BLUE WAVE OR RIPPLE?

The waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. ~ Edward Gibbon 

Praise be. The Democrats have managed to overcome their usual cacophonous campaigning and gained control of the House of Representatives, come January 3. They fielded enough interesting, empathetic, authoritative candidates to win 225 seats, with 13 still to be called. Alas, the same result couldn’t be duplicated in the Senate, where the Dems won only 46 seats, the Republicans 51, with 3 yet to be called. In these troubling times, the House’s half-a-loaf of legislative authority for the Dems is far, far better than the Dems living in the WOPPed (wholly out of political power) 115th Congress.

The media’s obsession about this election centered on how big the Blue Wave would be. Would our fractious population somehow collectively come together in voting booths? Nope, but a lot more folks voted than expected. Would millennials and people of color finally start voting? Probably yes and we won’t really know for several months. For the Dems, it’s been the year of non-traditional candidates, meaning folks who aren’t older, white men. Dem candidates included historic numbers of women, African Americans, LBGTQ, and even socialists. Some won, more lost as always.

Given the Dems’ victory in the House, they will elect a new Speaker. It’s not yet completely certain, but it’s also very hard to believe the new Speaker of the House won’t be San Francisco’s own Nancy Pelosi, and thus second in the line of presidential succession. Assuming she becomes Speaker in 2 months, it will be the second time she’s held this formidable job. She became the 60th Speaker of the House and the first female Speaker in American history in 2007 and held it until 2011.

I have a suggestion for Ms. Pelosi. She rightly deserves to be the 63rd Speaker of the House of Representatives. And in order to advance the Dems’ chances in the 2020 elections, I suggest she resign her speakership when the Congress convenes in January 2020. Like it or not, the Repubs have painted Nancy Pelosi as the “face” of Democrats. The Repubs, especially the president, always use her as their foil. In their eyes, she has more than enough baggage, simply by being female let alone from true blue San Francisco, to merit false overage charges that are displayed in multitudes of their campaign ads.

She’s ably served in Congress for 31 years. If she is Speaker during the 2020 campaign season, her alleged notoriety will be a hurdle that many Dem candidates will have to jump over, go around and through continuously. By nobly resigning her speakership, but not her House seat, she can cast aside that hurdle and further heighten her aura and Dems’ prospects.

After her one-year term as Speaker, her resignation will serve two purposes. She will no longer be as prime a foil for the Repubs and perhaps more importantly, it will force the current, elderly Dem Congressional leaders to find a younger leader, hopefully even several (like for the Majority Caucus Leader and Majority Whip). These new leaders can vigorously carry the Dems’ banner and state a clear, unwavering and convincing message as to why people should vote for Dems in 2020.

Unfortunately and not for the first time, the Dems’ messaging in this mid-term election was muddled and disjointed. What was the Dems’ message, beyond being anti-Trump? It wasn’t evident. What were the Dems actually for? It wasn’t clear. Enough of the Dems’ stronger, mostly moderate House candidates developed their own messages and succeeded. But senatorial candidates appeared more challenged and less effective. The Dems lost 3 seats, including 2 incumbent women. There was no elevating Blue Wave in the Senate, only a downward red-tinged swirl.

Even if the 2018 election wasn’t the “most important” ever – after all, every election is that, despite the media’s fixations – it was a much-needed, decent blue ripple. It assuredly was the most important election since 1920 by and for women. Women voters and women candidates created historic waves. The New York Times stated there were 257 women candidates for Congressional office, including 19 who identify as LGBTQ and 84 women of color. Election results so far (as of 11/10/18) indicate that a record 35 newly-elected women won House seats and 2 new women candidates won Senate seats. CNN projects that the new 116th Congress with have at least 102 newly-elected women in the House and 12 newly-elected in the Senate. Thus 44.4% of the female Congressional candidates won their elections. Batting 444 will get one into any Hall of Fame.

After 4 years meandering in the Congressional political desert, the Dems finally can exercise some political and legislative power in Washington, D.C. Their control of the House will provide some obligatory checks and balances on the Repubs’ and especially the president’s misguided, dangerous, misanthropic actions.

I believe the House Dems should now focus on 3 legislative priorities; first, provide DACA-recipients with a proscribed, legal path to citizenship. Second, increase public investment spending for our nation’s infrastructure (including rural areas), to be paid in no small part by revoking the Repubs’ “give the 1% more money, forget the rest” tax package. Third, and probably most importantly, improve health care.

As I’ve stated before, I’m not in favor of the progressive’s Medicare-for-all (M4A) mantra. Besides being a divisive strategy that appeals chiefly to left-leaning liberals, it’s fiscally budget-busting (not that that seems to matter anymore) and will require raising taxes. M4A has many important, powerful stakeholders strongly opposed to it, including doctors and hospitals. Instead, the Dems should strengthen and enhance the existing federal health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Like anything politically meaningful, this will be a challenging but worthy effort. Progressives won’t like it, but the mid-term election results didn’t reveal enough broad voter support either for Prog candidates (see Beto O’Rourke, Stacey Adams, or Andrew Gillum) or their talismanic programs like M4A. A majority of surveyed Dems stated that they prefer Congress to improve the ACA rather than create a new single-payer (e.g., M4A) national health care plan. 

The Dems should focus on 3 improvements to the ACA. First, allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare Part D beneficiaries and other public programs. This common sense approach to lowering America’s sky-high drug costs has been argued about for way too long. Amazingly, just before the election, the president said he wanted to lower prescription drug prices. Ta da, the Dems should take him up on his new-found interest. Second, increase funding of community health centers and provide incentives for more people to enter the primary care workforce. More community health centers should be established, including those in rural areas, as a focus for locally-provided, lower-cost, basic health care services. Third, the Dems should stabilize the health care marketplace that’s been sabotaged by the Repubs. As part of this needed effort, the Dems should indemnify folks with pre-existing medical conditions so their insurance costs will be non-discriminatory, just like they were when the ACA first became law.

If the Dems can effectively navigate the upcoming political waves created by the Repubs and use them advantageously, their political beachhead in the House can be expanded in 2 years. Here’s hoping.