© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC
Posted on 03/31/2010 2:43:01 PM PDT by neverdem
The president’s push to turn health care reform into a catalyst for the rest of his agenda is getting mixed early reactions on Capitol Hill, where Democratic leaders' desire to take advantage of healthy majorities before the November elections must contend with lawmakers’ survival instincts.
But as party leaders plot the course for the rest of the year, some fatigued Democrats in tough reelection races may yell “Uncle” at the first sight of another controversial bill.
White House aides told POLITICO earlier this week that an emboldened Barack Obama plans to parlay his win on health care into a crackdown on Wall Street excesses, a rewrite of education and campaign finance laws and possibly a climate change bill — all before the fall's midterms.
But aides and members, Republicans and Democrats alike, said that a Wall Street crackdown was coming — but progress on climate change, immigration and other contentious measures probably wasn't — no matter what happened with the health care bill.
“I don’t see it creating momentum,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has negotiated across party lines on several significant issues in his first term.
The difference Corker detects on regulating Wall Street is not that the bill’s moving — that, he said, was inevitable — but that Obama is working to ensure it appeals to liberals.
“There may be more pressure from the administration than there was to keep it on the left,” Corker said. But other than that, he said, “I don’t think [health care] is going to affect other agenda items.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill differ as to whether — but mostly to what degree — putting health care reform on the scoreboard has given Obama more juice in Congress.
They uniformly say that swatting Wall Street is a political no-brainer that unifies their party and splits Republicans, and many of them are eager to pass anything that can be labeled a “jobs” bill to show voters that they are focused on reversing economic misfortune. Both bills offer the opportunity to cater to populist sentiment before the elections — and to force the GOP to go along or risk public backlash.
“As we go forward, we will see if the Republicans are willing to reform Wall Street,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last week. “Bipartisanship is nice, but it cannot be a substitute for action. Not having it cannot prevent us from going forward. So, if they don’t want to regulate Wall Street, we do. And we will.”
But that’s the relatively easy part.
As Democrats approach what is expected to be a tough midterm election cycle, two cross-cutting dynamics are taking hold: Lawmakers who must battle to win reelection are even less inclined to cast tough votes, while some Democratic strategists believe the best bet for party leaders is to use big congressional majorities to enact their agenda, before anticipated November losses set them back.
“The only thing we know for certain is we have the majority until the beginning of November 2010,” said one House Democratic aide. “Especially this year, with how the political climate is, I don’t think we’ll lose the House, but there seems to be a sense of trying to get as much done when we can.”
Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, said that approach makes sense.
“If you’re going to use unified political party advantage … now is the time,” she said.
“If [Obama’s] saying he’s got the stride going and he’s on a winning streak and that was just the first of many things he thinks he can get through, I would actually say the opposite,” said the top aide to a member of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition. “That ship has sailed. That capital was expended on cap and trade first and health care second.”
The political ether is full of potentially poisonous issues for Democrats, including an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws and legislation aimed at addressing climate change.
Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have been working on an immigration bill, but Graham has been critical of Obama for not providing the muscle to back up declarations of support for an overhaul.
“At the end of the day, the president needs to step it up a little bit,” Graham told POLITICO earlier this month. “One line in the State of the Union is not going to do it.”
Obama said he would tackle immigration in 2010, but his win on the health care bill doesn't appear to have done much to break the impasse.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested Tuesday that the GOP has to put more skin in the game before Obama will commit to moving forward.
“I think the president has been a strong advocate and proponent of immigration reform, understanding, again, this is — I get asked all the time about bipartisanship, about, well, you can’t just — you guys can’t just go this alone, right? Well, this is not an issue that’s going to be decided by just getting all the Democratic members to support immigration reform,” Gibbs said at a White House press briefing. “There has to be — there have to be Republicans that come aboard, too.”
A senior Senate Democratic aide told POLITICO this week that when it comes to the legislative agenda between now and November, immigration and "a large energy push" are "the only two things that remain questions."
The aide said financial regulatory reform, a ban on corporate campaign spending and a series of jobs bills would be the meat of the party’s agenda for the rest of the year.
But as polls on the health care law bounce around — the latest from USA Today/Gallup had 50 percent responding that it was a bad development — some Democrats say clearing the decks has given them an opportunity to deliver on other items.
Senior Democratic aides in the House say there may be movement toward energy legislation, whether it's a comprehensive stab at addressing climate change or something significantly smaller.
