#58: This is What We Will Do to Take Back the Senate

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends, if you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

It was a week after the November 2018 election when the extent of the victory by the resistance became clear. There was a stunning increase in voter turnout compared to other non-presidential years. Democratic inroads in the suburbs were significant. And thus we won back 40 seats and flipped the House.

There was nothing accidental about any of this. It required unprecedented grass roots campaign activity and financial support. It included dozens of excellent candidates stepping forward who had never intended to run for office and who were motivated by Donald Trump.

Now it falls to all of us to duplicate or even expand on that massive effort and take back the Senate on November 3, 2020. This matters hugely because the Senate provides the sole review of numerous Presidential appointments, including those to the Cabinet and to the Supreme Court. As we know the Supreme Court nomination process puts Roe v. Wade itself at risk. It is not inevitable that it will be overturned, but the very real risk of losing this constitutional guarantee entirely underscores that we must have the Senate majority when Steven Breyer or Ruth Bader Ginsburg retire. The Senate also has extra importance because it has played a more pronounced role than the House in protecting alliances abroad, which Donald Trump has been intent on eviscerating.

Although Doug Jones of Alabama may be the only Democratic Senator who will face re-election problems, Republicans could launch major challenges to Tina Smith in Minnesota and Gary Peters in Michigan. In contrast, there are many states in which Republican Senators are vulnerable. Democrats think they can unseat Cory Gardner in Colorado, Martha McSally in Arizona (where Gabby Giffords’ husband, astronaut Marc Kelly, may run), Susan Collins in Maine, and Thom Tillis in North Carolina. They are eager to challenge Joni Ernst in Iowa, Dan Sullivan in Alaska, David Perdue in Georgia (where Stacey Abrams may run) and Steve Daines in Montana. They may also compete for the seat in Tennessee that will be vacant after the retirement of Republican Lamar Alexander.

That adds up to nine races. Remember how exhilarated you felt after we flipped the House? You can experience that feeling again in less than two years! Beyond these nine, the number of other races which will be competitive depends upon how Donald Trump does between now and then, and how hard we all work. Given that Trump needs to face Mueller and given his shutdown-slip in the polls, we can anticipate a favorable electoral climate. We also fully understand that we must generate massive candidate support. With these motivations, it would behoove this movement to dive into the nine races above, and at the minimum, these three additional states:

• Kansas has a vacant seat due to the impending retirement of Pat Roberts. Democrats are fresh from winning the governorship and a Congressional seat in the Kansas City area, and believe they have a solid chance.

• Republican John Cornyn will likely seek re-election in Texas. Demographics will continue to drive the state toward Democrats. Will Beto O’Rourke be the Democratic candidate?

• How can one not campaign in Kentucky against the soulless service and Trump-tolerating Mitch McConnell? 

We must understand that winning a Senate campaign has notable differences from taking back the Presidency, which is more about national media and less about local organizing. Happily, these Senate races will be a bit more like super-sized House campaigns, for which our postcards, doorbelling, millions of small contributions, voter registration and other ongoing obsessions carried the day.

In the next year, these Senate Republicans will have numerous opportunities to pull away from Trump, or in the alternative to defend the indefensible. It was a recent encouraging sign when eleven Republican Senators challenged the Trump administration, voting to block the removal of sanctions from an oligarch colleague of Putin. Four of these votes came from the politically vulnerable Collins, Daines, Gardner and McSally. But it was more of a shadow of courage, rather than a profile, since they and Mitch McConnell knew all along that they would need 13 Republican votes to help the Democrats prevail. That is, McConnell consented to his caucus members voting their conscience, but would not have been their sweet-hearted uncle if they had found two more votes. The whole episode had value only as a signal of future possibilities.

We must carefully watch the upcoming opportunities for Republicans to either distance themselves from Trump or otherwise be held accountable for not doing so. The first pertains to the theatrics of the budget showdown. The little considered fact is that in December, Republicans in the Senate joined Democrats in passing by voice vote the same set of budget proposals that they now argue are evidence of Schumer’s and Pelosi’s intransigence. These budget proposals would have become law without any shutdown if Trump hadn’t turned on FOX-TV to hear the criticism of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. So why can’t these Republicans figure out that they were right the first time?

There will be at least two other votes in 2019 that will tell a tale about vulnerable Republican senators. First the Democratic House will send over to the Senate a bill that solidifies protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. These Affordable Care Act guarantees have been diminished by Trump and the Republican Congress. Second, Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues will figure out a way for the Senate to have to vote on at least modest steps to respond to climate change. This will handily provide each Republican a chance to recognize the existence of the greatest environmental challenge now faced by humankind.

While the government is closed down, let’s work to change government. Taking back the Senate would be nothing but an excellent thing to do. It depends upon our efforts now, not just a year from this fall. Let’s pretend that it is later than it is, so that it never becomes too late.

