“Congress’ Pity Party”: Drama Queens Who Choose Not To Solve The Nation’s Problems
This week’s congressional dysfunctional is brought to you by the letter “P.” Forget Democrats and Republicans: The party of the moment is pity.
Yes, yes, Congress is polarized, Republicans aren’t a governing party anymore, Democrats lack spines, everyone is beholden to corporate interests, and the open source world is changing how politicians interact with their constituents.
None of that has anything to do with the theatrics over the filibuster.
Every so often, Congress, frustrated and angry that the public bears them so much ill-will, decides to remind us that their inability to get stuff done is our fault.
We’re the ones who elected them. We’re the ones who keep voting for them. We’re the ones who demand that they sacrifice principles for expediency. Allegedly. But we don’t really pay attention to Congress, because they don’t do much, and when they do, it’s often comical.
So they get angry. They create a crisis. They give long, florid floor speeches about the crisis. They appear on television and bemoan. And bemoan and bemoan and bemoan what happened to this great institution, (if in the Senate: This saucer, this leavening chamber), this beacon of democratic representation in the world.
Right now, we’re in the pity stage. You know it because the political tabloids are publishing stories about how relationships between parties are at their lowest point since the last time these tabloids wrote the stories. Or that the majority leader and the minority leader can’t take each other’s phone calls.
Pity clears the room. Pity is such a turn-off because it absolves the bearer of any responsibility to solve his or her own problem.
Truth be told, the Senate can solve its problems. Its members just choose not to. But instead of admitting that manufactured crises are the catalyst for getting anything done, we are instead treated to spectacles that Congress can watch on TV and feel important again.
They negotiate publicly and privately, then create a solution.
Often, the solution sets up further crises, which will allow Congress to once again come back and get everyone’s attention, as they go through the performance and sweep in at the last moment and provide another solution, proving once and for all that Congress actually does work. Then they congratulate themselves on a job well done. Take that, American people.
By: Marc Ambinder, The Week, July 16, 2013
“Republicans, All Talk, No Action”: No House Alternative, No Conference Committee, No Attempt At Finding Common Ground
Without a hint of humor or shame, the Republican National Committee issued a press release this morning accusing President Obama of being “All Talk, No Action” when it comes to the “Hispanic Community.” No, seriously, that’s what the RNC said.
Someone at the RNC’s communications office probably should have thought this one through a little more, since, when it comes to issues important to Latino voters, it’s the lack of “action” from congressional Republicans that’s proving to be so problematic.
Indeed, when it comes to comprehensive immigration reform, which is facing long odds in the face of fierce opposition from the House GOP, the question is whether these Republican lawmakers are prepared to do anything on the issue. National Review‘s Jonathan Strong reports they may not (via Greg Sargent).
Speaker John Boehner wants to pass a series of small bills dealing with immigration reform piece by piece, but it’s not clear whether 218 votes, the required number for passage, will be there for any of them.
Top Democrats are already signaling they’ll oppose the various bills being prepared by the GOP leadership, and conservative Republicans, especially, are wary. Many Republicans will prefer to simply vote against any bill, even if they agree with elements of the legislation, just to prevent Boehner from going to conference with the Senate. Such a conference, many conservatives fear, could lead to a consensus bill that includes amnesty.
When it comes to the future of the policy, this is obviously important. House Republican leaders don’t intend to consider the bipartisan Senate bill, but they also don’t want to do nothing. Boehner & Co. figure they can at least put a positive face on failure by instead taking up elements of immigration reform piecemeal.
But Strong, whose sourcing among Republicans on Capitol Hill is excellent, is reporting that rank-and-file House Republicans aren’t even willing to go this far. Indeed, they’ll even oppose measures they like for fear that they’ll go to a conference committee and become slightly more progressive after negotiations with the Senate Democratic majority.
It’s easier, they figure, to just kill every element of immigration reform and hope the electoral consequences aren’t too severe.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, there’s a good reason for that. This is the strategy outlined just last week by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and National Review editor Rich Lowry — two of the most influential Republican voices in media — who co-signed an editorial urging House Republicans to put “a stake through” immigration reform’s “heart.”
More specifically, they urged GOP lawmakers should do literally nothing on the issue — no House alternative, no conference committee, no attempt at finding “common ground.”
It appears the advice was well received.
And so this once again puts the Speaker in an awkward position, as it sinks in that many in his own caucus prefer inaction — and he’s already committed to the so-called “Hastert Rule” that effectively gives these far-right House members a veto power over which bills reach the floor.
What was that the RNC was saying about “All Talk, No Action”?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 16, 2013
“Accepting A Deal With The Devil”: Immigration Reform May Prove To Be A Mirage
For a bright, shining moment, it seemed that the abiding spirit among conservative Protestants was one of hospitality and compassion toward the “stranger.” But that turned out to be an illusion. Despite signs that Southern Baptists and other evangelicals might finally embrace the unauthorized immigrants living among us, many conservative churchgoers remain ambivalent or outright hostile to any plans to provide a path toward citizenship.
