Tweet
Raul Grijalva, Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is planning to take a stand against cutting Social Security.
Today, tomorrow and the day after, my colleagues and I are going to stand up and say, "Let’s strengthen Social Security, not cut it," and there’s nothing anyone can do or say to make us change our minds.
Oh really?
After stating–no, pledging…on camera–to vote No on any Healthcare bill that did not include a Public Option, Grijalva and his collegues famously caved at the critical moment of the Healthcare vote.
So, I do not believe him. I don’t believe that Progressives will stick together against a barrage of conservative spittle. I doubt anyone in the Administration believes him. Or the Democraticic Leadership. Or the Republican Party. Or just about anyone on Earth.
Acknowledging his lack of credibility, Grijalva continues,
There are plenty of people reading this today who think progressives’ problem was failing to stick to their guns. If only we held the line, they say, we’d have a public option today. That was not the case. The Senate wasn’t going to budge on a public option for reasons that have nothing to do with good public policy. House progressives — my friends and colleagues and I — didn’t have enough cards in our hand to make it happen all by ourselves. I think progressives’ central mistake during health care was telling ourselves that we did. (Emphasis mine).
Did anyone anywhere think that Progressives were going to get the Public Option all on their own? No! Some of us were hoping that the CPC would stand with the the majority of citizens who wanted some kind of PO. That is, we expected the CPC to work for and with the majority of their constituents.
But Grijalva believes the politics of Social Security is different than Healthcare.
Today, things are different. Today, what’s on the table is not the creation of a large new public program that Republicans can lie about until they’re blue in the face — it’s Social Security.
What makes Social Security so different?
Good policy really is going to win this time, because when 85 percent of voters are telling you not to do something as stupid as cut Social Security benefits, it’s not going to happen.
Here is the crux…Social Security reform will fail (we are told) because the people are against it. Well, where were the people on the PO? What makes Grijalva believe that Progressives will not be alone in their fight against cuts to Social Security when they were alone in their fight for the PO? A few percentage points of popular support? If the PO failed, Social Security will be destroyed just as easily.
Nevertheless, Grijalva is right. Social Security will most likely be left intact. Not because of any efforts of the CPC. Not because Progressives will stand up to block cuts. Not because Social Security is popular with the people. Social Security "reform" will fail because it is remarkably stupid and will result in devestating shame on the Administration and cause DLC-type Democrats to lose their seats. Whereas Democrats thought they could sell a crappy Healthcare bill as a success, there is no way Americans will watch seniors eat catfood and thank the Democrats for the priviledge.
So why would Grijalva make such a statement about standing up for Social Security? The answer is simple. Since the CPC doesn’t matter and Social Security will not be cut, Grijalva may as well set up the caucus for a badly needed "win". The CPC can take credit where none is due. Did I mention that elections are coming up?
64 Comments
Good post, Yel. Rec’d.
Never were a couple of old sayings ever more true:
“Actions speak louder than words.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Your title says it all really. Although I would amend it slightly:
And therein lies the problem. I see no point to continue supporting a group of politicians that has lied to me repeatedly. So, I won’t.
Jane has a post explaining what they need to do.
It’s about a page and half down.
1) Force a vote on the floor before the election in the form of a privileged resolution
After the election, the voters have no leverage. This is how they end it, since the Democrat leadership is sneaking it through loop holes already so they can vote on it during a lame duck session.
It’s amazing that Bart Stupak and Nelson had so darned much power, but the progressive caucus… not so much.
It’s dihearting to hear Grijalva out there peddling bullshit. I thought he was better than that.
Nice catch, btw.
yellowsnapdragon,
Great post! That pretty much sums up the Democratic dilemma. After betraying their promises/pledges on the public option they have no credibility with their base.
Do they really believe their pledge on SS has any redeeming value at this point in time as we approach an election? HAH!
Raul conveniently misses the point, it doesn’t matter if a PO was unattainable, he and other allegedly progressive House members pledged to vote against any bill without a PO and broke their promise. In short, like everyone on The Hill they have no principles, or none that serve the interests of average Americans anyway.
