Will Our Progressives In Congress Fight For The Public Option?

It's clear that the Blue Dog Democratic Coalition have an uncanny ability to block progressive legislation by demanding concessions from the Democratic leadership to weaken vital parts of progressive legislation in exchange for their votes for the passage of legislation, and that the Congressional Progressive Caucus didn't know how to exercise that ability until the whole fight for health care reform began in the spring.

What's unique about the Blue Dog Democrats is their ability to block legislation, simply by making threats and bargaining with the Democratic leadership and the White House. This means that the resulting legislation gets weaker, and that progressive elements of legislation are stripped out in exchange for passage of the legislation. The Blue Dogs have done this repeatedly over the past year, with the stimulus bill, the ACES bill, and now they're doing it to the health care bill in the House. The White House has to do hold hands with these Blue Dogs in order for their votes for passage of the legislation. The White House has made the political calculation here that it's important to appease the Blue Dogs and make bills more conservative in Congress for the passage of the bills, than it is to pass excellent bills.

The White House could twist the arms of these Blue Dogs behind the scenes and make electoral threats about not supporting them if they don't support the Democratic progressive agenda in Congress. Rahm Emmanuel could do this on behalf of the White House, but he was the one who helped recruit most of these Blue Dogs, and the only arms he's been twisting in the past year have been the arms of the progressive members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Especially when it came to bills like the ACES climate bill, where Blue Dogs demanded concessions to nuclear and coal industries, and progressives were steam-rolled into supporting what they saw as a weak bill that wouldn't do much for the environment. A lot of vote whipping went on behind the scenes from the Democratic leadership, and the White House, with much of it aimed towards the progressives.

If the Congressional Progressive Caucus had stood together as a 77-member voting bloc in refusing to vote for a weakened ACES climate bill, they would've been able to wrangle concessions from the Democratic leadership and the White House to strengthen the ACES bill in exchange for its passage. That's what they could have done if they had chosen to make a stand on the ACES bill.

However, the Congressional Progressive Caucus recently said they're making their stand on the public option in health care reform. The question is, will the Congressional Progressive Caucus stand together as a voting bloc in refusing to vote for a weakened health care bill without a public option? We already know they support a strong, robust Medicare-like public option. We need them to make a real stand as a voting bloc and start exercising their power by taking The Pledge.

If more than 40 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus take the pledge, then we know they're serious about health care reform, and aren't just spouting words while folding behind the scenes through having their arms twisted by the Democratic leadership and the White House to support a health care reform bill without a public option. We need to get them on the record, and once they're on the record, then they'll actually have exercised their power as a voting bloc by making their threat real. It means the Democratic leadership has to listen to them and so does the White House if they want to get real health care reform passed through Congress.

So far, these progressives have come out in strong support of the public option by taking the pledge: Cleaver, Ellison, Woolsey, Grijalva, Waters, Holt, Nadler, and Hare. That's 8 down -- we just need 32 more progressives to get on record. Once they take a stand on the public option in health care reform -- then their power as a voting bloc will last into other policy issues, and they should be made aware of that.

Follow Noelle Cigarroa Perese on Twitter: www.twitter.com/slinkerwink

Comments

[Transrational]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
It's time time to fix the system to serve everyone.
Too many people die from a lack of
affordable health care, or no care at all.

[fedupcitizen]

Hopefully more will take the pledge...I also hope that you and others who write will keep holding their feet to the fire...good work!

Keep it up...

[NYCee]

Noelle/Slink

Isnt there a webpage (FDL?) with comments re what the reps said? A chart thing, similar to whip tool, but with comments? Maybe at the silo site... Will check.

Good work! Sad though, to me, that there are still so many "committed" boxes left blank.

(I called Maloney yesterday and entered the response at the whip tool.)

[sharonlynch]

thanks for all of your passionate and diligent work on this issue. i read your diaries for guidance and updates and appreciate all you are putting into this!

[Somsai]

Yes progressives will fight for the public option, and we now know some blue dogs will as well.

We can make it easier for them to both do so by pushing a little. I'm inspired by the effort you make Ms. Perese, inspired to try a little harder myself.

[Noelle Cigarroa Perese - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm glad to hear it!

[richievz]

I'm going after the most progressive Iowa Rep. Dave Loebsack to take the pledge. Great idea! The progressives have to stand tall now if ever!!

[Rivercs]

Good to see this issue raised on Huffington Post; it needs a wider audience. We need to hold every one of our representatives' feet to the fire on this issue, whether or not they caucus with the progressives. I'll be working on Norm Dicks. I'll be working on Jim McDermott, too, though, as he is a progressive and represents our state.

The "bipartisan" fetish does us no good, especially in the House.

[kwilcox]

go slinkerwink! congrats on the wider exposure. keep the pressure on.

[marimba]

Noelle /Slinkerwink-
great article. I am not thrilled about Rahm's role in all this and am glad you have highlighted it.

Not much time for a more substantive comment but wanted to send a hug your way from Puffmeister over at kos and also to refer you to what had been a bizarre recent NY Times article originally headlined "Hospitals, Democrats Near Deal on Health Care" - very Pro-Max-Baucus; zip on the Kennedy or Schumer Committee.

Oddly, that the link now goes to an entirely different headline with a somewhat different article using only some of the original text. Some strange doings on this issue... It would be great if someone could find a cache version of the original AP story posed at about 1:45 ET on 7/7/09

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/07/us/politics/AP-US-Health-Care-Overhaul.html

[HalupkiJoe]

Great article! Thanks for helping keep their feet to the fire.

[Texdude]

Slinkerwink! You are so pretty! Is that sexist?

Great article, the first of many here I hope.

[saltysea]

Yes! Thanks for keeping a spotlight on our representatives and on health care.

[unbozo]

Hi Noelle! Glad to see you getting on at Huffington Post where you are exposed to a wider audience. Good Job and keep it coming.

[mrsfolksinger]

I agree. What a great article.

[thejoshuablog]

Say. Don't I know you? :-)

Keep up the incredible work, Slink.

[Noelle Cigarroa Perese - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks, Joshua!

[david78209]

The Blue Dog position is rather contradictory. They want to save money, but they don't want to burden doctors and hospitals by making them take on more patients at the tight-fisted pay scale Medicare pays. I can think of only two ways to do that. One is to let people die for lack of insurance, which is exactly the problem we're trying to solve. The other is to cut out the insurance industry, that sops up about a third of the money spent on health care. Cutting out the insurance companies wouldn't be socialized MEDICINE, but it would be socialized HEALTH INSURANCE. The blue dogs are inadvertently making a good argument for single payer or at least a public option.

What would we lose by kicking the insurance companies off the gravy train? I don't see that they add anything of value to our health care system.

[Noelle Cigarroa Perese - Huffpost Blogger]

Plus, they're not as united on this issue, as Igor over at Think Progress points out:

"A band of 22 New Democrat and Blue Dog lawmakers say they support a 'robust' government-run health plan, boosting chances of moving healthcare reform with a public insurance plan through the House." (HT: Atrios)

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/10/blue-dog-principles/#comments

[theone718]

Keep fighting, keep calling, keep faxing and keep emailing. With a united front we CANNOT be denied. Wonderful article Sli.....er­r.........­.Noelle.