As the health care fight approaches its end game, how do we, as ordinary citizens exercise power? How do we create enough of a potential cost to deter Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, or any of the other Democratic obstructionists from using the threat of supporting a Republican filibuster to gut the best opportunity for health care reform in forty years? These are small-state Senators, so most of us aren't constituents. As a result, we've watched, cursing and fuming, as they've rejected effective and popular approaches--like a House version that includes a serious public option and covers the costs by taxing the wealthy--in favor of a highly regressive package almost certain to feed political backlash. They're likely do the same on global climate change, and every other key issue.
But suppose major progressive groups circulated an online petition where people pledged to support primary challenges against any Democratic Senator who backed a filibuster.
They could still vote their conscience, or lack thereof, and refuse to actively support bills or amendments they disagreed with. They just couldn't empower Republican efforts to completely block an up-or-down vote.
Obviously, the more people signed such a pledge, the more of pressure it would create for these Senators to back down from completely being loyal soldiers for the insurance companies. Enough people just signing and pledging could make the difference in this, but to give the threat more credibility, the sponsoring organizations could then keep the contact emails of all of us who signed, and then allow the most credible challengers primary challengers to solicit our support. If we had a sizable enough list, it could be a magnet for high-quality challengers to step up--as Ned Lamont did in 2006 against Joe Lieberman. The Senators we're pressuring also happen to come from small states where media is relatively cheap, so the potential money available from such an approach would also go further than in many others, making the list even more of a deterrent.
This kind of petition could also be a credible threat for a longer horizon. Max Baucus runs next in 2012. Popular and progressive Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer is term limited out in 2010. With enough people pledging advance support, this might well encourage Schweitzer to run. When I broached the petition idea to former nine-term Montana Congressman Pat Williams, he loved it, calling it "precisely the way to move the Congress to do what the majority of Americans want."
Forcing Senators like Nelson, Baucus, and Lincoln to respond to the American public would be the right thing politically as well as morally. In a recent Lake Research poll, 64 percent of those surveyed opposed requiring all Americans to buy insurance in the absence of a public option. With a public option included, the margin reversed, and 60 percent supported it. When a recent CBS pollasked how to finance the health care bill, people responded, by a 55 to 37 percent margin, that they should tax those making over $250,000 a year, the approach of Pelosi's House version.
We could also use collective pressure to demand that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee refuse to help any Democratic Senators who support a Republican filibuster. This seems a reasonable line to draw, given how destructive the resistance of this small group has been to the Party's ability to build on their electoral mandate and act. Others have talked of a pledge to refuse to donate or volunteer for any particular candidates who'd cross that line. But withholding money or support in the general election is a risky game of chicken, where we if we lose, we're guaranteed an even-worse Republican. Primary challenges have a chance of actually ending up with a decent Senator who represents their constituency.
Given enough visibility, I'm confident that such a petition could draw a couple hundred thousand signatures. And if enough people did sign it, this just might keep these obstructionist Senators honest enough to do what they should have to begin with, in actually working to pass good Democratic bills, and we won't need to go out on a limb recruiting and supporting new challengers. Think of how Arlen Specter has become more progressive since the primary challenge of Joe Sestak. The challenges here would be more hypothetical, but they could well have the same positive affect. A petition with enough signatures would also give Harry Reid some leverage to stand up more firmly when merging the two Senate bills, or to pursue the reconciliation option that allows passage of key sections with just 50 votes. It will also encourage Nancy Pelosi to continue drawing the line for a strong public option and progressive taxation when the bills go to the joint Senate-House committee. If we can get the obstructionists to realize their lack of loyalty might just cost them their Senate seats, they might actually be the ones to back down.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association, and Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, whose new and completely revised second edition will be published March 30, 2010. See www.paulloeb.org To receive Paul's articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles