If you are in Denver tomorrow, 10/16, please attend the big town hall meeting on health care. Details and RVSP here. - D
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column called The Tyranny of the Tiny Minority that took apart the numbers behind the Senate's makeup to show that a very small percentage of the population has the Senate representation to stop any bill. Now, Nathan Newman of the Progressive States Network (which I helped found, and on whose board I serve) has put together the nifty pie chart above to show exactly what that tyranny looks like. He also shows how we can circumvent it on the most important issues of all.
Some progressives in Washington, D.C. have continued to berate progressives at the state and local level who are pushing the progressive agenda in their arenas. These Washington progressives seem to assert that the progressive agenda is an either/or choice - either reforms are pushed at the state level or they are pushed in Washington, but somehow, they can't be pushed simultaneously. Progressive States thinks that's absolutely absurd and that we should be pushing the progressive agenda at all levels of government. Heck, that's why Progressive States was founded and why I spend so much of my volunteer time traveling the country trying to raise resources for the organization and raise awareness of the importance of progressive campaigns in the states.
This debate has played out most most notably on health care. As the federal government remains paralyzed by the Senate's tyranny of the tiny minority and unable to move significant universal health care legislation, states like Wisconsin and California are trying to move into the breach, and the Progressive States Network is devoting substantial time and resources to help that cause, believing that it is immoral to allow the Beltway's perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good arguments to prevent the nation from preventing 18,000 Americans from dying each year because they lack health care.
For instance, Progressive States' Adam Thompson recently teamed up with Washington State Senator Karen Keiser to publish a terrific op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle to explain why what California's legislature is considering is so significant. And as Colorado considers legislative initiatives to enact universal health care, PSN is joining with local advocacy organizations to hold a town hall-style event in Denver tomorrow night to discuss how to best make the health care goals a reality (you can RSVP for the event here).
If you are in Denver tomorrow night, I hope to see you at the event. We are bringing in state legislators and experts from all over the countyr.
Otherwise, Nathan will be writing posts all week at TPM Cafe about why the state legislative arena is as important on many issues as the federal legislative arena, beyond the fact that it is not paralyzed by the tyranny of the tiny minority. Thanks to a Washington-focused media and progressive political infrastructure that is almost exclusively focused on the Beltway, many may find that thesis initially hard to believe. But as you read Nathan you will realize how irresponsible it is for the progressive movement to treat these legislative arenas as unimportant backwaters, all as the conservative movement devotes substantial resources to dominating the states.
Cross-posted from Working Assets