Lynn Woolsey says she's a definite "yes" vote on the Senate health care bill. Even if it lacks a public option. Despite the fact that it's the biggest blow to a woman's right to choose in a generation, and may come at the price of a stand-alone vote that allows Blue Dogs and ConservaDems to join with Republicans and roll reproductive rights back even further in order to get Bart Stupak's support.
Any ability for progressives to negotiate, to achieve meaningful concessions, to exert their influence and make the bill better just disappeared.
It's time for Lynn Woolsey to resign as the head of the Progressive Caucus.
Woolsey shares the job of Co-Chair with Raul Grijalva. Throughout the health care battle, Grijalva has shown steadfast leadership even when things got tough. Starting in the early summer of of 2009, he began working with Jerrold Nadler behind the scenes to whip members of Congress to vote against any bill that did not have a public option.
FDL joined that fight on June 23, but without Grijalva's leadership and his consistent willingness to stand on principle -- even when he was being pilloried as a "monster" for doing so -- we'd all be signing checks to Wellpoint right now while PhRMA was popping champagne corks.
Woolsey was certainly part of the fight for a public option, co-authoring a letter on June 5 with Grijalva outlining the health care principles of the Progressive Caucus. And here's a video from June where Woolsey says she will insist on the inclusion of a public option:
"Oh I will vote against anything that does not include ... and it's got to be real. I mean, you can call it anything you want ... I believe there are enough of us, among the 120 in the tri-caucus and the progressive caucus, that can stop any votes.... Any health care reform that does not include a strong, robust public option for all Americans will not be health care reform."
Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, co-chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, said the groups' statement was unusual. Typically, leaders of the caucuses do not publicly challenge their party leadership, preferring to work behind the scenes to win concessions in legislation, she said.
"What we're telling you this time: it's different," she said. "Not that we're going to vote with Republicans. But if reform legislation comes to the floor and doesn't include a real and robust public option, we will fight it with everything we have."
When we began our whip count in late June it quickly became evident that contrary to Woolsey's assertions, not all 120 members of the Quad Caucus agreed on the need for a public option. When we asked that individual members of Congress to go on record and state their personal beliefs, Woolsey got angry that our efforts to get people on the record might demystify a brilliant campaign that allowed members to hide anonymously underneath an umbrella that gave them "strength in numbers."
On July 9, after the Blue Dogs said they had the votes to kill the health care bill, Woolsey announced -- apparently unaware of the irony -- that she now had 60 votes to vote against a bill without a public option. Where did the other 60 votes suddenly go? Well, she didn't say. I wrote "If Lynn Woolsey's got 60 votes, I've got leprechauns in my laundry room" and demanded that she name names. Because if there's one thing we learned from the supplemental battle, it's that a member who won't even publicly commit to a position is certainly not going to go to the mat for it.
A week later, an "internal whip list" was leaked by Woolsey's office. It was now down to 50 names. What happened to the extra 10 names Woolsey said she had the week before? Well, they seemed to have magically disappeared too.
We began calling all 50 offices. We could not get one member of Congress to confirm that their name was validly on that list.
Woolsey's strategy, her theatrics, her leadership on health care devolved into a colossal joke. Nobody took her seriously. Nothing she said ever turned out to be true, and any thinking person would rightly conclude that any threat she made was idle. She was incapable of commanding the respect of the Progressive Caucus, and it became clear as time went on that her lack of leadership was an enormous problem when it comes to organizing progressives in the House who now had the opportunity to exert real power.
Members of the Progressive Caucus, however, realized that people were laughing and it was time to "put up or shut up." And so 60 members finally signed their names to the famous July 31 letter to Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman saying they would vote against any bill that didn't have a public option -- tied to Medicare reimbursement rates.
Now, fighting for Medicare reimbursement rates as a cost-control measure was important, but anyone with the ability to Google could figure out that there was long-term opposition among Democrats from rural districts sufficient to take the health care bill down over it. It's one thing to fight for something, it's quite another to draw a line in the sand you know you're fully prepared to step over. But Woolsey led many members of the caucus to demand its inclusion this in the letter, which was ultimately used undermine the public option fight down the line.
Predictably, they gave up the fight on Medicare rates the next day. It would re-emerge as an issue later in a watered down "Medicare Plus 5" version, but mostly as a face-saving measure I think. It never had a serious chance.
Nonetheless, online supporters were delighted that progressives were taking a stand. It wasn't much of a political risk, since the public option was something that 80% of the country wanted. But they showed their support by donating $430,000 to the members who were willing to commit to vote against any health care bill that didn't have a public option. Of those, 1734 people donated $5,613 to Lynn Woolsey.
Is she ready to give that money back if she goes back on her promise to vote "no" on any bill that doesn't have a public option? Because a poll determined that 90% of our readers think that she should.
Furthermore, 76% of our readers think that members of Congress who go back on that pledge should face primary challenges (the filing deadline for California is March 12). And a full 82.3% think that anyone who votes to restrict a woman's right to choose, as the Senate bill does, should face a primary challenge too.
