Some Democrats in Congress are a stickler for bipartisanship. Rather than having the courage of their convictions, they seek the "political cover" that only bipartisanship can provide. Like I said yesterday, when a bill is truly bipartisan, no one can be blamed if the new policy fails. Politicians find that their careers are longer when they are know for nothing in particular. Faceless members of Congress tend to last longer than those who create a ruckus (and enemies). In the interest of keeping their jobs, most practice a "go-with-the-flow" mentality. Whether you're in the majority or minority, that means not rocking the boat by challenging the status quo.
It's no surprise then that when Democrats propose big policy overhauls--such as the Affordable Care Act, Financial Reform, or the START treaty--they seek Republicans support to help provide political cover just in case the Democrats find their new policy to be unpopular. When everyone is responsible, no one is.
Some Democrats, such as Robert Wexler, Nancy Pelosi, or Al Franken, believe that it doesn't matter what kind of backing their supported policy has--as long as it's enough to get it passed. If a new policy is good for the nation, it doesn't matter whether it has 109 Democrats and 109 Republicans supporting it or just 218 Democrats. At the end of the day, all that matters is that it's passed.
Chris Dodd, Max Baucus, and Barack Obama aren't like that. They pride themselves on getting bipartisan support for their proposals. We saw that last summer, when Max Baucus held long meetings with Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee regarding the Democrats' number one domestic priority:
Mr. Obama, in his news conference last week, praised the three Republicans in the Senate group — Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Ms. Snowe. Mr. Grassley, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, and Mr. Baucus share a history of deal-making, and group members said they share a sense of trust despite the partisan acrimony that pervades the Capitol.Mr. Enzi, who sits on both the Finance Committee and the health committee, has a long record on health issues but found Democrats on the health panel unwilling to compromise.And Ms. Snowe, one of two centrist Republicans, often teams with Democrats as she did on the economic stimulus plan this year.After the group insisted it needed more time, the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, conceded that a floor vote would have to wait until after the summer recess. “If this is the only bill with bipartisan support,” Ms. Snowe said, “that will really resonate. It could be the linchpin for broad bipartisan agreement.”
In the end, only Senator Snowe voted the measure out of committee, but she quickly reversed herself and voted against every other iteration of the bill.
Baucus justified giving up his bipartisan dream because Grassley couldn't bring along extra Republicans to support the very watered-down measure. Even when he gave the Republican caucus half a loaf, they still batted it away. Grassley's word held no sway, and soon he abandoned the legislation he helped craft:
A few months ago, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa positioned himself to be the key GOP player in negotiations to advance President Obama’s top domestic priority — overhauling the nation’s health care system.As ranking minority member on the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley has been a leading voice in the committee’s bipartisan “Gang of Six” that had been struggling to hammer out a bill before Congress recessed for August.But Grassley’s evolution — from legislator once complimented by Obama for his willingness to work across the aisle to one of the president’s chief critics on health care — is a sign that the chances for passing a bipartisan health care bill have all but disintegrated. And as Grassley has pivoted from defending bipartisan work on a Senate bill to criticizing a competing House bill, he has increasingly sown confusion over just where he stands in negotiations to overhaul health care.
Senator Dodd has been following a similar pattern recently regarding financial reform. The House has already passed a moderately strong financial reform bill. Dodd has crafted a bill of his own and, ignoring the lessons learned during the health care fight, and did everything he could to get Republican support:
Dodd and Corker had spent weeks trying to hammer out an agreement on financial regulations, including new consumer protections for financial products."We have made significant progress and resolved many of the items, but a few outstanding issues remain," Dodd said in a statement.President Barack Obama supports a standalone Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). But the proposal ran into stiff resistance in the Senate and fervent opposition from financial industry lobbyists and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.In addition to consumer protections, Corker said another key sticking point remains regulation of financial derivatives.Dodd said that he continues to pursue a bipartisan "consensus" package, but he believes pushing forward to committee debate is "the best course of action to achieve that end."“I have been fortunate to have a strong partner in Sen. Corker, and my new proposal will reflect his input and the good work done by many of our colleagues as well," Dodd said. “Our talks will continue, and it is still our hope to come to agreement on a strong bill all of the Senate can be proud to support very soon."
Dodd worked over Senator Bob Corker, making concessions in the futile attempt to get his support. While Corker says he was close to supporting the bill, Dodd walked away from negotiations because Corker was unable to bring a single other Republicans on board. Corker could not promise Dodd that his weaker legislation would receive any Republican votes. Corker even attacked the Republican caucus for not supporting his efforts at crafting a bipartisan bill:
"We had an opportunity to pass out a bill out of our committee in a bipartisan way, and then stand on the Senate floor and hold hands and say that we would keep amendments that were unnecessary and improper from coming onto this bill," Corker said. "Instead of that, it's been decided that we are going to try to negotiate now ..."I think it's going to be far more difficult now that this has passed out of committee ... I think we have made a very, very large mistake, and I regret that."Banking committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) told HuffPost that "what [Corker] said was his Republican leadership abandoned him.""They decided they wanted to say 'No' again," Dodd said. "So we went ahead ... If you don't even want to offer yours, I couldn't -- if anyone wanted to offer amendments, I would have been there. They made a decision not to. That was their call. Not mine. And listen, I understand why they wanted to do it."
This is beginning to be a familiar tale: Democrats want to compromise, but they are unable to find a single Republican to take that up on their offer. And if there is one Republican interested, they are never able to bring along a large portion of their caucus.
Despite this treaty having extensive bi-partisan support among senior foreign policy officials – such as George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, Richard Lugar (R-IN), Colin Powell –ratification is far from assured. There are real questions over whether the Senate GOP will seek to obstruct the ratification of the treaty. Treaties require a two-thirds majority, therefore eight or nine Republican votes are needed to ratify this treaty. If the Senate GOP wants to kill it they can. Therefore if ratification becomes a fight – it will not be a fight between Republicans and Obama, it will be a fight within the Republican caucus – between moderates and the far right.In a sign of how extreme the GOP Senate leadership has become, Bloomberg reported, following word the treaty was done, that “Senate Republicans would object to linkages similar to the one in the 1991 treaty.” In other words, what was acceptable to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, would not be acceptable to Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ).
Even Dick Lugar, the most senior Republican in the Senate, can't bring support on board for a treaty that seems entirely reasonable.
I think this shows exactly how strong a hold the far-right has on the Republican party. Rather than evaluate legislation on its merits, it's being judged based on its sponsors. While bipartisanship for bipartisanship's sake can be a damaging thing, blind partisanship can be just as bad, if not worse. Policy between the two parties are to be expected and can be a great thing, but reflexive revulsion to anything your political opponents propose, no matter how mainstream the idea, is ultimately damaging to the country. If anything that is proposed by the Democrats has 41 members of the Senate instantly opposed to it, it's very difficult to get anything done.
Of course, this strategy can seriously backfire on the clueless Republicans when the Democrats practically beg them to let them compromise:
Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.
This can be damaging for the Republicans for two reasons:
1) The law is the law. The Affordable Care Act, and soon financial services reform, will not be repealed. Republicans let the possibility of a weaker bill slip through their fingers.
2) If the new laws becomes popular, they will never be able to take credit. The voters will know exactly who to reward (or blame).
If the Democrats can learn their lesson that negotiating with this batch of Republicans is a futile exercise that will never yield meaningful results, they stand to reap great rewards. They should learn their lesson well...because it's obvious that the Republicans never will.
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