Darcy Burner is at work organizing progressives on and off the Hill to hold firm on a robust public option. Roll Call says it appears she is having some sucess with Pelosi unable to pass a bill without a govt health plan in it. ..
Of note Burner is organizing a PAC for progressives who are vulnerable in the House so they will still have financial backing if they vote the progressive way. This PAC will also screen new candidates and may back them with money to increase the number of Hill progressives.
This fight over a public option is the fight that will define the Obama years. If progressive grassroots fail to secure a robust public option in the bill we can expect little reform in the years ahead. If progs can push the WH into retaining the public option their power will grow and will be seen as a real power broker on key legislation. If we want real climate change laws, student college lending changes, real regulatory reforms as proposed by Rep Barney Frank, and much much more then these next few months we all must march, protest ,call and visit our members of congress and push this WH!
Burner acknowledges in this piece that liberals are in t he position of having to persuade the WH on the pub option. She says if progressives don’t hold the line and fight hard in t he trenches then expect no real reform. As she notes -Obama must be made to do it.
Burner Helping House Liberals Hold Firm on Public Insurance Option
Aug. 31, 2009, 12:01 a.m.
By Tory Newmyer
Roll Call Staff

An organizer for liberal House Democrats says the bloc "isn’t bluffing" as it prepares to take a reputation-defining stand to protect a public insurance option in the health care overhaul. ...Darcy Burner, executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation, said the health care debate has rallied traditionally disparate Congressional liberals to hang together, while galvanizing support for their position from an array of left-leaning outside groups. The result, she said, is that Democratic leaders will not be able to clear a package through the House if it does not include the public plan.
"We have never had the Progressive Caucus organized the way it is right now," Burner said during a Friday roundtable with Roll Call. "This is not the normal scenario. And Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] knows it."
Liberals have new organizational muscle to back up their threat. As evidence, she pointed to a fundraising effort coordinated by MoveOn.org and left-wing bloggers that netted about $400,000 in small-dollar donations in just a few days for 60 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Those lawmakers signed an Aug. 17 letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius pledging to vote against a bill that doesn’t include a robust public plan. ... She said she saw a gap between liberal lawmakers and what should be a ready-made base for them in likeminded grass-roots organizations that were too narrowly focused on electoral politics instead of governing.
The group’s organizational strength faces its most serious test this fall, and Burner acknowledged it is incumbent on liberals to convince the White House it will have an easier time getting a bill through the Senate with a public insurance option than getting one through the House without one.
"If Progressives aren’t willing to do the work to make the president do the right thing, it’s unlikely he will," she said.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/38051-1.html?type=printer_friendly