“There’s still an opportunity to get a bunch of really big things done,” said one senior House Democratic aide.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen flipped the equation, saying that jobs bills and a financial system overhaul would have been slowed if Democrats hadn’t succeeded with their health care reform push.
“Failure to pass health care reform would have made it much harder to move on those issues,” the Maryland Democrat said.
He also said the House isn’t likely to initiate new bills that are divisive within Democratic ranks but left room for the House to take up legislation passed by the Senate.
Jake Sherman contributed to this report.
© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC |
Sounds like these blue dogs are now gun shy.
Are there ANY Democrats left in Congress who are Americans FIRST and democrats Second?
Because, if there ARE, They have GOT to STOP this guy!
TRANSLATION: We are going to screw the American people as much as we can, while we can.
Oh please, oh please, let it be amnesty. Push it Barry. All the way to the floor. Fry the House AND the Senate.
this is a major reason for Barry’s smoke-and-mirrors on oil drilling. Most Americans who don’t read the fine print will like what they hear. That will push his poll numbers up, and they he will go to Congress and try to convince them that the public is turning around on his agenda.
I wish I could agree, but you know there are at least 2-4 Republicans who will vote for amnesty, maybe more depending on how much $upport from the cheap labor lobby.
Oh please, oh please, let it be amnesty. Push it Barry. All the way to the floor. Fry the House AND the Senate.
Gibbs doesn't sound like the White House is eager for it. It's understandable with so much unemployment. Even Grahamnesty sounds iffy.
At this point, it’s better if they do push on.
Let them f**k-up the country royally.
Enough of the creeping socialism thing.
Let the American people see what these commies are all about.
Perhaps then we can count on some real change in the direction of freedom again.
I know I’m getting twisted at this point, but I remember how the outrage at McCain-Kennedy sent them scurrying into the bushes last time. Do amnesty on top of the health care cram down and you have to have the perfect storm. Flip both bodies in one election, then let zero stand back and admire his handiwork.
Obama sticks his toe in the “Drill Baby Drill door now. The Republicans should slam the door shut cuz he aint serious in the least. If you are serious about anything you jump in with both feet methinks.
Perhaps a few—look at the ones who voted no on health care.
Once everyone figures out what's in obama's job killing health & tax takeover bill, obama's socialist agenda just might hit a brick wall! And let's hope November elections send those Democratic big spending socialists who voted for the job killing health & tax takeover bill out the door!
Democratic leaders' desire to take advantage of healthy majorities before the November elections must contend with lawmakers' survival instincts. White House aides told POLITICO earlier this week that an emboldened Barack Obama plans to parlay his win on health care into a crackdown on Wall Street excesses, a rewrite of education and campaign finance laws and possibly a climate change bill -- all before the fall's midterms.Thanks neverdem. If the Demwits in Congress *had* any survival instincts, they'd have voted no on Obamacare. As it is, they were stuck between alienating the loudmouth fraction of their constituencies (thus they demanded largesse for their districts and states) thus abandoning whatever core or base they had left, and facing the majority of the voters, who will be showing up, regardless of what smears the DNC may concoct -- collect the whole series, although past performance is no indication of future gains.
That whole “drilling” thing was a media-promoted farce. He actually permanently closed off areas that had been under exploration before (Alaska), closed off the richest areas (California), and announced that in couple of limited areas “seismic exploration” (not drilling) would begin in the next few years - including one area whose state has already passed a law to prevent drilling there.
Anybody who believes he is permitting drilling had better read the fine print. Besides, tomorrow or the next day he is supposed to issue an executive order enforcing a “CO2 controls system” through the EPA that is essentially cap and trade...without even having it go through Congress.
I wish there were MORE!
What happened to the “I can do more then one thing at a time”? Where are the jobs? Why is everyone acting like they can finally get around to working on jobs? I thought they had a job summit...........oh that’s right, no one who has ever worked or started a business was invited. Kind of like the fake doctors. These people must really be stoopid to think anything really matters with this big pile of steaming pooh (Obamacare) sitting there waiting for America to take a bite.
They're almost all from competitive districts who moved to the right starting in 2006. That's how the rats took over Congress combined with the dismal GOP performance. That's how they got such a big majority. IIRC, there are 84 Congressional Districts with a rat in the House whose district voted for Bush in 2004 or McCain in 2008. They have a hardcore left leadership, but their majority has a lot of moderates.
Nanct Pelosi walking thru the Tea Party rally carrying her gavel, is like a football player going to the opponents pep rally in a football suit.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.