That helps explain why House Speaker John Boehner and his rebellious caucus have denounced a comprehensive immigration reform proposal recently passed by the U.S. Senate. House Republicans believe their constituents, who include most conservative evangelicals, find comprehensive immigration reform a bit of heresy — amnesty granted to lawbreakers and grifters. There is research to back that conclusion: 55 percent of white evangelical Protestants view immigrants as a “burden,” while 58 percent believe they “threaten” traditional American values, according to the Pew Research Center.
Optimists had concentrated on a less antagonistic — and slightly contradictory — finding from that Pew survey, conducted in March: An overwhelming majority of white evangelicals, 62 percent, said that undocumented workers should be allowed to stay in the country legally. While other religious groups showed greater support, even evangelicals appeared solidly behind the Biblical imperative to treat the “stranger” with charity and acceptance.
And there were other signs that conservative evangelicals might have experienced a road-to-Damascus epiphany, a realization that their belligerence toward undocumented newcomers borders on persecution. Two years ago, the Southern Baptist Convention — the largest and most influential denomination of conservative Protestants — called for “a just and compassionate path to legal status.”
Sure, the language was vague enough to give skeptics room for cover. Still, it denounced bigotry and harassment of the undocumented, which seemed a big step down the path of righteousness for a denomination that didn’t get around to apologizing for endorsing slavery until 1995.
More recently, several prominent evangelicals organized a group called the Evangelical Immigration Table to push to legalize undocumented workers. Prominent SBC pastors — including Richard Land and the organization’s current president, Bryant Wright — have endorsed the Table’s principles.
That led some observers to hope they’d bring the same passion to fighting for undocumented workers that they’ve brought to fighting against, say, gay marriage or abortion clinics. Perhaps there would be fiery sermons denouncing the unfairness of keeping undocumented workers in the shadows, telephone banks set up to call members of Congress, and massive political demonstrations demanding legislation granting a path to citizenship.
But, alas, that was not to be. Instead, evangelical leaders are themselves divided: A counter group called Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration (whatever that may be) opposes the Senate’s call for a path toward citizenship. Among that group’s most active supporters are several leaders of the Tea Party movement, whose pronouncements provoke more fear in Republican politicians than any tent-revival preacher ever could.
Meanwhile, few evangelical flocks have taken up the cause of their undocumented brothers and sisters with any passion or urgency. Here and there, a few have protested the meanest restrictions, such as those passed by the Alabama Legislature in 2011. Some Alabama churches, for example, actively opposed provisions that could have penalized a motorist who drove an undocumented newcomer to church.
Still, there has been nothing resembling the outrage over gay marriage, which evangelical preachers continue to attack with relish. There haven’t been the sustained protests that still inspire Republican state legislatures to curb reproductive freedoms. So it’s no surprise that GOP lawmakers have gotten the message: No matter what a few evangelical leaders have said, most of their members don’t want undocumented immigrants given the full rights of U.S. citizenship.
Later this month, the Evangelical Immigration Table will convene a day of “prayer and action” in Washington, but leaders have already signaled their willingness to accept a deal with the devil, refusing to pressure GOP lawmakers to keep a path toward citizenship as part of any bill. At this stage, it seems only heavenly intervention can resurrect comprehensive immigration reform.
By: Cynthia Tucker, The National Memo, July 13, 2013
“Just A Bunch Of Nativists”: Making Laws No Longer Part Of The Lawmaking Process
Reading through some headlines today, I came across one link that began, “House Votes To…” and I realized that no matter what the end of the headline was, you can almost always insert, “…Make Pointless Statement As Sop to Conservative Base” and you’ll be on target. In this case it happened to be a vote to block energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs, but it could have been any of a thousand things. You could argue, as Jonathan Chait does, that Republican lawmakers have basically given up on lawmaking altogether, and you wouldn’t be far off. But it’s more than that. They’ve reimagined the lawmaking process as a kind of extended ideological performance art piece, one that no longer has anything to do with laws in the “I’m Just a Bill” sense. It’s not as though they aren’t legislating, it’s just that laws have become beside the point.
Granted, the lawmaking process has always involved a lot of grandstanding and occasional votes taken more to make a statement than to alter the rules under which American society operates. Congress passes plenty of resolutions that do nothing more than express its sentiments, like saluting the patriotism of the East Burp High students who raised money to buy a new flag for their school, or declaring August to be Plantar Fasciitis Awareness Month. But those things always went alongside with actual lawmaking.
