B: Second. Imagine that the Democrats were somehow able to break a filibuster on a piece of real progressive legislation, and that the legislation were subject to an up-or-down vote. In terms of optics, what does it look like to the American people when the Democrats can't even get their own caucus to pass their own progressive legislation? Imagine if there were no filibuster and Democrats had pushed for single-payer health care. Well, the national debate would be centered around Obama trying to get those 16 moderate Democrats to vote for the legislation. That would be very bad optics, because it would result in Americans perceptions of Progressive Democrats as super hardcore left. The line of thought would go like this: If "Moderate Democrats" oppose progressive legislation, then that progressive legislation must be really really really hardcore leftist socialist. This is a result of electing Democrats to the Senate who don't support Progressive ideas.
C: So, let's focus now on Democrats recent legislative strategy. They knew they could not pass any really meaningful progressive legislation because it would be filibustered by Republicans and/or defeated by Republians and Moderate Democrats within their own caucus. They had TWO options. They could pass no legislation OR they could pass moderately progressive legislation. They went with option two. They passed Health Care. Now, the HCR bill is actually a very good bill. It provides insurance subsidies to any individual or family making less than 3X the poverty line, it ends recision, it ends denial-of-coverage based upon pre-existing conditions, it sets up a National HealthCare exchange, it allows people to stay on their parents health insurance until age 26. . .I could go on. At the same time, there are negative aspects. It doesn't do as much to control costs as we would like, it has a somewhat unsavory individual mandate, and it reinforces a health care system which is inherently flawed. However, compared with doing nothing, it is really good legislation. The unfortunate problem with this strategy is that the optics of it make Americans think that ObamaCare was the Democrats preferred legislation, when it most certainly was not. It highly upsets all the voters who voted for change because it is milquetoast in comparison to the change that they really wanted. Consider the financial regulation bill that passed. Objectively, it was good legislation. However, it didn't go far enough because it didn't end TooBigTooFail (ending TooBigTooFail, of course, could not have made it through the Senate). As a result, it looks to the American people as though the Democrats do not support TooBigTooFail. The truth, of course, is that liberal Democrats overwhelmingly support ending TooBigTooFail. In the end, Democrats were not even able to make a strong, unified, cogent argument for ending TooBigTooFail, mostly because of the optics involved in pushing for it while Republicans and Moderate Democrats push back. Additionally, when that legislation failed (as it no doubt would), Democrats would once again look weak and ineffectual while Republicans and Moderate Democrats would look strong for stopping legislation. Why stick your neck out for something that will only fail anyway, when that something's failure will weaken your position and possibly prevent you from passing any FinReg legislation?
You may have noticed that it seems like there is nothing Democrats can do that makes for good optics. This may be true. And if it is, it is a result of Democratic Senate electoral strategy. You see, current Democratic legislative strategy is inherently dictated by previous years Democratic electoral strategy. As we have seen, previous years Democratic electoral strategy has been to run "Moderate" Democrats for really tough Senate elections. Current Democratic Legislative Strategy is utterly bound by the previous year's Senate electoral strategy which resulted in 16 Moderate Democrats who oppose progressive legislation.
I have two main points as a result of all this analysis.
1) First of all, if you are a person who is unsatisfied with Democrats progress in addressing tough issues with progressive legislation, you would be a fool to blame the President or the House Democrats or anyone Senate Democrats other than the Republicans, the 16 Moderate Senate Democrats, and/or the state party Democrats who nominate these moderate Senate Democratic candidates. The Democratic leadership's legislative strategy is bound by previous years electoral strategy. Criticizing the Democrats who agree with us is stupid, provides fodder for the opposition, depresses the Democratic base (see: 2010 election), and ultimately results in Republican majorities and Republican rule. We should carefully consider the implications of Republican rule. I'll tell you one thing, though: Republicans are NOT interested in the same policy ideas that you and I are.
2) Second main point. I am an Idaho Democrat. I am not a Precinct Captain (If I could be, I would be), and I do not have a vote on the Central Committee. Eventually, I intend to attempt to garner a spot for myself on the IDP central committee. For now, I can only attempt to influence IDP as an outsider. The point is, this is where success for the progressive agenda starts. People like you and I have to find a way to work within the party infrastructure in our own state and influence the party to run candidates that actually push for progressive legislation. In Idaho, this starts small. Some of us have been advocating that Idaho look to Montana's Schweitzer model when nominating candidates. This is indeed a model wherein the candidate tacks to the center. However, the major difference between the Schweitzer model and the Minnick model, IMHO, is that while Schweitzer did tack to the center in many ways, he has still willing to push for a few progressive ideas that he thinks would appeal to Montana's Republican-dominated electorate. Minnick, otoh, did no such thing. As such, candidates like Minnick only reinforce the conservative high-moral frame, while candidates like Schweitzer do a pretty good job of introducing the progressive high-moral frame.
The truth of the matter is that, initially, a strategy like this will probably lead to less elected Democrats. This is true of the use of this strategy on a state-level and on a national-level. Maybe some other time we will talk about the implications of this strategy on state politics(pretty much the same implications, I think), but right now we are talking about national politics. The immediate disadvantage to the strategy proposed by myself and some others is the initial possibility of fewer elected Democrats and more elected Republicans. But let's look at the benefits. First of all, we would eliminate all of the optics problems mentioned above. Democrats would be free to push for true progressive legislation as a minority, and if they were elected on those ideas (as they were in 2008) they could push for true legislation as a majority, and actually enact such legislation. Democrats would not be forced to water down their own legislation/rhetoric and voters would not be forced to accept milquetoast change in lieu of the real change they voted for. I've said this before, but I'd much rather have fewer Democrats push for real progressive legislation in many areas as opposed to more Democrats pushing for milquetoast legislation (as well as failing to produce any progress on many issues). Real Democrats would be much more free to make real arguments that enforce a progressive high-moral frame. If you don't know what a high-moral frame is, read Lakoff, but I will tell you that the only way to actually change opinions on a political issue is through high-moral frames. The more real progressive legislation that Democrats are able to pass, the more enthused their base will become. As a result, more Democrats will be elected. If it's true that progressive legislation is good(and it is), then it is equally true that passing real progressive legislation will be popular.
We can see that the strategy of pushing "Moderate" Democrats into the Senate has failed on many levels. It didn't work for Minnick, it didn't work for the surprising number of Conservative and Blue Dog Democrats who lost their seat in this last election, and I highly doubt that it will work for McCaskill in her next election. The only two arguments for the "Moderate Democrats" Senate strategy are 1) that the majorities obtained as a result will allow Democrats to pass real legislation, and 2) that moderate Democrats will have an easier time retaining their seat in Republican-leaning districts. The past two years have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that both of those arguments are completely faulty.
If voting against progressive legislation does not help a Democrat retain a seat in a Republican-leaning district, then what is the point of doing so? It is contrary to all of our goals and produces no benefits. We are much better off sticking to our guns when it comes to Senate electoral strategy.
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