#60: Motivate Republican Senators to Get Right with the Constitution

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If we aren’t careful, we could talk ourselves into the wrong points of view. That would leave us less powerful at a time that we need to gather and utilize our power.

For instance, we could hear that the unenthusiasm of Queens residents for Amazon’s 25,000 jobs is some sort of indicator for how liberals and progressives think about jobs and economic growth in their own communities. But the fact is that Amazon intended to replace that community, not just bring it new economic opportunity. And for Queens and New York to have demonstrated their appreciation for having their community change dramatically, they would have needed to accede to a huge corporate assistance tax package.

We could hear that the Green New Deal is a socialist dream that will eliminate the support of independent voters for a Democratic candidate. But what it represents is the very beginning of an aspirational discussion. Its ideas will be modified and dealt with separately, not as an omnibus bill. Nonetheless, it is one part of an overdue exploration of how we can together boldly change the way America addresses (or ignores) its environmental future.

Similarly, Medicare for All is the platform for big believers and big dreamers, trying to confront the continued malfunctions of the American health care system, improved but by no means fixed by the Affordable Care Act. It represents the start of a new conversation, not the end of one.

Figuring out which Democrat to nominate for president is a huge decision. We can’t get that done by determining who has the best slogans or even the most combative attitude toward Donald Trump. What we most need is this marketplace of ideas, including any number of ideas that have been hidden or besmirched since Republicans took over the Congress in 2010. We can’t pick a president without understanding some of the finer points of how they differ from the other people who want to be president. We have more than a year to figure this out.

Policy ideas also force us to understand the distinctions between show horses and work horses, between elected officials who are authentically seeking reform and those who are too fully aware of the camera. Happily, Thomas Perez and the Democratic Party leadership are crafting rules for genuine televised debates where ideas are exchanged. The New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucuses will be great testing ground for which candidates have ways of thinking that are especially compelling, since success in these states depends upon meeting at length with small groups whose members ask pointed questions.

Since several of the candidates are Senators, we need to be able to sort out legislative proposals offered by Democratic leadership or by candidates to understand whether they have any particular significance.

1. Some proposals are meant only to stake out a position. Elizabeth Warren has proposed a wealth tax of 2% on assets over $50 million. The revenue would be used to fund child care support. There will be other candidates weighing in on how to assign a greater tax burden for the rich. None of their specific proposals will be advanced in the House, but they are useful for determining where the candidates stand, and how their position varies from that of other candidates.
2. Some proposals are intentionally broad in scope and are intended to grow a movement. This is the significance of both Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. They are aspirational and designed to lead over time to monumental change in the way things are done. At this point, they should spur debate, not end it. That’s why several Democratic presidential candidates endorsing the Green New Deal is dismaying. These candidates should be contributing to its design, not pretending it should be passed tomorrow.
3. Of special interest at this juncture are proposals that are being crafted to pass the House and be sent to the Senate, partly as a strategy to hold the House and seize the Senate in 2020. These proposals will be important legislative approaches on issues like voting rights, prescription drugs, and better protection for those with pre-existing conditions. They are not expected to become law, because Trump can veto them. They are being designed to either win over the four or five Republican Senators needed for passage (prior to the Trump veto), or to elicit political damage for the 12 or 13 Republican Senators thought to be vulnerable in November, 2020. As versions of them are debated in the Senate, they will also provide a window on the passion and creativity of candidates/Senators Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Booker, Sanders, Brown and Harris.
4. In a few instances, the House version will represent a major element in a legislative compromise which is likely to become law. This is the case with the recent bill that Trump bitterly signed and could happen with prescription drugs where both parties are committed to passing legislation.

The current dispute over Trump’s declaration of a national emergency falls squarely into category three. We will need at least four Republican votes in the Senate to temporarily block the declaration but would have no way of getting the twenty Republican votes we would need to override a subsequent Trump veto. Even so, it is important that we get the Senate (as well as the House) to go on record against the emergency declaration. This is why. It is a made up emergency. The emergency powers that Congress granted were never intended to be used for an appropriations dispute. Even more critically (and ultimately of greatest interest to the Supreme Court) it would represent a massive usurpation of the powers of the purse reserved to Congress in the Constitution.

Trump is doing improv. Mexico will pay for it until they aren’t paying for it. It is already being built but we need to start building. He could have waited but he needed the emergency declaration to do it now. The truth is that if Trump had not turned on Rush Limbaugh on a certain night in December, none of this would have happened. It is not worthy of the country that we love and the democracy that we defend.

So, we need to do these three things now:

1) Put Pressure on Republican Senators to Get Right With the Constitution
	Nate Silver’s 538 has done an excellent job of charting where Republican Senators stand on Trump’s declaration. He counts six Republican Senators as opposed. These include Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who is retiring, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has his own way of thinking about most everything and may not be persuadable through any pleas we can muster. That leaves six Senators who have already said they are opposed to the declaration and need to be helped to maintain their resolve. Let’s go in the side door by calling as many of the main district offices of these six as we can. Please tell these six that they are being called upon to protect the fundamentals of governing in America, and that you are proud that so far they have stood for what is right: Ben Sasse of Nebraska: 402 550 8040 Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: 907 271 3735 Susan Collins of Maine: 207 780 3575 Marco Rubio of Florida: 305 418 8553 Thom Tillis of Nebraska: 704 509 9087 Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania: 215 241 1090 Then, as we work through our calls, we will realize that we are getting good at this, and we will decide to call a Senator who has expressed concerns, who is on the fence, and who is very worried about getting re-elected a year from November: Cory Gardner of Colorado: 305 418 8553
2) Help with Recruitment to Take Back the Senate
	We already know the blueprint, since we used it to take back the House in 2018. Coming up, we have a much more favorable map, with 23 Republican Senators up for re-election, and with up to 13 seats worthy of being heavily contested. Last time, we made massive gains among younger voters, independents, and suburban voters. We did that by letting Trump be Trump, by recruiting excellent candidates and by making millions of small contributions. We have an excellent candidate to recruit. We almost got Stacey Abrams over the top in her effort to be Governor of Georgia, but we were stymied by voter suppression. Now she is seriously considering running for the Senate in 2020. She needs our encouragement. You can start by getting her mobile alerts.
3) Make Certain Legal Action is Relentlessly Pursued
	The first thing to accomplish on the legal front is for multiple parties to file actions in federal courts challenging the emergency declaration. Eventually the cases will be consolidated. This is the rare case where “all the way to the Supreme Court” will surely come to pass, because the Supreme Court justices will not permit such an unusual and important case to be resolved at the federal appellate level. Among the emerging litigants, the consortium of 16 states and the American Civil Liberties Union already loom large. The ACLU is litigating on behalf of the Southern Border Communities Coalition. This Coalition includes sixty organizations serving border communities from Texas to California. It’s worth following and boosting, because we all will be pursuing fair and just border policies for some time to come.

If it weren’t such a dismaying and even frightening time, you could say all of this is exciting, no? We don’t have to worry for even a minute about being able to find consequential work to do. It’s there before us. It wouldn’t be overstating to say a nation hangs in the balance.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#59: Let’s Get Out of the Bleachers and Back onto the Field

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.

We are focused on politics and government, and we are worried about how our nation will recover from recent wounds and prevent new ones. Even after the high of November 6 when we flipped the House and presented Donald Trump with a fully re-empowered Nancy Pelosi, some days bring us down, as Trump’s made up stories, bullying, full scale con job, self-delusions and dangerous actions overwhelm.

In the face of all this, one would think that there would be no retreating from the front lines of political action to the sidelines of political observation. The rewards of the monumental efforts of the resistance are so evident, how could any of us step back? What happens is that necessarily we have let life intervene. We feed our souls, earn a wage, tend to our relationships, and immerse ourselves in the natural world. We really don’t have a choice about doing these other things if we are to stay strong and sane.

But if we get too far up in the stands, we will end up thinking that watching Rachel Maddow or Shields and Brooks or podcasts is some kind of substitute for action. Which it isn’t. Letting the rest of the resistance do the resisting for a while erodes the required and immense scale of our effort. It can’t be maintained if we fill up the bleachers.

What can we do now if we stay on the field? We can give early money because it is like yeast. State legislators will not be sufficiently focused on fighting voter suppression unless we make it so. Senators who could cast an important swing vote have to know that we are out here. In 2019, we must recruit, vet and support candidates, register voters, and welcome new 18-year olds. There are postcards to be sent, places to be, information to be examined, and passion kindled. It is the gargantuan scale of our effort in 2017 and 2018 that underscores the vital work that has to be done. Which of us wants to take November 2020 for granted? Perhaps we have already learned the risk of that.

We can take advantage of the notable, continued deterioration of Trump’s support in the country. That slow slide is evidenced not just by the polls but by the tiny but still altogether new steps by Republican Senators. The six voting to re-open government gave the Schumer/Pelosi contingent more votes than the Trump/McConnell approach, and that outcome was an element in Trump giving in. Cheers to Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Cory Gardner, Johnny Isakson, and Lamar Alexander. The next step for them is to build upon their resolution in the Senate on the Middle East and demonstrate to Trump that their party exists outside of him. Or does it?

On the field, we can treat the policy debates within the Democratic Party as necessary grist. Why not understand the merits (and demerits) of the possible elements of Medicare for All? We can have that debate and defend Affordable Care Act protections of pre-existing conditions in the same year. Is it necessary for Medicare for All proponents to jettison the considerable employer-provided insurance that is still out there? What would happen to the programs and conditions under which current Medicare recipients function? At this point let’s advocate alternative approaches to major health care reform, rather than being expected to swear a blood oath. Are we out of practice in demonstrating how ideas are developed and elevated? 

Media emphasis on the political battles themselves obscure the weight of the underlying ideas regarding what government should do. As much as we extol Nancy Pelosi’s strategizing, her refusal to counter-offer during the shutdown could have been politically damaging and unsuccessful. It didn't turn out that way because the American people had not bought into the idea that the wall is necessary, and no Trump warnings and pronouncements changed their minds.

So, since the actual ideas matter, it is time to move aggressively to help disabuse Howard Schultz of the notion that he will run for president. Is there a single passion or policy proposal that Howard Schultz holds dear, other than the desire to be elected? If what has happened to motivate him to run is the danger Trump presents to America, why would he heighten that danger? Our collective disapproval should be made clear to him for as long as it takes. 

Then we can turn to the best part of the election process. We have an extremely healthy and growing field of candidates. Because Democrats don’t have “winner take all” primaries it is going to be hard for any top tier candidate to open up a delegate lead. All the more reason to dig deep into candidate positions, and to not get fully taken by “liberal” and “progressive” labels. Because of the detail and nuance in their policy positions, it would be impossible to reliably place these candidates on a political continuum. So let’s make a point to understand candidates beyond the information that is most readily available.

After unsuccessfully running Al Gore, John Kerry and Hilary Clinton from Trump’s generation, let’s go younger and fresher. That might allow us to lay down a new case for how America can move forward, and keep us from having to promote a candidate who is already fully defined. However much we love them, or don’t love them, that would make us less interested in Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. And let’s require our candidates to know something about the Constitution and the management of government. Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar all had state or local executive branch positions before heading to the Senate. We can win in 2020 without the vote of a single Trump supporter. Nonetheless let’s select someone who has superior communication skills, who has a story to tell and knows how to tell it. As an example, here’s what Kamala Harris accomplished with her roll out.

We must set a personal standard for ourselves that demands meaningful political engagement every single week. Right now, there are three things we can do:

1) Shut Down the Shutdown
	Trump is still in a corner with regard to the wall. When Nancy Pelosi says there isn’t going to be any money for the wall, it is not a flexible position. She doesn’t have to agree to a wall, so she won’t. The only possible compromise that Senate Appropriations veterans Pat Leahy and Richard Shelby could possibly come up with is a few hundred miles of fencing, coupled with budget increases for technology and judges and some sort of “humanitarian” assistance. Trump’s choice will then be either to 1) pretend such a deal is a victory for him when everyone else will know that it is not, or 2) declare an emergency under the National Emergencies Act. That would set up not only a court battle but a likely legislative show down because the act provides an opportunity for Congress to reject the emergency order.  If Pelosi engineers such a vote in the House, McConnell would be hard pressed to defend Trump in the resultant vote in Senate. Senators take a dim view of the expansion of presidential powers, and they suspect that there will be a Democratic president sometime in the not distant future who might employ such an expansion. It’s definitely time for some calls to Republican Senators reminding them that building the wall is not an emergency and that it is inappropriate for them to countenance the President using these emergency powers. It is not out of the question that we would get the eight more votes from Republican Senators we need beyond the six named above who already voted to reopen the government. Please call these three, who worry about the expansion of presidential powers: John Thune of South Dakota (202) 224-2321 Ben Sasse of Nebraska (202) 224-4224 John Kennedy of Louisiana (202) 224-4623
2) Persuade Howard Schultz to Do the Right Thing
	There is nothing wrong with polling expert Nate Silver saying that Democrats are incorrect to automatically assume that Howard Schultz’ possible candidacy would be a giant gift to Donald Trump or (for that matter) any Republican candidate. The thing is, given the existing malfunctioning presidency, why even think of taking this risk? This is serious business having to do with the future of our country. This has nothing to do with the possible benefits of a third party in America. All this particular quest is about is a man with money and time on his hands trying to find a way to run for President, now that he has decided he can’t succeed in the Democratic primary process. Right now, the Howard Schultz website is his pre-announcement campaign center. There are seven upcoming book tour appearances and more to come after that. It’s time to go to one of his appearances and stay outside with a Don’t Run sign. The more we can sustain the narrative that millions of people are intent on Howard Schultz not running, the less likely he is to run. You could also use the existing site to email him your feelings on these matters, but you would have to sign up first, exposing yourself to entreaties.
3) Now that Federal Workers are Getting Paid, Who Else is Out There?
	When you are living paycheck to paycheck, it is a big hardship to go without pay, even if you know that ultimately you will be compensated for that pay period. The media did a good job of underscoring this misery, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross did a good job of showing that the Trump administration knows nothing of any such hardship. It’s a positive that many of these 800,000 workers have good jobs. It is also a positive to remember after the shutdown is over that many million more Americans don’t have any such job or any immediate chance of getting one. At the core of poverty battling initiatives is the Earned Income Tax Credit (which supporters have re-branded as the Working Families Tax Credit.) At the federal level and in 29 states, this tax credit boosts the take home pay generated by lower wage jobs. It’s time to check your state and see how it is doing in providing a generous credit. That can generate some questions you would want to ask your state legislators.

It is in the nature of collective action that you could get swept up by a group. They could accomplish great things while you are cheering them on. You could be thrilled with the results, even if you didn’t end up contributing very much to the joint effort. In that case, you are a “free rider.” Or maybe you get in a group seeking great things, but which ultimately does not achieve the desired result because everyone thinks everyone else is going to do the hard work. This would be regrettable, and it is preventable.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington