Next time any Presidential candidate promises in a campaign to enact a certain piece of legislation

[BzaDem]

(say X), you should mechanically translate that promise into the following:

"I promise NOT to enact X by fiat, since that would violate our Constitution (which states Congress has the power to enact laws). However, I promise to sign X if passed by both Houses, and to do my best in advocating for the passage of X and creating circumstances conducive to the passage of X through Congress."

It doesn't matter what X is, or who the candidate is. That is always what they mean, each and every time without exception. A "campaign promise" relating to legislation is simply shorthand for the above.

A lot of people are claiming it is hypocritical to credit Obama for the passage of laws, while not blaming him for the failure of laws. But this is not hypocritical in the slightest. In order for a law to pass, many things have to happen. The President should be credited when he does his part, and should be blamed when he fails to do his part. But he should not be blamed when OTHER Constitutional actors fail to do their part (or credited for the actions of other Constitutional actors). The President's actions in the process of passing legislation are NECESSARY actions, but they are FAR from sufficient actions.

In the case of DADT, I credit Obama for advocating for the repeal of DADT (both in public many times and even more often behind the scenes). I credit him for realizing how essential it was to get the military on board, and to back up his advocacy with extensive survey data. I do not credit him for the actual votes taken by the few Republicans (and nearly all Democrats) that resulted in passage -- I credit him for doing his best to create the circumstances that were conducive to those votes.

Likewise, on other issues where (in my opinion) NO circumstances would be sufficient to get Republican votes, I do not blame him. If there were a path to success (in my opinion) and he chose not to avail himself of it, I would blame him. (One example of this is his failure to nominate enough judges.) But that is often not the case on other issues (particularly legislative issues), where no action by the President would expand the potential vote pool to a number sufficient for passage.

[leftstreet]

1. 'The bill I sign must include a public option'

Let's see how that works:

I promise NOT to enact A PUBLIC OPTION by fiat, since that would violate our Constitution (which states Congress has the power to enact laws). However, I promise to sign A PUBLIC OPTION if passed by both Houses, and to do my best in advocating for the passage of A PUBLIC OPTION and creating circumstances conducive to the passage of A PUBLIC OPTION through Congress."

Sounds kinda weird, but I guess it makes your point

[BzaDem]

2. That would make sense, IF there were some set of circumstances under which there would be 60 votes

for a public option (and Obama chose not to avail himself of them).

However, in the case where NO set of circumstances would have produced 60 votes for a public option, then obviously that is not Obama's problem.

[LooseWilly]

10. And, contrariwise, if the White House fails to insist on the public-option in a bill...

—it would be a failure on the White House's part?

http://politics.usnews.com/news/obama/articles/2009/08/17/obama-signals-public-option-could-be-dropped.html

Dated Aug. 17, 2009

The White House not only ceased arguing for the public option... they downright sabotaged it by floating, through a number of different mouths, that they didn't think it was worth fighting for.

Fueling the latest debate today over the Obama administration's proposed healthcare reform is whether the president would forgo a government-sponsored public insurance option to push his deal through Congress.


Called a public option, the idea is backed by some liberals as a way to keep private insurance companies honest on price and quality.

The Obama administration signaled over the weekend that the option could be dropped.

"The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of healthcare reform. This is just one sliver of it. One aspect of it," President Barack Obama said in a town hall meeting Saturday in Colorado.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that the government alternative to private health insurance is "not the essential element" of healthcare reform. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, sent a similar message on CBS's Face the Nation, saying that the president "will be satisfied" if the private insurance market has "choice and competition."
That's Obama selling out congress people fighting still for Obama's idea, the public option... that's Sebelius selling out the congress people still fighting for the public option, and that's Gibbs selling out the congress people still fighting for the public option.

How do we know that there were still congress people fighting for the public option? Well, Howard Dean said so...

Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said this morning that the healthcare bill isn't worth passing without the public option. "There are too many people who understand, including the president himself, the public option is absolutely linked to reform," Dean said on CBS's This Morning.

He cited two public health programs, Medicare and the Veterans Health Administration system, in defense of the idea.

