A few days ago I wrote a diary pointing out that Barack Obama's failed attempt to reach out to Republicans for bi-partisan support was not the end of the world. Obama obviously had a "plan B" that I characterized as a trap that Obama was busily closing on the Republicans. I feel like the passage of a stimulus bill by the Senate the same day and the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Obama's road trip in support of the stimulus bill bears out my analysis. Barack Obama has sufficient political power to pass a stimulus bill over the heads of the obstructionist Republicans.
The stimulus bill, having been passed by both the Senate and the House, went to conference committee. The conference committee turned the bill around in an incredibly short amount of time, though there were some hiccups in the announcement of its approval by the House and Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seemed to jump the gun on Nancy Pelosi, and may have stepped on some toes, but not in a way that would seriously impede the progress of this important legislation. But the stimulus bill's progress in Congress has sparked rancorous attacks on the president by so-called "progressive Democrats." Is there any merit to this attack? Has Barack Obama slighted progressive Democrats?
Here are some things I'd like you to keep in mind as we discuss these issues. The legislative process is a messy one. Moving proposed legislation from House committee and getting a vote on the House floor is more complicated than most casual observers understand. Passing legislation in the Senate, with its complicated--even cryptic--rules can be even more difficult. Then too, the executive also has the opportunity to weigh in with its veto power. A great law with a lot of support, both in Congress and in the population at large, can take years to pass. Take the example of the SCHIP expansion--that was a long, painful process spanning years. The passage of the stimulus bill has been, by comparison, relatively painless. So why has the stimulus bill--a bill which will likely become law less than four weeks after its introduction--sparked such over-the-top, overwrought, and emotional opposition on Daily Kos?
I think the answer may lie in a lack of understanding about the legislative process and how legislative power is created and used. In my last post I briefly referred to the art of vote counting. Vote counting is the art of knowing how members of Congress will vote on a given piece of legislation before they are called upon to vote on it. Even better, a good vote counter will know why a certain member of Congress supports or opposes legislation and how they can change that vote by changing certain aspects of the legislation. A member of Congress that introduces legislation that has no chance of passage is spinning his or her wheels. Politics is the art of the possible and an effective legislator always keeps in mind what he or she has the votes to achieve and what he or she lacks the power to do.
Keeping these concepts in mind, let's consider the progress of the stimulus bill and the accusations it has sparked against the president.
The first draft of the stimulus bill was introduced in the House of Representatives. This version of the bill was written by the leadership of the House, including Nancy Pelosi, someone I would certainly characterize as a progressive Democrat. This version of the bill was criticized for having too much spending directed towards so-called "pet projects" supported by powerful Democratic House members and subsequently underwent many changes meant to make it more palatable to Republicans. These changes were fruitless, as the Republicans members of the House refused to support the bill and unanimously voted against it. They were joined by eleven fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats who expressed concern that too much of the spending in the bill was geared towards short term pet projects and not long term infrastructure. Nevertheless, due to the large Democratic majority in the House, the bill passed easily.
The next version of the bill to be considered was the Senate bill. It is in the creation and amendment of the Senate version of the bill that the importance of vote counting is most effectively illustrated. First, you must understand a key Senate rule designed to protect the political minority from being overrun. The U.S. Senate allows unlimited debate on any proposed legislation. Senators that oppose a bill can effectively stall it by extending debate indefinitely. To balance this rule of unlimited debate, the Senate has another rule that allows it to vote to limit or end debate. This is called "cloture", and to impose cloture the supporters of a bill must have sixty Senators willing to vote for cloture.
Now that we understand unlimited debate and cloture, lets count our votes and see what they tell us. At the beginning of the consideration of the Senate stimulus bill Harry Reid and President Obama had fifty-six Democrats, one Socialist (Bernie Sanders of Vermont) and one Liebocrat (Joe Liebermann of Connecticut) all solidly behind the passage of a stimulus bill--a total of fifty-eight votes: two short of the sixty he needed to impose cloture. A fifty-ninth vote, Al Franken, is still hung up in Minnesota, as Norm Coleman contests his electoral defeat in court. Further, it should be pointed out that the health of one of the Democrats, Ted Kennedy, is not the best; it was distinctly possible that Senator Kennedy might not be available on the day when the critical vote was made. This meant that Reid and Obama needed at least two Republicans, and really needed three in order to be really safe. Reid knew it, Obama knew it, and so did the Republicans.