We’re now in a situation where the lawmaking process—you know, bills being written, introduced, voted on, that sort of thing—has, in the House at least, been given over almost entirely to this legislative kabuki, where the point of the exercise isn’t passing laws but making statements and taking positions. The current Congress is on pace to be the least productive in history when you measure by actual laws passed.
And it is really all about the House. Whenever you see someone say that “Congress” or “Washington” is stuck in gridlock or can’t get its act together, the underlying truth is almost always that it’s the Republican House gumming things up. There are more than a few crazy Republicans in the Senate, but as a group they’re willing to legislate, and sometimes even compromise with Democrats. Not so in the House. I think this reached its apogee when they took their 37th vote to repeal Obamacare a couple months back, in part because freshman Tea Party members hadn’t had the chance to perform the ritual. “The guys who’ve been up here the last year, we can go home and say listen, we voted 36 different times to repeal or replace Obamacare,” said South Carolina Representative Mick Mulvaney, with a touching compassion for his colleagues. “Tell me what the new guys are supposed to say.” There was a time when members of Congress would want to go to their constituents and tell them about funding they’d obtained for projects in the district or reforms they’d fought for and passed. These days, Republicans in the House know that none of what they vote for with such enthusiasm will ever even be considered in the Senate, much less voted on, passed, and sent to the president for his signature. But they don’t seem to care.
The kicker to this is that it’s only going to get worse, because the GOP is poised to erect a giant wall around the House of Representatives as its last redoubt of national power. As we’ve been discussing, the party is split between those who worry about their prospects in future presidential elections and therefore want to reach out to growing minority populations and soften the GOP’s hard-earned image as a bunch of nativists, and those who not only can’t stand the immigration reform currently on offer but fear only threats from their right in primary campaigns, since they’re in safe Republican districts. Most everyone in Washington now believes that immigration reform is all but dead, which is bad for the party’s next presidential nominee, but perfectly fine with House Republicans.
Although I’m always wary of assuming that the way things are in politics is the way they’ll remain for too long, we could well see an extended period in which a Democratic president is stymied by a Republican House dominated by legislators who couldn’t care less about legislating. It’s almost enough to make you cynical about politics.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, July 10, 2013
“The Stench Of Sulfur”: It’s Time To Call A Satan A Satan
I do not lead a partisan organization, but I do lead a faith-rooted organization that has a long history of speaking out on matters of public concern.
Here is why speaking out rather bluntly at this time seems necessary to me: Unless I have misread or misheard the news lately, the GOP majority in the House of Representatives holds roughly these positions on key issues:
Immigration Reform: No bill, or else a bill with no path to citizenship.
Farm Bill: Subsidies for fat-cat Agribusiness operators but no renewal of food assistance for the urban poor—which has long been the traditional rural-urban tradeoff in enacting compromise farm bills.
Student Debt: Let the financial markets decide, and we are not concerned with the actual devastating burden laid upon the future workforce. (In fairness, here the Wall Street Democrats are also a big problem.)
Universal Health Care: Hell no! Just repeal the damned thing!! If it is implemented it might actually allow poor “takers” to live a little bit longer than is convenient for us “makers,” who no longer require a large low-wage labor force—in the United States, that is.
Women’s Health: Whatever can you mean? You must mean infanticide??
Religious Liberty/First Amendment: We believe that any employer’s “religious convictions” should trump all civil rights and equal right protections under established law. Do we need to remind you that the Constitution was written by Christians and for Christians in particular?
Energy/Climate: I’m not that hot—are you? We in the One Percent will manage to stay cool by any means necessary as the rest of you suffer.
Regulation More Broadly: You can catch up with our death-and-debt-dealing corporate friends AFTER the damage is done, OK? That’s the American Way.
That’s the House Republicans. And on the Senate side:
Presidential Appointments: It is our firm intention to thwart and destroy this president; effectively nullifying his power to make appointments forms a central part of that effort. (Please go ahead and do that Google search on earlier nullification fun times in US history.)
If I am misrepresenting these positions, by all means call me on it. But if I describe them accurately, don’t we have a responsibility to say that these positions have the sulfurous stench of Satan about them?
Not in precisely those words, perhaps. But we have many valid ways—and many long-accepted homiletical, liturgical, and hermeneutical means—to get the primary point across. And to repeat, these are ways and means that do not cross red lines for 501(c)3 charitable or religious organizations.
The IRS language for what “charitable” means is worth reviewing:
The term charitable is used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged…eliminating prejudice and discrimination; [and] defending human and civil rights secured by law.
The radical Republicans in Washington and in many statehouses want to further punish and distress the poor; they want to enshrine prejudice and discrimination; they want to shred human and civil rights that are currently secured by law.
We not only have the freedom to say that; we have a responsibility to say it.
By: Peter Laarman, Religion Dispatches, July 12, 2013
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