Woolsey has been inconsistent and muddled throughout the health care fight, and her leadership non-existent. And now she's ready to capitulate to the Senate bill. Really? Here she is in November when the Senate bill passed:
I was very relieved on Saturday night when the Senate had the 60 votes. Now, the games begin. If the House position is to take what the Senate did and capitulate to it, then they have the wrong idea about what the House of Representatives is going to do.
I understand that the health care bill will probably fail because of its own inertia, the search right now is for a scapegoat to blame it on and no Democrat but Bart Stupak really wants to have that honor. But there are certain principles that someone who calls themselves a progressive leader should not be cavalier about, and a woman's right to choose is one of them. As Scarecrow wrote here in December, the Nelson language in the Senate bill was written to tee up a Supreme Court challenge to Roe v. Wade.
That is unacceptable.
Lynn Woolsey's inability to effectively lead the Progressive Caucus represents a tremendous problem in the House. She inevitably drags any organizing attempt into chaos and petty bickering, and her idea of "leadership" is issuing a symphony of idle threats she never follows through on that reduces caucus to a laughing stock and renders them completely ineffectual.
Woolsey has become a major impediment to effective action on the issues she cares about the most. The failure of progressives in the House to achieve meaningful concessions on single payer, or the public option, or prescription drug price negotiation, or any other progressive principle is largely due to her ineffectiveness. She should step down as the co-chair of the Progressive Caucus.
Follow Jane Hamsher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/janehamsher
Reform and Capitulation are an either or thing.
Corporate "progressives" are all for reform -- as long as there's no chance of it actually happening.
but the likely options - Republicans - are worse.
PLEASE Democrats - get it together?!?!?
The dems keep volunteering to fall under the bus. America needs strong, principled Dems.
Faved and Fanned!
Women’s reproductive rights have been under assault for the past thirty years and suffered serious setbacks the past sixteen years. In some states woman have to travel a day or more to access services.
I hope you have been as passionate and outspoken about conservative’s endless assault on women’s reproductive rights. Women and progressives need an advocate not a saboteur.
Perfect, "Women and progressives need an advocate not a saboteur."
Great point. Hamsher should show her care for women and progressives by combatting the GOP's assault on women's rights, etc. If Hamsher says that she would but that's what others do, her role is to lead progressives' attack of liberals, I'd say, "Then stop."
There are times to criticize (including your own side) but Hamsher doesn't know when to quit.
As much as I agree with you on progressive principles, it is now clear to me that the Senate bill is the best we can get on healthcare today. If we work to defeat it, we walk away with empty hands. For whatever reason, the President and others have decided that they will NOT fight for the public option. So at this point, the key question for progressives is, do they stand with that Obama, Supak and all, or are they willing to risk eight or more years in the wilderness.
Considering this bill brings insurance to 30 million more people, albeit by imposing a mandate, I say let's hold our noses and stand with the President. Who knows, otherwise we may be looking at a Lynn Cheney presidency.
Sure, we have lost our battle and lost our leverage. But, like football, politics is a game of inches. Keep the flame alive, but let's not bet everything on a hail mary.
The bill 'brings insurance' to none of the uninsured immediately, and to less than 60% of the uninsured (31,000,000 out of the 54,000,000 estimated) by the time it actually starts to have an effect: plenty of time to pass something better that could affect more people in the same (or even earlier) time frame without increasing the stranglehold that private insurers already enjoy.
Progressives have been playing that 'game of inches' for at least the past 6 years, and losing ground every single time. At this point, a Hail Mary is all that's left: let's go for it.
If the Democrats let the people down, they need to wander as a party for the balls to do what we just sent them to do in 2008. We elected a decisive majority. If that doesn't make a 'mandate' then what does? Every Dem in office, Grow a Pair !!
Keep the pressure on!
As for myself, I'd LOVE to have a credible progressive party that fielded candidates whom I could vote for - having to leave all those ballot boxes blank is somewhat depressing. Of course, that wouldn't keep me from lambasting Democrats when it's warranted in venues like this one, so it might not make people like you any more comfortable.
lambast as you will though we probably won't have a credible national progressive party for the foreseeable future. I say this because the US will always be a 2 party state and the Democrats won't give up a hold on their left wing as the party fights for the center.
However, think about how "progressive" is now an acceptable term - there's even a caucus in the House - where that wasn't true just decades ago. When the GOP falters, the Democratic Party will pivot depending on where the new party goes; that's hopeful)
Guaranteed she's been bought!
Threatened with a smaller office, yes.
Does the current bill acount for the 10 to 20 million people that will be added by this bill?
Would they be subsidized as well?
Has the CBO calculated this in the HCR 10 year plan?
Have you?
HaHaHaHaHa.
Public education.
Right! They are currently "Illegal" and when incorporated, no company will be providing health insurance. Company fines for non-insurance 8% vs. 12 to 15% to insure.
Your fear of "these" people is obvious, grow courage.
The Earth's population is at an unsustainable level now.
Population reduction IS a Progressive agenda item.
Expansion of health care to chronicly ill is hypocritical of humanist Progressive policies.
However, if we feel the pop level is unsustainable, then we should make giving birth a capital crime as a deterrent.
Hamsher's and the GOP's stance on many issues aren't far apart.