Three Republican Senators would have to be peeled off and deal cut with them. Three willing Republicans were found, Snowe and Collins of deep blue Maine, and Specter, senior Senator from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is among the worst hit states in the current economic crisis and is in dire need of stimulus. Specter is up for re-election in 2010, and was ripe for the picking when Reid and Obama went looking for cross-overs. But these cross-overs were able to extract a price for their votes: the ability to do a serious rewrite on the stimulus package. The rewrite completed, compromise achieved, Reid was able to impose cloture and then get a vote on the stimulus. In the event, Ted Kennedy was well enough to vote, and the stimulus passed with 61 votes in the Senate.
Next, the stimulus went to a conference committee to reconcile the differences between the two versions of the stimulus bill from the House and Senate. In the course of its deliberations, the conference committee had to give first consideration to the three Republican crossovers. If the conference committee made changes to the bill that caused Snowe, Collins and Specter to back out, then the stimulus would fail. Did this result in some things that were wanted by more liberal Democrats being traded away? Almost certainly, but everyone involved in the process knew that going in. Starting with only fifty-eight votes, the compromises made with the three Republican crossovers were key to the passage of the bill. Remarkably, the bill went through conference with great speed, agreement being announced (perhaps somewhat prematurely) last night. At that point, key parts of the bill were still notes on bits of notebook paper. As I write this, the full written text of the bill is being prepared by congressional staffers. The next step will be for the bill to go back to the floor of the House and Senate to be voted on. If it passes both House and Senate, then it will go to Barack Obama for his signature on February 16th, the Presidents' Day goal set by President Obama.
Seen in this light--and compared to a bill like the expansion of SCHIP--I think it can be seen that the stimulus has proceeded very rapidly with relatively few snags. The "drama" of the crossover of three Republicans was not only predictable, it was absolutely necessary.
So, were progressive Democrats--specifically those in the House of Representative--cut out of the process, as some would suggest, or did they have their appropriate share of input at an appropriate time that corresponded with their role in the process of producing this legislation?
I would argue that progressives were amply represented in this process. Did the Republicans win tiny tactical victories at certain points in the process? Of course they did. Collins, Snowe, and Specter became the indispensable element when they crossed over and were able to extract a price--but that price was always going to have to be paid to some two or three Republicans, because without them there would have been no cloture vote in the Senate.
Does the fact that certain progressive items within the stimulus were cut out mean that progressives were slighted?
I don't think so. The fact that certain parts of the bill were dropped n order to court key Republican Senators was not a calculated snub to progressive Democrats, as some have suggested. In many cases, certain items were included in the bill that simply did not have sufficient support going in. Many of these items, like the section on contraception, probably should not have been included in the bill. If the individuals who proposed these sections had done a hard-eyed vote counting analysis, they would have realized they were loading the bill down with items that would impede its passage. I think they made the mistake of thinking that this was an opportunity for a kind of log-rolling. What the failed to recognize is that there wasn't enough in the bill for Republicans for any kind of trade to be made.
Closing thoughts. There have been a lot of unnecessarily inflammatory posts recently aimed at the President and his supporters as we've moved forward through process of the stimulus bill. The source of many of these attacks seems to be rooted in the idea that liberal or progressive Democrats were somehow unfairly slighted in the process of passing the stimulus bill. I have tried to lay out a brief summary of that process to demonstrate that there was no such targeting and to further make the point that some measure of compromise was always going to be necessary in order to obtain the necessary Republican votes in the Senate. While I support and respect the right of individuals to make themselves heard, especially when they feel that their beliefs are being trampled upon. But I also believe that some of these responses have been excessive and disrespectful in their tone and in the unfounded accusations they have made towards other Democrats, progressives, and liberals.
I respectfully hope we can regain in some measure the unity and joint sense of purpose that we shared during the election and during the days, weeks, months, and years when we were fighting to regain control of our nation from the criminal Bush regime.