Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer -- Need for Up or Down Vote on Health Care in Senate
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:03:03 EDT
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Every Democratic Senator Must Vote to Allow an Up or Down  Vote on Health 
Care 

The Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid – and a majority of Members of  
the Senate – support the inclusion of public health insurance option in the  
Senate’s health care reform bill.  The debate over where the Senate  of the 
United  States stands on this question is now  settled.  The Senate – like 
the  American people, the House of Representatives and the President – 
supports a  public option. 
What is not settled is whether the majority will be allowed to have an up  
or down vote on a health care bill that includes a public option.   
The question is: will any of the Democratic Senators join with the  
Republicans to prevent an up or down vote on a bill containing a public option –  
one that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American  people? 
Will any of those Democratic Senators allow themselves to be used by the  
insurance industry to stifle the will of the majority of Americans who want 
to  end that industry’s stranglehold over the American health care  system? 
Sixty members of the Senate caucus with Democrats – 58 Democrats and two  
independents (Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders).  These 60 members share in 
the benefits  of being part of the majority party, including committee 
chairmanships. Together  they control enough votes to end a Republican filibuster 
aimed at blocking  health insurance reform, and allow an up or down vote 
that this critical bill  deserves. This should be a no-brainer. To their 
credit, many Democrats who are  not strong supporters of the public option have in 
fact indicated that they  would not stand in the way of an up or down vote. 
 Yet several Democratic Senators have not  yet committed to vote with the 
Democratic Leadership and support a vote to  proceed. 
Remember that to pass a bill  in the Senate you only need 51 votes – or 50 
votes plus the tie-breaking vote of  the Vice President.   We do not need 
every Democrat to pass a  bill.  But every one of them must  vote to end 
debate on a bill to allow an up or down vote to take place, since  ending debate 
in the Senate requires 60 votes.  
If some Democrats disagree with the content of the bill – or oppose a  
public option – so be it. They should vote no on final passage.  But they should 
never side with the  Republicans on a procedural vote to prevent an up or 
down, majority vote on the  substance of the issue.  
Frankly, if a  Democrat votes against the party on a procedural vote and 
empowers the  Republicans to block a vote on the party’s top domestic 
priority, the caucus  should strip that Senator of all of the power that comes from 
being part of the  Majority Party – including committee chairmanships.  
It is one thing to oppose the substance of a bill.  It’s another to oppose 
the Party  Leadership on a procedural motion and block the will of the 
majority.  That kind of breach of party discipline  makes it impossible for a 
majority party to govern.  On procedural votes members of a  majority party 
have to stick together or they might as well not be in the  majority – they 
hand the reins over to the minority. 
In this case they would also be thwarting the will of the voters who –  
very intentionally – ended Republican control of Congress and put Democrats in  
the majority so they could make change. 
By voting with Republicans on a procedural vote, a Democrat would, in  
effect, be handing the gavel back to Republican Senator Mitch McConnell.  They 
would be allowing the minority  Republicans and their insurance industry 
allies to set the parameters for the  kind of change is even allowed to come to 
a vote in Congress.  
That would be true on any issue.  But it is especially true of the Party’s 
marquee issue, health care  reform.  By joining with the  Republicans and 
preventing its leadership from calling an up or down vote on  health care 
reform, a Democratic Senator would be engaging in a traitorous  act.  Not only 
would he or she be  preventing implementation of a critical party priority.  
That Senator would also be politically  endangering many of the swing seats 
held by House and Senate Members who are up  for re-election next year.   
That’s right – it is the swing district Democrats that would be  
endangered by the failure to pass President Obama’s health insurance  reform.  Look 
at what happened after  the 1993 failure of the Clinton health plan that was 
also the  centerpiece of his Presidency. In 1994, Democrats lost 54 seats.  
Of those, 36 were incumbents.  It wasn’t the members from strong  Democratic 
districts, who had fought hard for health care reform, who lost.  It was 
mainly members from swing  districts, rural districts and southern districts. 
The Clinton health care bill never came to a vote  in the House, but only 
11 of the 36 incumbents who lost had co-sponsored the  bill.  Many of the 25 
others had  opposed the Clinton health care plan.  Didn’t matter; they were 
the biggest  political victims of the failure of health care reform.  
History shows that when the  popularity and job performance rating of an 
incumbent President drops, the odds  of swing Democrats being elected to 
Congress drop as  well. 
And it wasn’t just that swing voters lost faith in Democrats.  Base 
Democratic voters failed to turn  out.  Republican base voters –  smelling 
Democratic blood in the waters– turned out in record  numbers. 
The fact is that just as a rising political tide lifts all boats, when  the 
political tide recedes those in the shallowest political water are most  
likely to be left aground.  
Failure to take  action on health care would be the most likely way to end 
the majority status  for Democrats.  Such a failure would  massively damage 
the political standing of the President and the Democrat  brand.  That, in 
turn, would sink  swing district Democrats.  The  Republicans know this.  That
’s why  they are fighting so hard to prevent the passage of health 
insurance  reform.  Any Democratic Senator who  helps them is endangering fellow 
Democrats.  
That is particularly true since polls show that the policy question at  
issue, the public option, is uniformly popular in swing, frontline and Blue Dog 
 districts. The firm of Anzelone Liszt recently released the results of a 
poll it  conducted in 91 Blue Dog, Rural Caucus and Frontline districts.  The 
poll found that 54% of the voters in  these battleground districts support 
the choice of a public  option. 
In fact, throughout the country, giving consumers the choice of a public  
option is one of the most popular elements of the overall health insurance  
reform bill.  
But what is more important is that Democrats in swing districts need a  
public option to convince voters to favor a health insurance mandate.  Anzeloni 
and  Liszt make clear in their polling report that in swing districts: “
It's wrong to think about the public option  in isolation from other elements 
of reform. Forcing an individual mandate  without a public option is a clear 
political loser (34% Favor / 60% Oppose), and  only becomes more palatable 
when a public option is offered in competition with  the private sector (50% 
Favor / 46%  Oppose).” 
Turns out that a  public option provides a political inoculation against 
backlash to a  mandate.  That’s because people have  no stomach for being 
herded into the arms of private insurance industry like  sheep to the slaughter. 
 They want  to know that if the government is going to require them to get 
health insurance,  that it also provides the choice of a not-for-profit 
public plan – that they are  not left at the mercy of private insurance  CEO’s. 
It is fine for each Democrat in the Senate to vigorously advocate his or  
her own position on health care.  But once the majority of the Senate has 
made up its mind, no Democrat  should be allowed to side with the Republicans 
to block the majority will – to  block the Congress and the President from 
taking action.  Not only would that be terrible for the  country-- it 
threatens the majority status of the Democratic  Party. 
If a Democratic Senator votes to prevent his party from having an up or  
down vote on its top domestic priority, he is endangering the political lives 
of  his swing district colleagues.  That  would be unforgivable. 
Robert Creamer is a long-time political  organizer and strategist, and 
author of the recent book: “Stand Up Straight: How  Progressives Can Win,” 
available on _amazon.com_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206567141&sr=8-1
) .

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