1) Making Certain People Can Vote in 2020
	There are all sorts of ways in which election laws and rules can diminish and distort the vote. This is one place where vigilance is the price of liberty. Left on their own, state legislatures can throw up new voting roadblocks. The most pernicious of these are voter ID laws. 35 states require the voter to have some sort of identification. The strictest requirement (a photo ID with little or no option) is in force in six states, and can suppress the vote by as much as 10%. The National Conference of State Legislatures details where there are new voter ID efforts.  Other ways to suppress the vote include reducing polling hours or limiting the use of mail ballots. In the face of such threats, Democrats have proposed all-mail ballots and to confront turn-out at an earlier stage, automatic voter registration. Find out what is happening. As all 50 legislatures head into session, it would be good for you to know whether such organizations with local affiliates as the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union have an active voting law agenda in your state legislature. You can ask them, or write to your state representative. Another way to find out would be to write the chair or executive director of your state’s Democratic Party. Their answer will provide insight regarding what is going on in the area of voting rights and it will give you a hint as to whether the state party is sleepy or spirited.
2) Understanding the Value of Early Investment
	Grass roots contributions from across the country played an indispensable role in the 2016 elections. We stepped away from our previous time-honored tendencies to underfund our candidates. The instruments are already set up so that we can choose the most promising 2020 Senate races (see above) and invest early in our candidate. The funds go into an Act Blue “district account” that will be transferred to the candidate when she or he is nominated. Act Blue has proven itself to be an effective low cost online funding intermediary. In this case, they have selected the nine races targeted above, and are also seeking funding for four Democratic incumbents. They allow us to pick and choose rather than prescribing a single bundle. Early money is like yeast.
3) Making Food Available to Those Who Need to Eat
	We should be pleased and proud that food banks across America are providing groceries to federal employees who have now missed two paychecks. This is an additional load for these food banks, all of whom already have numerous clients who have employment problems even more serious than those who have Donald Trump as their titular boss. It’s a perfect time to donate food to your local food bank through the systems they have established. You are saying something to Trump and to America by making sure these shelves are filled, and thus are accessible to laid-off workers, and to other hungry people who live in a country that needs to pay more attention.

Well, at least we share one sensibility with Donald Trump. Accounts are that he had no desire or intention to be president, evidenced by the fact that he had no true transition team and underscored by his efforts to create Trump Tower Moscow up until the end of the campaign. For our part, we had no intention or desire for him to be president either… We will get this all done, celebrate when he is out of office, and make certain something like this does not happen again.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#57: Let's Guide the Most Diverse Congress Ever

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends, if you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

Donald Trump has asked why his accomplishments of the past two years are not being recognized. Mr. Trump, we are not unwilling to identify the actions you can put on your ledger. For example, we do recognize that you advanced a tax law that massively increased wealth disparity. We are aware that you have severely weakened global alliances and NATO even as Baltic and Eastern European need protection from Putin. We acknowledge that you have removed the United States from the Paris accords even as climate change represents the greatest environmental threat the world has faced. We have noted that you have attacked the Justice Department countless times, apparently believing you are exempt from the rule of law. 

Donald Trump will see quickly that our taking back the House of Representatives will change the world in which he malfunctions. We are just getting started.

A lot is happening all at once. The budget showdown will end up being a huge miscalculation by Trump, the Freedom Caucus and Fox News commentators. As they continue to play to their base the rest of us will to see their base deteriorate. The Republican party continues to vanish before our eyes.

As the turbulence increases, we must be careful not to become vertiginous in our reaction to shifting political news. Nancy Pelosi and her spirited ranks would give us enough activity daily even without Trump’s tweets, firings and indictments. Hence the need for us to be able to sort out things that matter at lot from things that don’t matter quite so much.

• In the very small parade of Republicans who criticize Donald Trump, it matters who is criticizing him and what the basis of the attack is. The sincere but often politically anemic Jeff Flake and Bob Corker have left--- they have been freed to say what they want but their microphones have been taken away. But, Mitt Romney just became a Senator, and he has no worries that affronting Trump will cost him his re-election. In his surprising Washington Post op-ed, he has already signaled the prime battleground--- Trump’s disregard of Britain, Germany, France and Canada and his genuflection toward autocrats. This will give some new energy to the Republican globalists in the Senate.

• In the mass of negative press that Donald Trump deservedly gets, it matters that he is erroneously called a populist, which he is not, since a populist’s care for the common people must be authentic. It matters when the media falls into the “both sides” equivalence trap. In the budget shutdown, Republicans in both houses had agreed to bi-partisan budget compromises. Trump watched Fox-TV, got wounded by Ann Coulter, and torched the agreement that his henchmen (including Mike Pence) had already signaled he would sign. Rather than this being the news behind the budget shutdown, we get the account that the parties squabble so much that they can’t find common ground when it was surprising and commendable that they were together occupying that ground. Most of Pelosi’s package passed the Senate by voice vote in December.

