My US Representative Katherine Clark (MA-5) is in Dem leadership as the Caucus Vice Chair, the 6th-highest-ranking Rep. The decision to “go inside” is not without cost, as she sometimes seems to hold her tongue on matters of consequence, as one who needs to represent the consensus view of the entire caucus.
That should not let her off the hook. House Dems are indeed “in disarray”, and are getting rolled left and right by Mitch McConnell. This headline says it all:
House drops plans to return to D.C., citing virus risk; McConnell vows Senate will vote Monday
So the House is essentially paralyzed; but Mitch McConnell is still going to get his judges? Rep. Clark, what influence are you exerting to make the House functional, powerful, and representative of your constituents’ interests?
Yet amid the biggest national crisis in generations, the one branch of government where Democrats hold power has largely sidelined itself, struggling so far to adopt remote voting, Zoom video hearings or any of the other alternative methods that have become standard for most workplaces in the age of covid-19. No administration official has appeared at a congressional hearing in over a month. Committees have been unable to meet in person to debate and advance bills. There is no firm date for when the new oversight panel will start its work.
[Pelosi:] “I’m all for doing the remote voting by proxy. I want it to be bipartisan. The Republican leader, Mr. McCarthy, has assured me that he will consider this. He’s not there yet. He could be there.”
This effectively gives Republicans the power to cancel business in the chamber they don’t control, while rolling up victories in the chamber they do control. How is Rep. Clark using her influence within the caucus, with the Speaker?
House Rules Committee Chair Jim McGovern (MA-2) is indeed pushing for remote voting, or at least remote-voting-by-proxy:
Ultimately, there was resistance from Republican leaders. The speaker, to her credit, chose to continue these conversations for a few more weeks. A bipartisan task force has been formed to examine these issues further, and I’m proud to be a part of this effort. I have always believed that whenever possible, any changes to House rules should be bipartisan. I still believe that today.
Inaction, however, is simply not an option. The need to adapt is urgent. Experts have made clear that even if the crush of coronavirus lessens in the immediate future, this pandemic could come back even stronger in the fall. I don’t want to look back and wish we had made changes now.
But for our “powerful” Rules Committee Chair, what’s the bottom line? If “inaction is simply not an option”, will the Dems go without GOP approval, if the GOP decides that they’d just as soon shut down the House? What’s McGovern’s and Pelosi’s deadline?
Why do all of these supposedly powerful people — Pelosi, Clark, McGovern — not use their power decisively in a crisis? Wherefore this learned helplessness?
The Republicans are quite good at working a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose strategy, and Congressional Democrats are easy marks for it every time. Since the Democrats took the House, constituents in Massachusetts are in a position of relative influence. When exactly does that pay off?
I’ll hand it off to David Roberts here, talking about the Dems’ leverage with the ruthless McConnell:
Democrats don’t like this kind of power politics. They are accustomed to trying to win the approval of referees, trying to get points for being reasonable and responsible and open to compromise. They are so accustomed to it that they haven’t noticed there are no refs anymore. The pundits and talking heads they fear have no power. There’s no one to judge their arguments superior or award them a sportsmanship trophy.
There is only power; there are only outcomes. Behind all the rhetoric, Democrats have one real point of leverage: they can vote for or against. It gives them some power if they are willing to use it.
And they can simply get back to business.
[Long, deep sigh] … And then there’s Richard Neal (MA-1), the “powerful” Ways and Means chair, who takes credit for writing the CARES stimulus bill. As we know, the bill was a Swiss-cheese texture of loopholes for big business to take advantage.
Speaking at a virtual event at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute on April 13, Neal boasted that Ways and Means, under his leadership, “wrote much of the CARES Act.”
In gathering expert advice, he said, “I immediately sought out Bob Rubin.” He also reached out to Hank Paulson, Bush’s Treasury Secretary, on whose watch the economy collapsed, as well as Steve Rattner, a notable Wall Street Democrat.
That’s just not the first place I’d look for advice on how to help the newly-vulnerable folks of western Mass. Again, you have to wonder about the gilded circles that Richie Neal runs in.
jconway says
And 6 6’s for the excellent Mad Men reference. Unfortunately too many in Massachusetts follow others and pat themselves on the back. Baker has been praised per usual in all the outlets even though this partial shut down has not gone as far as CA or IL. It’s no wonder our cases are going up while theirs are going down.
Commissioner Riley is still attaching unrealistic benchmarks for the coming school year, which Baker fudged by calling it a cancellation and not correcting that to the media. You know how many kids and parents I called this week who were surprised to hear they still have to do remote work?
Baker is not even the best Republican responding to this crisis. Mike DeWine and Larry Horgan have done a better job standing up to Trump and his lies and shut down their states earlier and harder than we did. I live off Rt. 1, there are still more cars on the road than “essential services”. I enjoy going to nearby Breakheart and the Fells, but they are full of too many people by the middle of the day. Where is our action on the tracing system NY and CA are putting into place? You can’t tell me we don’t have the money or brainpower. Already he is using this crisis to push austerity economics and backpedal on school funding commitments.
This is our close the beaches moment and the Governor, Mayor Walsh, and our delegation are acting like the Amityville Mayor instead of Chief Brody. Saving lives is the first responsibility of government, and our 9/11’s worth of casualties (many of them preventable had we applied what we learned from WA. Italy, and China) is an indictment in my book.
Christopher says
Personally I think our middle path has been more reasonable, though still going further than I would have liked.
jconway says
Really? Our motto is not live free or die, you are confusing us with another more libertarian state. I’d rather we live and move forward. The sacrifices we are being asked to make by staying home are nothing compared to the sacrifice of frontline health workers and critical supply chain workers. Nothing compared the conscription, rationing, and curtailment if freedoms during WWII and WWI.
I agree with you that the economic impact has been made unnecessarily catastrophic by clumsy decisions, but by and large we are starting to flatten the curve and alleviate hospitals.
Christopher says
I still think we could have had a better strategy, and the vast majority of the people are not going to have to make the choice implied by the NH motto.
Christopher says
I really don’t understand how in a democratic system a legislature can or should meet remotely. Even proxies make me nervous since they can have the effect of concentrating power.
jconway says
As long as the Zooms or whatever mechanisms are open to the public. The Revere School Committee and City Council have been meeting on Zoom and inviting public comment through the chat feature. It’s largely functioned, although a moderator would be nice.
My biggest concern with that is the inequity of online access, but frankly it’s still more accessible and transparent than the statehouse where most roll calls and proceedings go unrecorded by cameras and unreported by the press.
Considering the age of most members of Congress, they are more at risk, and it also sets a precedence of leading by example. Mike Pence just refuses to wear a mask while visiting a Covid ward at the Mayo Clinic, flagrantly violating the hospital’s own guidelines and the guidelines issued by his very task force. He is at risk not only for exposing himself but for becoming a carrier. The same holds true for Congress. Just look at the colleges they foolishly stayed open like Liberty and how quickly they not only infected one another but infected the surrounding community.
Christopher says
I’m surprised Pence was allowed into the Mayo Clinic without a mask. Personally I’d like the example to be we’re not going to let a virus upend our lives.
jconway says
It’s upended the lives of more Americans than the Vietnam War. 56,000 dead and who knows how many relatives and friends they left behind. It’s upended my wife’s life and the lives of my students pretty harshly. So the best way to keep the virus from beating us is to do the thing the scientists tell us will beat the virus. That means staying home and wearing masks when we do go out, at the bare minimum.
Anywhere that either did not impose restrictions or lifted them too early is getting inundated with more cases. The reality based approach to fighting this is fairly straightforward.
SomervilleTom says
Interesting. While some of this is true, there are some other truths that I’m still discovering. I’m building a tool to map and analyze various data about this pandemic. I’ll publish a URL here as soon as I get something live (later this week, I hope).
There is a STRIKING fact that jumps out from the very first renderings of the data — I first saw it over the weekend.
That fact is that the US is HUGE. It has a bit more than 3,300 counties (not counting the territories). I’ve used the data published daily by the New York Times to color each county based on the cumulative number of COVID cases in that county.
The resulting map is virtually ALL the color of the lowest group, with the exception of fewer than 10-20 “hot” counties. For example, King County (in Washington State) was one of the first hot spots. As of 25-Apr-2020, it has cumulative total of 5,813 cases. That’s at least twice the count of its neighbors. In contrast, Cook County IL has a total of 29,058 cases on the same day. That’s more the FIVE TIMES as many. Nassau County, on Long Island, is the highest at 33,798. New York City has 155,124 cases — more than TWENTY FIVE TIMES that of King County.
The reality is that for nearly ALL of the area of the United States, the virus itself is a non-event.
A standard that we often apply is something along the lines of “greatest good for the most people”. There is growing evidence that we face a collapse of the nationwide food supply chain — growers and farmers are destroying, killing and burying milk, eggs, chickens, and similar food items because they are no longer able to ship it anywhere.
A reality-based approach to fighting this MUST include some reality-based awareness of what is actually happening — as opposed to what Rachel Maddow tells us every night.
The real situation — especially the real political situation — is not at all straightforward.
It appears to me that we need, more than anything else, is a real-time hyper-local (at the census block level, corresponding to ward/.precinct) “weather map” of where this pandemic is advancing, where it is retreating, where hospital capacity is limited, where it is ample, and so on.
Until we get a vaccine and/or effective COVID-specific therapies, we lockdowns and restrictions are certainly needed, but on a VERY limited scope.
There have been a total of FOUR cases in Aroostook County, ME. In Coos County, NH a total of 2 cases have been reported. There are 1,399 counties nationwide — nearly HALF — where the cumulative case count is less than 20.
Of the 2,817 counties reported by the NY Times (of the 3,312 total counties), 2,171 have fewer than 100 CUMULATIVE cases.
I’m not at all sure that residents of any of those 2,171 counties (other than, for example, nursing home residents or visitors) need to wear masks or close schools. The population density is an enormous factor in the spread of this pandemic, and very few places compare to NYC in density.
People in Coos County, NH have very little to fear from the virus. They have MUCH to fear from the consequences of how we’ve handled it.
Something on the order 75% of the US land area (2,171/2,817) is essentially uninfected (so far) by this virus.
We MUST find a middle ground between denial and hysteria.
Christopher says
I prefer the Swedish model and am willing to take on the bit of more risk that they have. I actually think a lot of reality was left out of the considerations.
Andrei Radulescu-Banu says
This COVID crisis will go on for the next couple years at least, and US House members won’t get any healthier and younger in the meanwhile. They should be open ASAP and do the work the American people elected them to do.