So here we are. H.R. 3962 has passed in the House. It looks likely to pass in the Senate unless the Republicans can kill it with amendments. Should they fail, it’ll become law this week.
I’m glad today’s my day off. I have to endure enough ignorant political prattle at work as it is, and I can only imagine the coarse level of discourse today. By now, somebody’s come up with another silly parody of the President’s name, and they’re going to hue and cry about the results, even though most of those doing so did absolutely nothing to stop it from happening.
In her speech preceding the vote, Speaker Pelosi said,
“Another Speaker, Tip O’Neill, once said, “all politics is local.” And I say to you tonight that when it comes to health care for all Americans, “all politics is personal.”
Perhaps if Americans had taken that advice to heart, none of this would have happened. Instead, many self-proclaimed conservatives, deciding that they already smelled doom, decided simply not to vote in the last election. I watched it happen among people I knew. The other side mobilized; we wasted time and energy squabbling amongst ourselves.
That’s why we lost in 2006, and again in 2008. That’s why we lost last night.
It all began in the 2006 midterm elections, when Democrats were able to seize on voter apathy to retake Congress. Everybody shows up for controversial Presidential elections, but few show up for the midterms, not understanding (or caring) that the Congressional elections are far more important. It was there that the Democrats were able to cement their power. 2008 was just the icing on the cake.
This is what we’re left with. I agree with Representative Boehner that this bill, both in its substance and in the underhanded way it made its way to the vote, is a betrayal of the trust of the American people. Congress has failed to listen to us. They’ve taken a page from the Presidential playbook and decided to ram something down our throats on the premise that it’s for our own good, whether we approve or not.
The question remains: what do we do now?
Attorneys General in Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington State are all preparing legal challenges to provisions of the bill under 10th Amendment concerns. The momentum began with the passage of Firearms Freedom Acts in seven states (soon to be thirteen), and H.R. 3962 certainly echoes some of the same abuses of the Commerce Clause. 2011 may very well see a renaissance of 10th Amendment jurisprudence in the courts, and now is the time to bring such a challenge.
Write your state’s Attorney General and voice your approval and support. Find out who your local representatives are and ask that they draft legislation to block provisions of the bill. Such legislation is already underway in Georgia.
Then there’s the question of the midterms. There’s been a great deal of anger at this administration, but the furor over this bill will likely push that over the edge. While I once expected Republicans to win back 7 or 8 seats in the Senate in November, they could easily take a majority in both houses following this fiasco. It’s a shame that it takes anger to invoke civil responsibility, but I’ll take whatever we can get at this point.
Vote in the mid-terms, but make sure you know your candidates. Several Democrats did vote according to their conscience, and in some cases, they’re more conservative than the Republicans they replaced. The media likes to break things down into a strict Republican=Conservative/Democrat=Liberal polarity (and I’ve been guilty of that generalization), but that’s not always the case. Let us not forget that some Republicans showed sympathy to the initial version of this bill last year, while the Democrats linked above opposed this bill at grave political peril.
This spring, the legislators who voted in favor of this bill will have to answer to their constituents back home. If yours is one of those, demand an explanation. Keep them on the spot. If they don’t deign to have a repeat of last summer’s town hall meetings, start a campaign to demand that they do so.
Many of the most odious provisions do not take effect until 2014. That’s an eternity in political terms. The timing was intentional. They fully expect the unwashed masses to have forgotten all this by then, and we must apply pressure on to keep this issue in the public consciousness. Make sure they know what change looks like.
America must remember the attempts made to use the so-called Slaughter rule to bypass an actual vote. They must remember the kickbacks and backroom deals made to ensure the votes of Representatives from Nebraska, Louisiana, Vermont, Connecticut and Montana. This was all done at the behest of a President who pledged to fight corruption and “politics as usual” in Washington.
And the next time he’s got a pet piece of legislation he wants passed, we’ll see the same sort of bullying and bribery we did last night.
Congress defied the will of the American people last night, and that is the theme we should be pursuing in the November elections. Which candidates listened and which didn’t? Furthermore, which candidates are going to listen this time?
However, we’re to be effective, we must present a civil, orderly image to the public. Vandalism, or the encouragement of it, is unacceptable. Violence, whether physical or verbal, gets us nowhere. This is a battle of credibility, and that’s a quantity that’s lost easily and rebuilt only with great difficulty.