Left out of AHCA fight, Democrats let their grass roots lead and win
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Left out of AHCA fight, Democrats let their grass roots lead — and win
By David Weigel March 24 at 9:35 PM
House Democrats celebrate 'victory for the Affordable Care Act'
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a freshman from a safe seat in Chicago’s suburbs, was just about to deliver his speech against the American Health Care Act when he heard a commotion on the House floor. The bill was being pulled. Democrats, who up until that moment thought the Republicans might yank a rabbit out of the hat, began celebrating, and Krishnamoorthi thought back to election night, when he learned that he would be coming to Washington with President Trump.
“I thought this repeal bill would sail through,” he said. “It was the president’s number one priority. And what was incredible about this process was the phone calls — we had 1,959 phone calls in opposition to the American Health Care Act. We had 30 for it.”
On Friday afternoon, as congressional Democrats learned that the GOP had essentially given up on repealing the Affordable Care Act, none of them took the credit. They had never really cohered around an anti-AHCA message. (As recently as Wednesday, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was still using the phrase “make America sick again,” which most Democrats had abandoned.) They’d been sidelined legislatively, as Republicans tried to pass a bill on party lines. They’d never called supporters to the Capitol for a show of force, as Republicans had done, several times, during the 2009-2010 fight to pass the Affordable Care Act.
Instead, Democrats watched as a roiling, well-organized “resistance” bombarded Republicans with calls and filled their town hall meetings with skeptics. The Indivisible coalition, founded after the 2016 election by former congressional aides who knew how to lobby their old bosses, was the newest and flashiest. But it was joined by MoveOn, which reported 40,000 calls to congressional offices from its members; by Planned Parenthood, directly under the AHCA’s gun; by the Democratic National Committee, fresh off a divisive leadership race; and by the AARP, which branded the bill as an “age tax” before Democrats had come up with a counterattack.
Congressional Democrats did prime the pump. After their surprise 2016 defeat, they made Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) the outreach director of the Senate caucus. Sanders’s first project was “Our First Stand,” a series of rallies around the country, organized by local Democrats and following a simple format. Elected officials would speak; they would then pass the microphone to constituents who had positive stories to tell about the ACA.
“What we’re starting to do, for the first time in the modern history of the Democratic Party, is active grass-roots organizing,” Sanders said in a January interview. “We’re working with unions, we’re working with senior groups, and we’re working with health-care groups. We’re trying to rally the American people so we can do what they want. And that is not the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.”
Surrounded by Democratic Party colleagues, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks to journalists after House Speaker Paul Ryan canceled a scheduled vote on the American Health Care Act on Friday, March 24, 2017. (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
The turnout for the rallies exceeded expectations, though their aggregate total, over 70-odd cities, would be dwarfed by the Women’s March one week later. More importantly, they proved that there was a previously untapped well of goodwill for the ACA — which had polled negatively for seven years — and it smoothed over divisions inside the party. Days after Barack Obama had blamed “Bernie Sanders supporters” for undermining support for the ACA, Sanders was using his campaign mailing list to save the law.
“It was the town halls, and the stories, that convinced me that people might actually stop this bill,” said Tom Perriello, a former Democratic congressman now running an insurgent campaign for governor of Virginia, with his career-ending vote for the ACA front and center.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/03/24/left-out-of-ahca-fight-democrats-let-their-grass-roots-lead-and-win/?utm_term=.55baa34c5452
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