This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020.
Please email me 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, Our Unfinished Work, every three weeks. If you would like to participate in a monthly working section of activists please email dsh347@gmail.com. The Cockeyed Activists meet the last Sundays of the month, the next meeting will be July 25 at 7pm PDT.
As Democrats skirmish with Democrats over the infrastructure bill and what comes after, it is good to remember three elements of the good news for our country that did not seem possible a year ago:
- Joe Biden is off to an excellent start, getting the pandemic under control, restoring America worldwide, passing the American Rescue Plan using the 50-vote budget reconciliation process and utilizing executive orders to undo much of Trump’s damage.
- The bi-partisan infrastructure bill called the American Jobs Plan is still slated to pass this fall. It authorizes an unprecedented level of investment in public transit, railroads, highways, bridges, broadband, electric vehicle charging stations, water supply systems, and the electricity grid. It is the biggest investment in public transit in our history.
- Joe Biden never expected that the final infrastructure bill would include the “human infrastructure” elements in his original proposal. Several of these measures will be a part of a second budget reconciliation process which will likely emerge as the American Families Plan, focused on education and health care. Joe Manchin has already agreed to provide the 50th vote, depending on the scope of the plan.
Joe Biden was the man with the plan from the outset. Focused as he has been on ending the pandemic and restoring the economy, he has also intended not to waste a good crisis. That is, he has used the national public health emergency as a jumping off point for bolder, broader proposals to move America forward. His poll numbers are strong, and Republican efforts to paint him as a socialist are laughable.
Integrated with these country-changing policy efforts is a political plan for the off-year elections. Normally, the off-year races are unkind to sitting presidents. Biden aims to change that. Republican Senators are retiring in North Carolina, Ohio, Missouri and Pennsylvania. They are expected to retire in Wisconsin and Iowa, and we are expecting to be competitive against Marco Rubio in Florida.
The above administrative and legislative actions demonstrate Biden cares about middle class and blue-collar families, once the bulwark of the Democratic vote in the Midwest and the Northeast. In addition to attending to this part of his electorate. Biden hopes that Trump will provide the same assistance in these targeted races that he did in helping us get Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock elected in 2020.
In the first six months of his presidency, Joe Biden has gotten it and gotten it done. It has been a very good year, with these features:
Accomplished by Executive and Administrative Action
- re-entered Paris Climate Accord and seeking its expansion.
- re-established the NATO partnership and resumed leadership within the G-7.
- vaccinated America, with 327 million doses administered so far.
- overturned Trump executive orders on environmental regulation and in countless other areas.
Accomplished Through the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (using the reconciliation process, where only 50 votes are necessary), which:
- funded a new round of stimulus payments
- extended unemployment benefits
- provided assistance to the states reeling from the economic downturn
- provided a child tax credit which can reduce children in poverty by almost 50%
- offered other pandemic related aid
Bipartisan Proposals likely to get the necessary 60 votes in the Senate and become law in some form after action by the House:
- infrastructure bill including large increases for public transit, passenger railroads, electric vehicle charging stations; water system replacement of old pipes; electric grid broadband; and projects to decrease the impact of climate change
- policing bill, the framework of which has been agreed to by Republican Senator Tim Scott, Democratic Senator Cory Booker, and Democratic Representative Karen Bass
- new investment on technological competitiveness with China, emphasizing research and development
There are things missing from the list. The For the People Act will not pass. It was always a symbolic effort to underscore Republic perfidiousness in Georgia, Texas and elsewhere. It was mostly a good deal, although federalizing elections would have been a bit scary if we had it during the last four years. We will not get any legislative action protecting Dreamers, or accomplish even the slightest bit of immigration reform. There is new money to fight climate change, but very little regulatory improvement.
We are in immensely better shape that we were last year. We need to get ourselves some more House and Senate members on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. As a first step in that effort, let us keep working toward free and fair elections:
| 1) Hold Accountable Those Who Would Trash the Constitution | |
 | Unbelievably, 141 House members voted on January 6 to de-certify the election results of one or more states. These House members have joined in Trump’s big lie every step of the way, and most continue to parrot fictions about state election processes, threatening permanent damage to election integrity. Several leading American corporations have taken note of this threat to democracy and have frozen their political contributions to these House members. Not Toyota, which announced that they support candidates “based on their position on issues that are important to the auto industry and the company” and would not make decisions based upon the certification votes. Call Toyota’s public affairs manager Carley Cesaretti at 469-292-8754 and tell her how much more you expect of Toyota. |
2) Use Shareholder Actions to Monitor Corporate Political Actions | |
 | There has been more success lately in shareholder efforts to cast more light on corporate political shenanigans. A good way to keep track of our progress on this front is following the efforts of the Center for Political Accountability, which attends to these matters on our behalf. Sign up here: |
3) Stand with Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders | |
 | During the worst of the pandemic, Donald Trump fueled racist attacks on Asian-Americans. According to a Pew survey, 1/3 of Asian-Americans are now afraid of being assaulted. We can stand up for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as a political force by setting aside a portion of our political contributions budget for the AAPI Super Pac, which is working to increase political involvement. Success has been impressive. There was an 84% increase between 2016 and 2020 in the AAPI vote in Georgia. Nationally, 2/3 of the AAPI vote went to Joe Biden. |
You can keep a bad man down. This summer is the time to accelerate our political efforts, setting the groundwork for 2022 success. Even with Joe Biden having a good year, we cannot take a single thing for granted.
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