Not only that, they voted FOR a horrible bill that represents a previously unimaginible reallocation of wealth from the rapidly vanishing middle class to private corporations. If that is what the term “progressive” means today, count me out.
Had the progressives truly fought and lost the public option issue I cld understand that. But to cave without fighting at all and then expect me to believe you will fight for the next issue takes some cahones. After watching Kucinich bend over I dont trust any progressive in congress any more.
Great read YSD, rcc’d of course.
You, and the comments up above say it all.
Nicely done, YSD, and all.
Raul and the CPC have no credibility left for me, and many others.
Zero. Zilch. None.
Out they go. End of story. Send the message.
Good policyCharlie Brown really is going to win this time, because when 85 percent of voters are telling you not to do something as stupid as cut Social Security benefits, it’s not going to happen.I like Raul, but I don’t think he gets how deep a hole the CPC members dug in their credibility. Their first step is to stop digging.
Every statement from the CPC should begin with an apology and end with a pledge to provide every American the same Medicare coverage Max Baucus gave his constituents within two months of bill signing.
As for the CPC stopping the Social Security cramdown, eh, maybe Lucy WILL hold the football for Charlie Brown this time, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson make a disturbing point in a new book :
“When well-off people strongly supported a policy change, it had almost three times the chance of becoming law as when they strongly opposed it. When median-income people strongly supported a policy change, it had hardly any greater chance of becoming law than when they strongly opposed it.”
As for the rapidly and ever swelling ranks of the poor, those policies which they strongly support or oppose, matters not at all, for they are disenfranchised for all practical purposes. Their homes foreclosed upon, they are unemployed or under-employed, and often unable to even locate a public place to pitch a tent anymore in too many cities, since the poor are not considered “real” citizens. We won’t even talk about the 1 out of every 106 of us who is imprisoned here in “The Land of the Free”…
I think Raul was trying to make this point:
The public option is not something with which most non-political junkies are familiar. When it’s explained to them, people like the idea, but most people have no clue as to what it is.
Social Security, on the other hand, is something with which everyone is familiar. In fact, if you have a long enough memory and/or good Google skills, you know that the same people have been singing the same doom songs about Social Security ever since it was created. They’re like the weird-ass religious millenialists of the 19th century who kept setting Doomsday dates and then had to keep pushing them farther and farther into the future as each date passed without incident.
That still doesn’t excuse Grijalva from folding, but his point that there is much stronger and broader support for Social Security is definitely a valid one.
Grijalva was trying to make the point that people know Social Security where they didn’t have any experience personal with the Healthcare bill. That’s true.
What bothers me about Grijalva’s post is that it totally lacks accountability for past actions and states that the Caucus will act differently in the future. Not. Buying. It.
The success or failure of SS reform will never rest with the CPC because the CPC has no power and no remaining credibility.
With a little proofreading/editing and Phred’s recommended title change, this diary would be an excellent full-page ad in the NYT. It synopsizes the tactics of our so-called leaders and liberal political heros to sell out every Progressive policy and cry victim hoping we’ll all keep voting them in because we believe they’re trying really, really hard to do the right thing. The only line I’d dispute is that voters won’t let seniors eat catfood and thank Democrats for the privilege. A lot of voters don’t care what, or if, anybody else eats (see conservatives, Tea Partiers), and they blame liberals for helping somebody get a meal. When I win the lottery this weekend, I’ll pay for this ad to call the fake liberal politicians out.
In the end, it all comes down to money.
Rahm Emanuel, who was in the Clinton White House and pushed NAFTA in part because he thought it would get big-business donors in the Democrats’ corner, still thinks that what sunk the Dems in 1994 was the tens of millions in Harry and Louise ads the Republicans’ buddies in the health-care lobby ran. (Of course, demoralizing the base with the naked attack on unions known as NAFTA isn’t something he’s ready to acknowledge as a possible influence on the 1994 elections.)