• In the emergence of twenty or more Democratic presidential candidates, it matters that we remember that this winnowing of candidates is going to take 18 months. We must not get ahead of ourselves in over-assessing Elizabeth Warren’s announcement of her candidacy, since it doesn’t put her in any driver’s seat. Because Democrats don’t have “winner take all” primaries, it will be difficult for anyone to build any meaningful lead. We have sorted through a big field before (see the elections of John Kennedy-1960, Bill Clinton-1992, Barack Obama-2008) with the candidates and their supporters coming together at the end, thus enabling to take back the presidency after Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

We have 67 new members of the House of Representatives, including the 40 who flipped Republican seats. It turns out that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is not the only one who was elected! It is not a flaw that the Democratic Party has just elected “moderate” and “liberal” and “progressive” candidates, it is a strength. And, it is splendid that we have fought for and gained the most diverse Congress ever. 

We all came together to do this, and now the resistance needs to come together to make sure all this freshness and earnestness gives us some badly needed policy improvements on health care, immigration, climate change and global partnerships, among others. With Mitch McConnell controlling the Senate and Trump in the White House, we will be playing defense and will have limited opportunities to send policies in new directions.

As Pelosi considers compromises on each of these issues, we will have to sort out in which cases the much better alternative that we insist upon will prevent us from grabbing the modest gains that we can achieve. However, we must all be certain that accepting such modest gains won’t create obstacles for more significant gains after we take back the Senate and White House in 2020.

For instance, even if Democrats coalesce around some version of Medicare for All, there is no way that such a proposal will become law between now and 2020. In the meantime, we should be shoring up the Affordable Care Act, protecting people with pre-existing conditions, and showing voters that Republicans are not protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
Let’s not skip weeks or even months by watching rather than doing. Let’s take care of these three things right now.

1) Preventing Further Environment-Destroying Regulatory Changes
	Late in December, the New York Times provided a thorough, exceptional report on the damage Trump has caused the environment and human health through regulation. As discussed in previous missives, this carnage was possible because environmental statutes have traditionally given the executive branch broad leeway through rulemaking. The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) has already developed plans to use the new House majority to continue to fight the 80 rule changes that Trump and EPA have made, and to block new rules wherever possible through litigation or legislative action.  It is time to follow up with the people whose very election depended upon us. Pick one new member of Congress in who you are most invested and make certain that these matters are high on their agenda. Start by emailing the new member and then go one step further. Find out the phone number of their district (in-state) office. Call that number and ask for the email of the legislative aide who is assigned to environmental issues. In most cases they will provide it. Write that aide, cite the New York Times feature, and ask them to keep you posted on what their member of Congress expects to do.
2) Start Winning Back the Senate Today
	It is easy to forget that the early energy to take back the House came not from the shell-shocked Democratic Party, but from two organizations that emerged in late 2016--- Indivisible and Swing Left. They and other advocates were able to secure enormous financial and volunteer support for candidates, including literally millions of individual donations. In more than 80% of the House districts we flipped, our candidate was able to out-spend our opponents, and in all of the districts we worked harder than the opposition. Swing Left invented “district funds”. These collected money for candidates in targeted races well before the primaries and provided the funds immediately after the primary, giving the primary winner a great head start. In 2020 the Senate electoral map is much more favorable for us than it was in 2018, with Republicans holding 22 of the seats being contested and Democrats holding 12. We need to win back four seats. Swing Left has started the equivalent of district funds to go to our winning primary candidate in each of eight races where we have the best shot. These include the races to defeat Martha McSalley in Arizona (perhaps through the candidacy of astronaut Mark Kelly, Gabby Giffords’ husband), Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner in Colorado. These and other Republican senators who are vulnerable in 2020 and 2022 are eager to re-open the government lest their vulnerability increase. At a minimum we should all check out what Swing Left is up to with regard to taking back the Senate. And of course we could do more than the minimum by donating this very moment.
3) Weighing in on the Nuclear Threat
	All of us in the resistance are aware of the threat to humanity posed by climate change. In the light of Trump's alarming foreign policy amateurism, it's time for us to better understand the dangers to humanity from nuclear proliferation. A new generation of weaponry would escalate spending dramatically and imperil our very existence. Representative Adam Smith of Washington is the new House Armed Services Committee Chair. He's the perfect person to help chart an alternative course while attending to national security. Let's prepare for action steps with the new House of Representatives by reviewing Adam Smith's counterpoints to where Trump may be headed.

It won’t be long before we will be absorbing the Mueller report. For now, let’s keep getting our work done. Let’s not let ourselves be carried away by the inevitable backing and forthing among Democrats, including the new members of Congress. Most of these issues are well worth fighting over. We are not going to do something that will keep us from coming together in the summer of 2020.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington