Legislating After the Midterms

[MrCoffee]

I'm not entirely sure how to phrase this, so bear with me. Let's suppose that Democrats win both houses in November, and we win big. Everyone is screaming backlash, liberal mandate, the GOP is dead. What happens when Congress goes back in session next year?

Should we push an extremely liberal legislative agenda? It would seem certain to bring out the veto, and we won't be able to override. Would a "landslide" in November convince some repub Senators to jump the fence on some override votes?

My big fear isn't that we lose in November, it's that we win so big that we go toe-to-toe with the WH and nothing happens. Then in 2008, repubs remember their roots and campaign on a "DC Sucks/Smaller Government/Gridlock" message and cut into our majority/win back one of the two chambers/keep the WH.

Am I projecting too much? Is any of this coherent?

[Donnachaidh]

1. We start firing up the INVESTIGATIONS

And let the WH sit back and sweat.

[MrCoffee]

3. so screw the legislative agenda? won't that just make us look

vindictive and petty? Chimpy gets all kinds of free passes in the M$M, why wouldn't we expect that to continue.

All investigations all the time sounds great, but that could get spun so easily that it would backfire. Plus, i think Congress should get on the legislative stick, rather than turn into a witch hunting party.

[madinmaryland]

2. I doubt whether there will actually be a "liberal mandate".

If anything is to be accomplished it is going to have to be moderate enough allow for a veto proof passage. If they propose a common sense approach to legislation and reform, they may be able to succeed.

[MrCoffee]

5. that's my only real hope of ANYTHING getting done in the next 2 years

if there's a big enough Democratic victory, the pugs on the Hill (the old-skool ones, not the dumb neo-cons) might be talked into playing ball.

anything less (IMO) would lead to massive legislative inertia...nothing would get done.

[madinmaryland]

7. The only hope for a more liberal agenda,

is for impeachment hearing to take hold, and enough moderate repubs abandon the president. Plausible, but not highly likely.

[wyldwolf]

4. the likely scenario is...

Democrats will win by a few seats or come up a few seats short. Then, the party moderates will play nice with each other. Don't expect an extremely liberal legislative agenda to be pushed. Certainly more liberal than we've seen in 12 years, but not radically different.

For example, we may get a minimum wage increase through, but not as much as we'd like.

[AX10]

6. An very liberal agenda is immpossible so long as Bush in in the WH.

[eleny]

8. I want to see W raise his right hand and take the oath

Just one branch of Congress will do that. There's not enough popcorn in the world for that show.

[The Magistrate]

9. Investigations Will Be The Key, Sir

Subpoena, and provoke vetoes: that is the proper course. The people love a good stiff fight, whatever "good government" types and talking heads may bewail. That is what rallies support, both among the committed core and the indecisive middle.

"I just want to hear the son of a bitch deny it!"

[MrCoffee]

10. I was less than clear in my OP... sorry about that

At this point, it seems like investigations by a small majority are the only likely course of action. I just don't think that investigations are such a good idea politically. Personally, I'd love to see the regime locked in stocks on the Washington Mall, but politically it's an awfully hot potato. If there's one thing repubs are good at, it's villifying Democrats. I just wonder if investigations do us any favors at all come 2008.

[The Magistrate]

11. Since There Is Real Crime For Them To Turn Up, Sir

They will be of great value. It is a myth that people do not like partisan fights on Capitol Hill: they love them. Many say they do not, just like many said they never watched the O.J. trial, but that is because they know what is expected of them by higher-minded types with podiums. They never mean it.

[JeffR]

12. X-actly right, Magistrate

This is something that needs to be said on DU more often.

[MrCoffee]

13. That is all well and good, if you use smoke and mirrors to hide the action

but without any action all you have is theater. Investigations and even impeachment proceedings in the House are fine, but what good would they do? We'd still have Chimpy until 2009, and nothing would rally the loonies in the repub base faster than a "Congressional Witch Hunt" against the regime. There would be even less chance of getting any sort of democratic legislative agenda passed, and practically no movement at all if/when a serious override measure came up.

The threat of investigations (in my feeble mind) is a gun with no bullets in it.

[The Magistrate]

14. There Is No Such Thing As Bad Publicity, Sir

What you will have is the spectacle of a pack of thieves gone to the mattresses under seige, never an eddifying sight, while the public discourse is dominated by well-founded charges against them they cannot answer because they are invoking secrecy to shield themselves. It will peel off all but the true lunatics among their supporters, and demonstrate to the uncertain types in the middle that Democrats fight. That last is an essential item for the long term health and hopes of the Party. Power, Sir, must be used, or you might as well not bother to seek and gain it. It is one thing to demand people without power act as if they had it, which is what a lot of criticism of the Demcirats here boils down to: that is foolishness, and my face is always set against it. But people with power must make the most ruthless and audacious attempts to exploit it, for only thus can they acquire more of the stuff, and should the Democrats gain majorities in the Legislature, they must use them.

"It is necessary only to know where the enemy is, and that you mean to attack him. What the enemy intends is of no consequence."

[MrCoffee]

17. Would that Congressional Democrats have the same vision...

I still think they'd be waving an empty gun, but I see your point. I still feel like investigations would stall any legislative agenda we could come up with quicker than anything, which is my biggest objection. This WH is nothing if not vindictive.

[Senator]

15. Impeachment ... IS ... Our Positve Agenda

Without it, what exactly are the Dems offering TO DO with their shiny new non-veto-proof majority ?!?

There's no magic potion to circumvent "rule by signing statement." Any law, or court ruling for that matter, is just "words on a page" to these neofascists.

That's the reality folks.

(Note: The public "get this" instinctively. Which is why all Dem promises, point plans, and really-real security statements ring so hollow.)

No "investigation" is needed. In fact the suggestion itself is a veiled call to inaction. What part of "We don't need no stinking badges (warrants)!" do people not understand ?!? How is TERRORZING the American People with a bomb threat of "Mushroom Clouds ... in 45 minutes" not an impeachable offense? Even if they hadn't done it to commit war crimes in our name?

Really, it's long past "get off the pot" time.

Save Feingold and Conyers, THE LOT OF THEM are complicit with ongoing criminality and treason. And so are each and every one of us, if we're not screaming our heads off about it.

Yes, screaming. "Violence" really is the answer.

Stop listening to the Beltway BS from the DC/Euphemedia Analstocracy. Calling for impeachment is not bad strategy. It will not cause a "backlash." It will not "be like the Clinton impeachment" (it will be the opposite - just like most things the Euphemedia nervously parrots).

But the bottom line is that strategy, fallout, and likelihood of success CANNOT be part of the equation. It is simply a moral imperative. Something that we all know must be done. Principles we're not willing to stand on are just bromides.

There really is no other moral or patriotic, positive option.

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[MrCoffee]

16. Impeachment serves no purpose at all if there's no conviction,

which there certainly would not be. Impeachment alone would be suicide. Why in the world should we want to exonerate the bastards?

[Senator]

19. This defeatist, rationalization for inaction hurts Dems far more...

...than anything the neofascists say or do.

But it is not about "them." The failure to accuse and punish, when warranted, makes one complicit with the perpetrator. That is their "exoneration." And it is the current failure to act on principle, just like the failure to even object to 2 Stolen Elections, that is slow suicide.

Which is why this outcome-based, circular reasoning is so damaging. Without any real power, all that's left is one's principles to stand on. Their failure to stand up for impeachment displays weakness to those they might otherwise rally behind them. It's embarrassing to have to refer to the DC Dems as "leaders."

How is a voter supposed to imagine Dems standing up against terrorists, or healthcare profiteers, or globalized greed, or any threat to our way of life for that matter; if they won't stand up to this never-elected, never-legitimate, criminal regime?

That dog is just not hunting. And hasn't for years.

Impeachment is the ONLY moral, patriotic option.

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[martymar64]

18. Both Investigation AND a positive liberal legislative agenda should come.

I think that the investigations and trials and impeachments are long past due. They should have begun in 2002.

I also believe that the time for audacious liberal initiatives should go forward. One big one should be a Marshall
Plan type push for a solution to the Health Care problem, enacting national health care as quickly as feasible.
The other would be ending the Drug War, which is recognized as a failure by most of our side and a large portion of the other side that have a liberatarian bent. These two plans, though ambitious, just might be able to get through with a veto-proof majority (crosses fingers for luck!).