This is why Rahm pushed self-funding millionaires as candidates, even though many of them don’t even come close to upholding the entirety of the party’s platform. This is why he engineered the deal with the health-care lobby to keep them from doing Harry and Louise 2: Electric Boogaloo this cycle (and instead run $150 million in pro-Democrat ads) in exchange for axing the public option and drug-price negotiation. Now that the Roberts Court has zapped most existing CFR with their Citizens United ruling, and the Republicans’ usual corporate donors are already packing such groups as MN Forward with millions, the money chase is going to get even uglier.
What to do? One thing would be to adopt instant-runoff voting. That way, third parties would no longer be tools used by the Big Two to beat up on each other (usually Republicans beating up on Democrats), but actual viable entities — that is, those that survived the inevitable drop in funding from Republicans and their allies using these groups as spoilers.
Another thing is to push for a level playing field where money is concerned. Public Campaign — http://www.publicampaign.org — has done signal work in this regard, and is working to clean up elections on a state-by-state basis.
So, the conclusion is progressives shouldn’t fight because they don’t matter? Great conclusion…
Raul used to be my rep and I think he was honestly the best Democrat we can hope for. Like Barbara Lee, my current rep, he is extremely well-regarded and trusted to do the right thing by his constituents. The two of them, among other PCC members, managed to sucker people into believing, by virtue of their votes in favor of it, that the HCR bill was a decent compromise instead of a giant steaming pile. I have great respect for Raul, who puts up with yahoos shooting up his office and various other aspects of life in modern-day Arizona. But he’s a Democrat, and we should have learned by now (see: Kucinich) that even the most “progressive” of them will take stand after stand and then cave to the party at the last minute.
Progressives shouldn’t pretend to fight when all of the excuses are in place and it’s a foregone conclusion that they will ultimately cave. It’s their job to make it seem as if the valiant Dems went down fighting and the big bad Repugs won anyway. Fewer and fewer of us are buying what they’re selling but you go right on ahead, Jason.
Forgive me if somebody already pointed this out, but there is a huge flaw in your argument. They ‘caved’ because, if they didn’t, we wouldn’t have any kind of health care reform. Failing to pass anything would, despite what others might think, have been worse than what we got, both from a political and a real-world point of view.
The same does not apply, here. Gutting Social Security is not on the top of the Democratic Party platform.
It is not clear whether you are referring to “progressives” in or out of government. It is an important distinction. Outside of government there are at least a few, although they are vastly outnumbered by Dem partisans. Inside government progressives exist in name only.
A Progressive Caucus which makes empty promises to constituents but inevitably votes with conservative members of the party is nothing more than a cruel hoax.
Not at the top of the platform because political platforms are a marketing device employed for campaigns.
However, gutting Social Security DOES appear to be at the top of the Democratic Party agenda. The fact that they’ve been fairly open about it demonstrates their utter contempt for voters. As long as they provide good service to the MOTU while in office they’ll be handsomely rewarded when they enter the private sector.
In other words, now that incumbents no longer fear losing elections our influence on them is negligible.
Jason has a point: Got any better ideas? We tried punishing the Dems by staying home or voting Nader in 2000, and that got us George W. Bush picking Supreme Court nominees and using 9/11 as a pretext to go nuts militarily on two different nations. (I suspect that a court where two or more of the justices were picked by Al Gore might have ruled differently on Citizens United, for starters.)
Then again, if Al Gore were president during 9/11, he likely would have been impeached and removed as the GOP/Media Complex would have spearheaded a drive to do to him what they couldn’t do to Bill Clinton. (But also then again, there’s a good chance verging on likelihood that 9/11 could have been prevented under Gore’s watch, as he would have been reading and heeding his Presidential Daily Briefings.)
I haven’t personally seen Democrats out there campaigning for cuts to Social Security. I mean, honestly, some people say conservatives have a problem with epistemic closure, but some people on FDL could give them a run for their money.
I don’t accept your framing. It is not about punishing Dems, it is about not rewarding bad behavior.
Giving your dog a treat every time he craps on the rug and hoping he’ll start going outside to relieve himself is one more definition of insanity.
Actually, HCR is really the only thing on which Grijalva’s fallen down, if you look at his voting record. It’s just that it’s a particularly big deal.
It’s okay to be vigilant, but corrosive cynicism is what Republicans and corporatists count on from progressives; they love it when we don’t vote or vote third party in a first-past-the-post system. (It’s why they hate things like “motor voter” and love things like requiring photo ID at polling places.)
You misunderstood or are intentionally distorting my comment.
I didn’t say they were campaigning on the issue, they’re not. They have appointed a Catfood Commission to study how to cut Social Security benefits and members of the party have frequently made statements reinforcing the erroneous concept that Social Security is broken and must be reduced to be sustainable. At the same time they have laid the groundwork for a lame-duck Congress to pass the Commission’s recommendations.
Tell that to Ralph Nader’s nephew:
Considering that Nader ran again in 2004 and 2008, and will likely run again in 2012 if he’s still alive, he hasn’t moved from that stance of wanting to see Republicans win even though — or maybe precisely because — it hurts poor and working-class people, blacks, and in fact most Americans:
It’s not a matter of framing, it’s a matter of reality. Republicans love it when we don’t vote, or vote third party. Why else do you think they do everything they can to make voter registration difficult? Why else do they give millions to third-party groups in a first-past-the-post system? Think they’d be doing things like running the Pennsylvania Green Party if IRV were the law of the land?
Well put ratfood, the democrats are campaigning on saving S.S. They plan on killing the patient to save medical costs. It will be very easy for them to pass extending the age before retirement for anybody under 50. That way they don’t piss off the current seniors.
That reminds me: If Nader was really interested in the Green Party (in particular the ASGP, under whose banner he ran) as anything other than a vehicle for his own plans, why didn’t he let them have the leftover money from his 2000 campaign?
First of all this myth that Repuplicans were the ones that funded Naders campaign is silly and not true. Democrats gave 10:1 the amount of money to Nader. Pheonix Woman I suggest you watch the documentary “Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man” The list of legislation that he got through Congress was nothing short of amazing, even as the democratic leadership worked against him.
Working as a treasurer on a couple campaigns I know there are lots of reasons why a candidate will keep money in the bank. There are certain rules that allow you to roll money into different races. You should ask the democrats the same thing.
You’re right, I suppose I only meant that it isn’t about punishing Dems for me personally, which isn’t really pertinent since I represent a demographic of one:). I’ll concede that to at least SOME of the people who stay home or vote third-party it IS about punishing Dems.
I still think blaming Nader voters for Gore’s failure to run an effective campaign or claim the office he had rightfully won is unfair. Granted Nader is a self-serving asshole but his tiny percentage of votes would not have been a factor if Gore and Kerry had not run pathetic campaigns and in the case of Gore at least, selected a horrible running mate.
At the risk of opening myself to charges of hypocrisy, as disgusted as I am with the Democratic Party, I still believe Dems are the best candidates in my local elections. I might even vote for the Dem candidate for Congress although in my district it is merely a symbolic gesture of protest against the entrenched Republican.
thanks ‘snap, rec. !
I’m with Phoenix Woman on Grijalva’s credibility – I still think he’s the real deal
and sadly, we disagree on whether they will cut it or not. I believe that train has already left the station and is heading straight for us
recommending everyone take a peek at Dean Baker’s post from last night. frankly, it’s what Jane has been saying since 2/09. sigh – I still can’t get my head around how they’re going to finesse cutting benefits to the lower middle class folks in Oszag’s sights, but it’s pretty clear the fierce pragmatists will be telling us to stfu ”cause the poor got an increase !’
I welcome any cogent refutation of same
Ian Welsh answered the point that Congress won’t cut SS because it’s too popular pretty well. This Congress is too corrupt to care what we think. That’s what the last few years have demonstrated pretty thoroughly, I think.
BTW, if enough progressives don’t vote for these corrupt incumbents, they’ll matter. Contrary to what some commenters are either inferring or implying, that’s an effective way of fighting. It’s only when we give them our votes despite having done nothing that we sent them there to do that we’re surrendering.
I’m inclined to separate Nader the consumer advocate from Nader the candidate. In the first category his actions were often laudable, in the second inconsequential (Gore STILL won, not Naders fault if his post-election legal team sucked and the Supremes were stacked against him).
This from a Ralph Nader article in The Nation before the 2008 elections. I think it is safe to say he was 100% right!!
Here is the link to the article. Ralph Nader
He’s right, although his own candidacy never represented a viable alternative.
I wish I knew the answer. At the state (in Illinois at least) and national level I believe the Democratic Party is beyond redemption. Unfortunately, while the major parties suck at representing the interests of the American people they are masters at protecting their turf.
I think he was not a viable alternative becasue people vote with their emotions and not on policy. See “Hopy Changey” If people voted on pure platform the Green Party and Nader would win going away every time. A side by side comparison of the Party platorms shows they are quite different.
Making voters believe they must choose between Dems or Republicans is one of the methods the parties use to protect their turf. Perhaps more importantly though, the legal hurdles preventing third party challengers from getting on ballots. Every state has different deadlines, requirements, etc..
Nearly impossible for parties lacking the enormous infrastructure of the Dems and Republicans to jump through all the hoops.
That’s a very important point – the people who criticize Gore for not taking the fight further than he did are, in effect, admitting that Nader didn’t get enough votes to be able to claim to have caused Gore’s defeat. Voter suppression efforts could just as readily be blamed, as could, I suppose, butterfly ballots. If Nader had received ten percent of the vote, instead of 2.7 percent (or thereabouts), progressives could have claimed to have mattered, because there would have been no way Gore could have won much of anything.
The question about whether or not to vote, or to write in a candidate, depends on the voter’s choices in their particular state and district. I would definitely turn out to vote for Russ Feingold, but I do not live in Wisconsin. There is no senate race in my state this year and in my district we have a conservadem who voted against the stimulus and keeps getting all worked up about the deficit, although he never saw a war-funding bill he didn’t like. This is the guy I am repeatedly told to go out and vote for.
This is what it says about social security on his website:
Could anything be more clear? My husband and I will be eligible for social security in a few years. Our retirement portfolio has taken a hit and the house we own free and clear is worth 30% less than it was worth two years ago.
I am amused that some people here think I should go out and cast a vote for a man I know will vote to cut the amount my husband and I, and later my children, will receive from social security. Things are really at a sorry pass in this country when intelligent people tell us to do ridiculous things. I have stopped voting for anyone, just because they claim they are a Democrat.
Either Nader wrecked the election for Gore, or Bush stole the election. You can’t have it both ways.
The mental association of the word “Democrat” with the party’s populist past appears too strong for many people to break.
I haven’t seen Dems campaigning for social security not to be cut….
just say’n….
Yes, even here.
Why blame Nader?
I once had a girlfriend who broke up with me due to the fact that I was so engrossedd in persuing my musical career at the time that I didn’t pay her much if any attention. She stuck with me for a few months trying in vain to get me to pay heed to her warnings. When she dumped me, I was sad, but I certainly didn’t ( nor do I ) blame her for leaving me. I didn’t satisfy her needs, so she went elsewhere.
The same is true here. You’d have to be a total idiot to blame people for not wanting to vote for someone who doesn’t seem to give a shit about them.
It is complete BULLSHIT to blame Nader voters for George W. Bush. Had every other voter in the country acted in the same way we did, Bush wouldn’t have won a single state. The only way possible for him to win any state was for OTHER PEOPLE to take OTHER ACTIONS. That makes W’s victory their fault BY DEFINITION. If an act I do can’t possibly lead to an outcome, you can’t possibly blame me for that outcome. Well, you can, but you’d be wrong.
If you read PhoenixWoman’s contributions to various other threads on this issue, you will note her contempt for Nader and the folks who voted for him in 2000. She’s not quite the same as the typical Democratic partisan you find on DailyKOS when it comes to Nader, but similar in many respects.
While I disagree with PW on the significance of the Nader candidacy in 2000 or 2004 she is a tireless advocate for genuine progressive causes and even takes the fight to the hostile borg-like denizens of forums such as Daily Kos.
I applaud her work and believe that any criticism which is not limited to a specific opinion pertaining to specific issues is unfounded.
You will note that I said, “She’s not quite the same as the typical Democratic partisan you find on DailyKOS when it comes to Nader, but similar in many respects.” If you want me to provide specific examples of her frequent repetition of this ‘Nader-and-third-parties-are-Republican-sleepers’ meme, I would be happy to oblige.
Edit:
Incidentally, that she relentlessly pushes this narrative does not annoy me so much as the fact that when I have responded to her claim (and its various forms) with evidence to the contrary, she simply ignores it and repeats the claim at the next semi-relevant moment. That kind of behavior most resembles what I observe on DailyKOS, which is why I made the reference.
Awkward phrasing. On the first attempt I interpreted it as suggesting she is similar in many respects apart from her opinion of Nader but anyway, thanks for the clarification.
No examples necessary, I’ve heard her beat the Nader drum often, can even recall one unfortunate instance when it was coupled with a Hitler analogy.
I’ve been trying to come up with some foolproof, on-point resolution language that would pass “privilege” muster – but I keep running into the cold, hard reality that a critical ingredient for such a resolution to be proffered (never mind to succeed) is the involvement and leadership of member(s) of the House committed to institutional reform, regardless of Party – and I see nary a one in sight on the Democratic side of the ledger, so long as their Party remains in power (even with minority status now potentially looming in the near future). Such an attempt at reform (even if only for publicity and vote-recording purposes, without much hope of success) necessarily involves bucking the concentrated power of Party leadership – which prefers things just the way they are, thank you very much.
I think, although it’s hard to be sure (especially if Republicans see themselves as the likely majority in the next Congress), that Democrats could get a significant number of Republicans to vote for a pre-election resolution focused on reform of the practices of the House Rules Committee (which means reform of the practices of the Speaker), in tandem with a call to keep hands off earned Social Security benefits.
However, such reform, offered as a privileged resolution, must not be an actual rule change – so the wording would presumably be more in the way of a (non-binding) Sense of the House about how Special Rules should be clearly and transparently worded – which the Special Rule that passed the early July war supplemental in tandem with the Catfood Commission “Sense of the House,” in further tandem with a form of budget resolution, etc., was anything but. [Rep. Alan Grayson, writing at HuffingtonPost after the vote: "There Ought to Be a Rule Against This Kind of Rule."] That, I think, would reach the necessary “privilege” threshold and allow the resolution to then rescind or carefully reword the “Sense of the House” language about voting on future Catfood Commission recommendations, which was deceptively included and passed as part of House Resolution 1493 in that July Special Rule:
There’s also a more Party-centric approach to a privileged resolution – which would perhaps appeal to Democratic self-styled fiscal hawks – as a possibility, because the Democratic Caucus in the House has, or had quite recently, some sort of “rule” (though obviously it’s a private organization and not a function of the House) that should have applied to the final, late-July, suspended-rule-passage (by a two-thirds majority, with limited debate) of the latest war supplemental:
That “emergency” war supplemental legislation – H.R. 4899 – appropriated tens of BILLIONS of dollars, and was passed on July 27, 2010 under suspension of the rules (something that’s usually reserved for “uncontroversial” measures, needing little debate or amendment, like naming post offices):
So if that Democratic Caucus “rule” still stands, the Speaker and Democratic Caucus apparently openly violated it in July – which may or may not be a valid subject for a privileged House resolution.
Any member of the House could write and offer a reform-minded resolution to at least force a pre-election roll-call vote (instead of merely issuing press releases or empty threats, as Rep. Grijalva and his Progressive Caucus seem to be doing). It would involve careful drafting to make powerful, non-partisan points in the form of a legitimate privileged resolution [meaning it addresses questions "affecting the rights of the House collectively, its safety, dignity, and the integrity of its proceedings"], as partly sketched out below – and could focus on whatever the Representative felt most strongly about and could legitimately link to the Obama Deficit Commission threat to Social Security and the House-passed “sense” that it “should” vote on whatever that commission’s (unamendable) recommendations may be:
But there’s obviously only so much that outsiders can do, without any help from the inside…
i’ll agree with you on this. I find myself nodding while reading many of the things she’s written here and at DKos. However, this particular stance is pretty unfortunate and caustic. No one owns my vote but me. If the dem’s can’t earn it, it’s their ****ing fault ( and considering how low the bar is usually set for them, that they can’t earn it at this point is pretty ****ing telling ).
For many people it appears being the lesser of evils is sufficient justification to vote for Democrats. It worked with me for thirty years even as the margin by which they constitute a lesser evil became increasingly indiscernable.
It might even motivate me today were it not for the fact that Obama and other Dem leaders are so openly contemptuous of the Left and (it would seem) every American with less than a seven figure income.
Democrats voted to cut food stamps to provide some token funding for education… in an election year! It staggers the imagination.
the Ds apparently have no imagination. — just sickening.
The Capitol appears to employ some mechanism which renders it impervious to altruism.
They’re called “campaign donations”
Maybe it was all those sweet, retired women who punched their butterfly ballots for Pat Buchanan :)
Speaking just for myself, I’m tired of people riffing on Nader and Nader voters in 2000 (and on third party voters this election). Nader is a very intelligent man, and furthermore, people are free to vote for whomever they choose and for whatever reasons they choose. As I recall, Gore didn’t fight very hard for a recount, either.
If Republicans win a majority in the House or the Senate or both in November, I think Obama will face strong headwinds if he gives them what they want as he looks toward 2012. It’s going to take some eleventy-twoty dimensional chess to be “bipartisan” with the wingers and the corporate Republican majority and still try to pull off his re-election.
Thanks for applying your intellect here, and sharing those links. Maybe one of them will see it.
No, the conclusion is that the CPC will cave and everyone knows it. Therefore, progressive Democrats are ineffective advocates for you and me.
Thanks for posting your terrific diary yellowsnapdragon. :)
Grijalva’s betrayal was brutal. Losing him on that vote probably caused another 5-10 losses that wouldn’t have been even attempted on other issues.
Thank you for reading and commenting, ratfood. I don’t diary much but Grijalva really got my back up.
hope you don’t mind, but I copied and tweeted your comment to Jane
Thanks, cbl2. That’ll save me from reposting it, in case Jane missed it, in her next Social Security-themed thread (since the comment is a follow-up/elaboration on privileged resolutions in response to points that she raised in her Bob Shrum post/thread).
It occurs to me that I should probably comprehensively elaborate for the record on the confusing House votes in July on the war supplemental and on the “arcane and baroque” Special Rule that caused so much confusion among Representatives and others at the time.
If it appears from my comment @ 51 that there were two House votes in July on the same “emergency” war funding appropriation, that’s because there were.
The first supplemental vote (on July 1) occurred pursuant to the notorious Special Rule. [The Rules Committee website erroneously indicates that the Special Rule was adopted by that committee on July 3rd, after the July 1 floor vote on both the Special Rule and the supplemental itself.] The second supplemental vote (on July 27) involved passage by suspension of the regular rules of procedure in the House (and thus avoided the need for a Special Rule from the Rules Committee for floor consideration this time around, which almost never happens on substantive legislation).