But the Obama administration hinted this weekend that it is considering an alternative to the public option: nonprofit health cooperatives.

You'll notice, the administration soon gave up on fighting for the "nonprofit health cooperatives" too. As for the congress people themselves, at the time?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/17/dianne-feinstein-signs-on_n_466435.html

Dated:Feb. 17, 2010:

Support for the public health insurance option is surging in the Senate. It began with three freshman Democrats in the House, Alan Grayson (Fla.), Chellie Pingree (Maine) and Jared Polis (Colo.). The campaign has taken place almost exclusively online.

Grayson organized an online petition calling for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to include a public option in health care reform using reconciliation, process that requires only fifty votes plus a tie-breaker from Vice President Joe Biden. Pingree and Polis persuaded more than 100 House members to sign on to a letter urging Reid to do the same.

The entire effort has been organized on the outside by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and Credo Action. The members behind the movement have been rewarded by online donors.

On Tuesday, four Senate Democrats joined the effort, urging Reid to pass a public option using reconciliation. The group was led by Sen. Michael Bennet, facing a primary challenge in Colorado. Sen. Kirstin Gillibran, facing a primary in New York, was also one of the initial four. Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Jeff Merkley (Oregon) rounded out the foursome.

Batta Boom, Batta Bing— you're entire premise, BzaDem, is disproven.

Time to try to contort a new flowchart of conveniences to justify the essential right-leaning of Obama policies and negotiations. Have fun with that.

[BzaDem]

11. Sure, IF there was a path to success for a public option and Obama chose not to avail himself of it.

Of course, since that wasn't true, your entire argument kind of collapses.

[LooseWilly]

12. Howard Dean argued it could be done through reconciliation.

As an extension of medicare.

My argument not only doesn't collapse, it becomes stronger, as reconciliation to expand an already existing program only required 51 votes, and no cloture/fillibuster option, in the Senate.

The Senate had enough support for a reconciliation vote, and Dean was optimistic.

http://www.theittlist.com/ittlist/2009/09/ (Friday, Sep. 25, 2009)

Last night Dr. Howard Dean, former chair of the DNC and 2004 presidential hopeful, appeared in conversation with journalist Joe Conason at the 92nd Street YMCA in New York. Dean discussed his new book, Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Health Care Reform.

Later on, I had a chance to ask Dean about the prospects for passing health care reform in the Senate through budget reconciliation, a parliamentary tactic that would allow the bill to pass by majority vote and thwart a filibuster. Many Democratic strategists consider reconciliation to be extremely politically risky, but Dean is unconvinced. He argues that passing a bill through budget reconciliation is not only
doable, but also likely to result in a stronger bill.

“I’m not worried about doing this through reconciliation,” he said, “I think we’ll probably have a better bill if it’s through reconciliation because the people who are involved in the passage of the bill will only be Democrats and a very high proportion of Democrats want a public option.”

Voilá... a path for success for the public option which Obama chose not to pursue/avail himself of. My argument does not collapse— yours does. Rationalize that one...

[BzaDem]

13. The House forced the Senate to promise in writing that they would not change the reconciliation bill

the House sent the Senate (HR 4872).

So why do you think the House didn't put in a Medicare buy-in to HR 4872? Pelosi obviously wanted one, and she could have sent HR 4872 to the floor with one in there. Why do you think she didn't?

[LooseWilly]

16. The reconciliation process is different than a reconciliation bill, but you knew that, didn't you?

You were hoping to substitute one idea for the other in order to control the direction of the conversation.

Using the reconciliation process the senate could have built a de facto public option on the basis of an expansion of medicare buy-in availability.

There would've been no fillibuster, because the reconciliation process does not allow more than 12 hours of debate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress)

Reconciliation is a legislative process of the United States Senate intended to allow consideration of a contentious budget bill with debate limited to twenty hours under Senate Rules.

This was the process used by W to pass what we might as well now call the Obama Tax Cuts, as Obama has engineered their extension.

I agree that Pelosi wanted to include the public option. If Obama had wanted it as badly as W wanted the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, then he could have pressured the party legislators to adopt the same strategy, whose success had been amply demonstrated in 2001 and 2003, to pass a health care bill with a de facto public option.

Instead, once Obama's White House had floated the idea of doing away with the public option, they turned all their powers of persuasion onto Pelosi and House Democrats to convince them to pass a bill without a public option, but with mandates.

Why do I think the "reform" went the way it did? Because the White House didn't want a public option and they did want mandates. Why do I think they sold out their campaign promises on the subject? I have a number of theories, but not enough evidence to decide amidst them.

Do I have any trust that the White House will follow through with any of their other campaign promises? No.

Would I vote for Nancy Pelosi were she to primary Obama in 2012? Yes.

Any other disingenuous questions?

[WonderGrunion]

15. That path closed with Scott Brown's election in Massachussettes

Had the bill been sent to conference before the election, then reconciliation would have been a viable option. Brown's election shut that door and a new path had to be taken or else abandon Health Care Reform.

[OhioBlue]

3. K&R - question about the judges

I thought the issue was that Republicans put a hold on his appointments. Are you saying that he should have recess appointed or that there is actually a failure by the Administration to nominate enough or passable judges? If you're familiar with a good article on this, I would appreciate it if you could give me a link.

This is an honest question - I'm just looking for some info/insight - I googled but there were a lot of links to sort thru and thought you might point me in a good direction.

[BzaDem]

6. It's somewhat complicated, but there are two distinct issues here.

One issue is appointments, and the second issue is confirmation.

You are talking about confirmation. Normally, in the Senate, judges are either confirmed by unanimous consent or votes are scheduled for them by unanimous consent. The reason for this is that without unanimous consent, it takes 2 calendar days plus 30 hours of debate (in addition to 60 votes) to confirm each and every judge (and executive appointee). Given that there are hundreds of judges/executive appointees pending before the Senate at any given moment, this is obviously impractical. So the majority leader and minority leader come together and negotiate unanimous consent agreements to confirm many appointees at once, in block, in about 5 seconds. Or, they negotiate unanimous consent agreements that schedule a vote on judge 1 at 2pm, a vote on judge 2 at 3pm, etc (as opposed to the full 2 days plus 30 hours on each judge that would be required without unanimous consent).

This Congress, Republicans are simply refusing to give unanimous consent agreements at a remotely reasonable pace. Far fewer of Obama's judge appointees have been confirmed so far (~40%) than previous presidents at this point in their terms (usually 80%+). This is the Republicans' fault, and the rules of the Senate need to be changed to deal with this if Republicans continue.

HOWEVER, separate from the confirmation of appointees is actually appointing people in the first place. In addition to having a much lower percentage of his appointees confirmed, Obama has also appointed fewer judges than previous presidents at this point in their term. That is solely Obama's fault. He has the power alone to appoint (not confirm, but simply appoint) judges, and the failure of his administration to do this at a faster pace is Obama's fault. He might not be able to get more judges confirmed (due to Republican refusal to cooperate), but at least he could appoint them and not let Republicans have an excuse blame Obama for the judicial vacancy crisis.

(I don't think Obama should recess appoint judges, since those terms expire after a year.)

[OhioBlue]

9. Thanks so much for the info

and taking the time to post the explanation.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. Excellent OP

It should be obvious that Presidential candidates (or any candidate for that matter) can't make things happen that are beyond his/her power and should be judged on what they do or don't do to help make these things possible rather than on what ultimately passes. I believe that President Obama correctly focused on the "long game" and achieving a decisive victory on this issue rather than being pressured into achieving a popular short-term political *victory* that could've been more easily overturned. He endured a lot of bruising and lost a lot of political capital by taking the slower, more treacherous route of supporting a legislative repeal of DADT but in the end he won (and John McCain lost) AGAIN!
:rofl:

[Historic NY]

5. I agree. K&R

[JamesA1102]

8. Well said nt

[OHdem10]

7. Very good post,. One must logically conclude the importance

of electing good Democratic Congress Men and Women.

[stray cat]

14. Your post does not fit on a license plate or a 30 sec ad