It was a true highlight of the early \u201cResistance\u201d to the Trump Administration. Trump\u2019s goal was to dismantle almost anything that Barack Obama achieved. And President Obama\u2019s greatest achievement: The Affordable Care Act (ACA), bringing health insurance to millions of Americans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was already undercut by the Republican controlled Congress.\u00a0\u00a0The ACA was a \u201ccarrot and stick\u201d approach to insurance.\u00a0\u00a0If you didn\u2019t already have private insurance through your employer and refused to purchase it on the \u201cmarketplace\u201d, you faced the \u201cstick\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0You were charged a tax \u201cpenalty\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Republicans lowered the \u201cpenalty\u201d to zero and took away the \u201cstick”.\u00a0\u00a0So those who wished to \u201cgo bare\u201d and have no insurance at all, didn’t face consequences.\u00a0\u00a0That is, of course, until they got injured or sick.\u00a0\u00a0And from the ACA side, it allowed a lot of very healthy people to not contribute to the insurance pool.\u00a0\u00a0Their dollars were used to supplement the costs of sicker people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Trump controlled the Presidency, the House under Speaker Paul Ryan, and the Senate under Mitch McConnell. Democrats rallied Americans to protect the ACA. There were marches on the Capitol, sit-ins in the hallways, and media pressure campaigns all over the nation. But in the end, the numbers favored the Republicans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The House voted to repeal the Act, and it moved to the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0The Republicans had a 54 to 46 vote majority. They were clearly in charge but not the \u201csuper\u201d majority of 60 required to end a Democratic filibuster.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So the repeal was brought as a \u201cbudget reconciliation bill\u201d. That allowed a simple majority of 51 to take away Obama\u2019s crowning achievement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were a few Republican Senators wavering.\u00a0\u00a0They faced tough re-election campaigns in marginally Republican states, and the ACA was popular among the electorate.\u00a0\u00a0And some recognized that their Party had still offered no alternative to the ACA. Should Congress repeal the law, there would be no protections for those with pre-existing conditions, and no ability to carry young adults on their parent\u2019s insurance.\u00a0\u00a0Both were extremely popular changes made by the ACA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And some felt that the process itself, using \u201cbudget reconciliation\u201d to take a clearly non-budget vote, was just wrong. There were no hearings, no committees discussing the health care needs of America, no debate on the relative values of the Affordable Care Act. That led some to question the entire process.\u00a0\u00a0One of those was the Senior Senator from Arizona, John McCain.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McCain lived up to his nickname \u201cMaverick\u201d during the early years of Trump. He saw Trump as a charlatan and he called \u201c it like he saw it\u201d. So McCain\u2019s vote to repeal the ACA was hardly \u201cin the bag\u201d. Vice President Mike Pence was the point man for the Administration in the negotiations, and McCain wavered as the ultimate pressure was on to support his Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But McCain was dying of a brain tumor. The normal political pressures of funding or lack of support didn\u2019t have much impact on a man who would only live a few more months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We all remember that final act.\u00a0\u00a0It was early in the morning, as the Senate was taking the vote.\u00a0\u00a0Those still up watching saw McCain huddle with Pence and McConnell. He then walk out of the Chamber as the votes were taken.\u00a0\u00a0Then he came in, and with an awkward motion of his tortured arm, stood in the front of the Clerk of the Senate and gestured \u2013 thumb down.\u00a0\u00a0The ACA survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was about \u201cregular order\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0McCain, like the current President Biden, was a man of the Senate.\u00a0The Senate was acting as a partisan arm of Donald Trump, not as the deliberative body where McCain \u201cgrew up\u201d politically in his thirty years there.\u00a0\u00a0And while the \u201cResistance\u201d took his vote on the ACA as a great victory \u2013 to McCain it was more about the role of the Senate than the law itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After four years of Democrats watching Trump outrages, there is a tremendous pressure to get things done.\u00a0\u00a0The Voting Rights Act(s), Immigration and Citizenship Reform, upgrading the infrastructure, LGBTQIA rights, climate change, gun reform; all are on the list.\u00a0\u00a0And there is the direct impact of the Trump Presidency.\u00a0\u00a0How can we be assured that the almost dictatorial leadership will never be repeated?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senate Democrats are asking themselves what price they might pay by changing the rules. They have a slim majority of one, based on Vice President Harris\u2019s role as tie breaker. To pass any legislation by \u201cregular order\u201d, they must find ten Republican Senators to join in. And while there seems to be a \u201cmiddle caucus\u201d of ten less obstructionist Republicans, they don\u2019t seem close to joining the Majority on anything so far. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By their tie breaking vote, Democrats could make the Senate a simple majority body.\u00a0\u00a0Or, like what has already been done with Judicial and Executive nominations, they can carve out more exceptions to the sixty-vote rule.\u00a0\u00a0They can change the \u201cregular order\u201d to get the agenda through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is of course, if fifty Democrats stay in step with the \u201cParty line\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0As we saw in the COVID Relief Package, Democrats MAY negotiate with the Republicans, but they MUST negotiate with the more conservative members of their own Party, with Joe Manchin as the \u201cposter boy\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And Joe Manchin, like John McCain, is a man of \u201cregular order\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Democratic leadership, it\u2019s difficult to put political pressure on a Democrat elected from West Virginia, a state that in 2020 voted almost 69% in favor of Donald Trump.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One final point.\u00a0\u00a0When Democrats \u201ckill\u201d or modify the Filibuster, the sixty vote rule, when Republicans regain the majority, they will follow the precedent and do the same.\u00a0\u00a0But McConnell could do that anyway, so that threat doesn\u2019t go away no matter what the Democrats do now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are many things that Democrats can do \u2013 but the one \u201cwrong\u201d answer is impotence.\u00a0\u00a0A minority of Republican Senators cannot stop the flood of legislation that the House, and the vast majority of Democrats, want to get done.\u00a0\u00a0Should the Senate leadership somehow hide behind the veil of Republican filibusters, then the 2022 electorate will walk away from them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s time for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to make the deal: not with Republicans, but with Joe Manchin, Krysten Sinema, and the other \u201cblue dog\u201d Democrats. Whether it\u2019s a total end to the filibuster, or some modification, the only acceptable outcome is to find a way to get things done. The Voting Rights Acts (HR 1 and HR 4) need to be at the top of that list. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"