The second House war supplemental vote in the same month came about when the “arcane and baroque” Special Rule that passed July 1, followed by a subsequent floor amendment, forced an education-funding amendment (opposed by Obama but promoted by Dave Obey) onto the July 1 House version of the war spending bill – an education amendment that the Senate subsequently refused to adopt. The House then obediently re-adopted – by a two-thirds majority, with minimal debate, and no amending, under suspension of the rules (out of calendar order) – the education amendment-stripped version of the war supplemental that the Senate had returned to the House.
The Rules Committee summary of that (Senate-blocked) education-funding amendment reads:
———————————————————————————————————————————-
As for the details of the “arcane and baroque” Special Rule, concocted by Speaker Pelosi and Dave Obey, that Representative Grayson condemned with those words in a blog post after it had passed on July 1, 215-210, this is what it did:
1. The entire amount ($33 billion or so) of supplemental war funding was sent to the House in a Senate-passed amendment to an earlier House “disaster relief and summer jobs” version of the emergency, off-budget supplemental, and was described (obscured…) this way by the House Rules Committee, in its voice vote-approved Special Rule [H. Res. 1500] providing for renewed floor consideration of the emergency supplemental (emphasis added):
In other words, upon approval by the House, as a whole, of this House Rules Committee Special Rule (ordered up by the Speaker of the House, working with Obey), passage of any of five amendments to the supplemental (the only amendments permitted a floor vote by the Rules Committee) would automatically pass the war-funding Senate amendment along with it. Except that, as the Special Rule goes on to specify, if only the first amendment (of five) was adopted by the House in response to Rep. Obey’s motion to concur in the Senate amendment (a motion that was, per the Special Rule, automatically embedded in each of five amendments, including the one “striking” military funding for Afghanistan from the bill…), final passage (of that first amendment) would be deemed to have been rejected, and “no disposition” of the Senate’s separate war-funding amendment would be deemed to have occurred:
Furthermore, the first House amendment (only) was to be ‘self-executed’ by passage of the Special Rule ["The first portion of the divided question shall be considered as adopted"]. In other words, it would get no separate floor vote, and instead passage of the Special Rule would automatically adopt the first amendment, the summary of which reads:
[I believe that this amendment was also stripped by the Senate before final passage of the war supplemental. Note that the education-funding amendment was House Amendment #2, and was the only other floor amendment that passed the House (thus House Amendments 1 & 2 both passed the House on July 1). The three House amendments (#3, #4, & #5) putting at least some slight leash on the unchecked deployments of our military abroad all failed to pass in the Democratic House.]
2. Importantly, also ‘self-executing’ upon passage of the Special Rule was House Resolution 1493, which was introduced just the day before the Rules Committee included it in this Special Rule, by John Spratt, Chairman of the House Budget Committee ["Provides that House Resolution 1493 is hereby adopted"]. That Special Rule-executed resolution included the Catfood Commission “Sense of the House” language partly excerpted above @ 51, as well as budget language, beginning:
3. A House rules change [amending Clause 10(a) of rule XXI, regarding how deficit spending is calculated - "Amends the time periods in clause 10 of rule XXI to align with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010"] was included in the Special Rule via its Section 5, and also automatically passed when the Special Rule was adopted, 215-210, on July 1, 2010.
So that July 1 House-passed Special Rule obviously had much, much more in it than just a specified time for (limited) floor debate of the emergency supplemental, plus a list of permitted floor amendments. It ‘self-executed’ three-four important House measures without separate floor votes or debate on any, and disguised the passage of $33 billion in additional deficit spending on war, to the best of its ability.
If there isn’t a single Democratic Member of the House prepared to file a pre-election privileged resolution in the name of good government, to repudiate such deceptive practices and abuses of procedure by the House Speaker and Rules Committee, especially from among those expressing public outrage about hostile leaks from the Obama Deficit Commission targeting Social Security, well…to say the least, we should hear not a murmur from the Democratic Caucus when it finds itself subjected to similar abuses under a future Republican majority.