Under the current rules of the Senate, if you don’t have 60 votes you can’t pass anything. There are two main avenues for obtaining 60 votes. The first is to compromise. You let a few individual lawmakers have a major role in constructing the legislation, which normally entails the watering down of your goals. This is how both the Stimulus Bill and Health Care Reform managed to pass. Of course, this kind of compromise can also involve giving out goodies, like NIH funding for Arlen Specter or medicaid reimbursement deals for Ben Nelson. But the idea is to give something away in return for support.
The second way to get to 60 votes is to make your opponents fear the consequences of opposing you. And this is how the Wall Street Reform bill got passed in the Senate. Now, a debate has opened up within the Democratic Caucus about which strategy to pursue on Climate Change legislation. On one side is Harry Reid and the liberals who want to take advantage of the current unpopularity of Big Oil to strike fear into the hearts of Republicans. On the other side are the centrists, who seek accommodation:
Centrist Democrats argue that energy and climate change is substantially different than Wall Street reform. Polls showed widespread anger at big Wall Street banks but public opinion over how to address energy and climate change is mixed.
“People were angry at Wall Street and I don’t think there’s the same anger aimed even now at the oil industry,” said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank.
Kessler and other centrists believe that Reid needs to push a unifying message that energy and climate change reform will spur the economy.
“This has got to be about an economic message, creating clean-energy jobs and having America lead the world,” said Kessler. “This can’t be about evil corporations; it’s got to be about American opportunity.”
Sen. Evan Bayh, a centrist from Indiana, said: “It’s always easier to take a firmer line when the public is behind you and the polls indicate that financial regular reform is popular.”
Of course, there is precious little consideration here about the merits of policy. Progressives tend to focus on what is needed. And, when it comes to Climate Change, bold action is required. Normally, something is better than nothing, but on this issue you may face a tipping point on warming. In that case, there may be no substantive difference between something and nothing. Instead of taking this threat seriously, the debate is all about tactics.
That’s a shame. But the tactics do matter. And I think Harry Reid is on the right side of this particular argument.
But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other Democratic Senate leaders doubt that playing nice with Republicans will yield much cooperation.
“The reason we were successful on Wall Street reform is that we were able to show a sharp contrast,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide. “We had a foil: Wall Street; and we had an enabler: the Republicans.”
Democratic leaders see a similar dynamic in the energy and climate change debate.
“You’ve got a very unsympathetic target in big oil,” said the aide. “Big oil earns billions in profits and it doesn’t invest in the safety mechanism necessary to keep millions of gallons from spreading along the Gulf Coast.
“And you’re going to see a Republican Party side with big oil,” the aide added.
Politically, the president is going to take a hit all summer because of his inability to shut down the oil leak in the Gulf. Getting the Republicans to stand in unison in defense of Big Oil is definitely one way to limit the damage. And there is a good chance that the Republicans’ unity will crack. I think being aggressive makes it more likely that we get a strong bill and that a bill passes. But it is also smart from electoral point of view.
So, I think the centrists are going to lose this argument.
On immigration reform, which this article also discusses, I don’t see raw aggression as yielding results. But I don’t see compromise working either. I just don’t see any way to get a vote out of the Senate this year for immigration reform.
