Two evenings ago, Jane Hamsher sent me a somewhat cryptic email. "Mike," she wrote, "are you around? may have a job for you."
I had been out with my kids, so I didn’t see the mail right away, but when I did, it didn’t matter how late it was. At first, I tried email: "wathya got?" Less than one minute later, "I’ll call – two minutes..." (I needed to find my phone).
The thing is, when Jane Hamsher calls, it’s always a good thing. You move quickly.
(flip)
I reached her within minutes, and, as I thought, her idea was exactly the type of thing I live to do. She asked me to go to Capitol Hill and ask progressive caucus members to pledge to uphold the principles they espoused in a letter the caucus sent to Democratic leadership. Namely, FDL Action wants a promise from the caucus members that they will not cave to political pressure and give away the store to insurance companies... we want guarantees that whatever passes will contain a robust public plan that:
- be available to everyone, everywhere, employers and individuals alike;
- be available imemdiately;
- guarantee government bargaining power; and
- be accountable to Congress and the voters.
The next day (yesterday as it happened), I was on the Hill.
As much as many of us love our progressive Congressman or Congresswoman (if we’re fortunate enough to have one), I’m here to report that these folks need adult supervision. It’s simply not enough to cast a vote, watch the returns, and celebrate your win. They may have whispered all sorts of seductive sweet nothings into your ear as a candidate, but don’t let yourself be fooled: Once they get to DC, the entire game has changed. It’s kind of like when an obscure comedian hits it big and becomes a Hollywood star... They dump their old girlfriend, abandon their old Chevy, hang out with new glittery friends and, far too often, forget all about the people that had their back while they were climbing the ladder. In politics, it’s the same thing. As a challenger, they were supported by a bunch of rag-tag ne’er-do-wells that were all about taking on "the system" and the "status-quo". As a office-holder, the representative quickly learns that they are part of the system – a system designed to crush subversives – and they are expected to defend the status-quo. Well over 90% of our former progressive champions turn into meek little lemmings on auto-pilot once leadership hands them the keys to their new offices.
With that said, there is an antidote.
It’s called public pressure.
And that is why FDL Action developed this whip tool. That is why Eve Gittleson has committed her entire waking life to innovating new ways of breaking the hammerlock the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies have on Congress. And that is why there is no way I was going to say "no" to whatever it was FDL Action asked me to do.
So what happened?
Well, I’ll let the videos speak for themselves.
Meet Jim. Jim who? Jim I Don’t Know, But I Wish He’da Told Me.
Update [2009-7-10 16:51:13 by Mike Stark]: From the comments, this looks like Jim Costa, a Blue Dog from California.
If any of you know who this guy is, please share with the rest of us. As far as the substance goes, this is exactly the kind of jellyfish sequence I saw repeated over and over again: lawmakers refuse to commit to anything, especially while on camera. I suspect they fear two things.
First, they are concerned leadership may whip a certain bill that falls short of our demands. They don’t need some video in a bunch of activist hands (activists that have run ads against Democrats) that commits them to anything. After all, they never know when leadership is going to make them an offer they cannot refuse. And it’d simply be awful to lose that seat on the Appropriations Committee... A few people die, but hey... this is Washington; that’s just the price of playing the game.
A second motivator is the lobbies themselves. Ask any pol and you’ll hear that the absolute worst thing about their job is the necessity of raising money. So it’s nice to be able to call a lobbyist and ask them to raise $10 or $50K for you at a single event. They’ll never admit as much, but they must weigh how much campaign cash they want to extract from Pfizer and Kaiser-Permanente knowing that the amount will be a lot lower if they’re committed to voting for a bill that stands up for you and I, even at the cost of corporate profits...
With all of that said, there is a special place in hell reserved for folks like Joe Courtney (D-CT02) that refuse to give their name:
Who is providing Courtney and his family with sterling health care? Uh, yeah... that’d be us. I think we should remind him of that from time to time, don’t you?
Update [2009-7-10 16:51:13 by Mike Stark]: Ah, the perils of blogging. I just go an email from reputable CT source... Seems Courtney has promised not to accept gov't provided insurance until universal health care is passed. That changes things a bit, but not much. He's almost certainly using his paycheck to purchase a plan. And there is no excuse for this kind of accountability dodge. Moreover, I'm told that Courtney's been a bit annoyed at all the public pressure that's been raining down upon his office. Looks like we're doing something right.
From there, we’ve got a coupla folks that will actually man-up and tell us who they are, but won’t go much further. Behold! Boccieri (D, OH-16):
Continuing on our path of progress, I met up with Reps. Butterfield (D, NC-01), Cohen (D, TN-09) and Yarmuth (D, KY-03). They still refuse to make (or re-make) a promise, but they are at least willing to embrace strong principles:
Finally, we get to the explicit, unadorned and unabashed, truly courageous, damn the insurance companies to hell fighting progressive... I present Emanuel Cleaver (D, MO-5).
One cautionary note for those of you that may be tempted to venture forth with your own video cameras... There are monsters on the Hill – you need to be prepared: