Three lines for children

In the British Parliament, party whips distribute letters before important votes instructing members to attend. The number of underlines traditionally conveys the consequences for party members that fail to show up and vote with party leadership. The most important votes--generally the ones on which the government has staked its reputation--are underlined three times, with an implied consequence of party expulsion for disobeying members. This is called a "three line whip".

No such system formally exists in the United States Congress, where party controls have traditionally been much less important. Recent years have seen Republican Party leadership turn instead to dirty tricks and electioneering to effectively expel and intimidate unruly members, but the general idea is that we allow more personal voting freedom than most European systems. However, some votes are so crucial and so morally one-sided that party leaders should consider making consequences more clear.

While most Congressional activity leaves room for genuine ideological or practical disagreement, the imminent vote on an override of President Bush's S-CHIP veto is one instance in which there is a clear moral divide. Those who put their hateful right wing ideologies ahead of children do so for the cynical reason that a successful government health care program makes their opposition to universal health care look nonsensical. These people are not real Democrats, and the handful of Democrats who voted against the original bill and have not yet agreed to vote for the override should be made aware of their stance outside the acceptable realm of party positions.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest of House leadership should announce that no person who opposes children's health care belongs in the Democratic Party. They should not run for re-election with Democratic Party funds and infrastructure, and they should not speak as representatives of the Democratic Party before the public. Speaker Pelosi should employ an effective three line whip by making absolutely clear to these renegade members that continued support of the right wing fringe in this dispute will earn them expulsion from the Democratic caucus and a refusal of party endorsement in the 2008 election.

UPDATE: The override has failed (by thirteen votes) and Representatives Jim Marshall (DINO-GA) and Gene Taylor (DINO-MS) both voted against it. Remember those names.

Obama - US Out of Iraq by Apr. 2008

For those who claim the Democrats don't have a plan on Iraq, Senators Obama and Feingold proved today that we've got at least two.

Obama today offered a comprehensive bill that would mandate a phased redeployment of our combat troops in Iraq, to begin no later than May 1, 2007 and to end no later than March 31, 2008. Full text isn't up yet, but Obama's senate site has a nice summary, including the bill's aim and proposed benchmarks. The bill also (thankfully) prevents any escalation by capping the number of troops in Iraq and the number there on 1/10/07. My favorite part is something so gosh-darn common sense, it's almost criminal that it has yet to be enacted as law:

Congressional oversight: Requires the President to submit reports to Congress every 90 days describing and assessing the Iraqi government's progress in meeting benchmarks and the redeployment goals.

Expect to see more on Obama's plan as the week unfolds.

Senator Feingold is taking a bit of a different tack, proposing (though not offering) a bill that would end all financing for combat operations in Iraq effective six months after the bill's passage. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of this approach; while it certainly forces the President to act, it seems like a bit of a cop out to set a ticking clock and then just walk away. There's definitely some appeal to telling Bush, "You made the mess, so you clean it up", but can we really trust the Blunderer-in-chief to put the pieces back together on his own?

Speaker Pelosi, fresh off her trip to the region, chimed in today in favor of a rapid redeployment of US troops in Iraq. While not a plan, per se, this is definitely a promising development.

No matter who comes out on top, one thing is looking increasingly certain - sooner rather than later, our boys are coming home. (And women, of course. But it's an expression, ok?)

Already Hedging

Two stories about shifting positions

First, the Los Angeles Times has a story about how all that posturing from Nancy Pelosi and others about fighting back against big business is mostly just that: empty posturing. It's sad that our Democratic congress is only 100 hours in and already drawing back on a number of campaign promises. After all their talk about student aid, we got only cuts in Stafford Loans (The Boston Globe has a good summary here), with no help in Perkins Loans or Pell Grants or any other programs that specifically target poorer students. Couldn't they have had enough backbone between 330 congressmen and representatives to be actual Democrats for one week? It is sad.

Second, one place that can be counted on for finding people who will do impressively deep research is Daily Kos (of course, there are plenty people who do almost none. There's a front page post right now gloating about how "effective" Pelosi has been. I guess it's easy to say that when you ignore that the bills she's passing are compromising on every issue.) Anyways, this new set of diaries, starting here, chronicles every vote where John Edwards and Hillary Clinton differed while they were in the Senate together from 2001-2005. The first part chronicles their approximately thirty vote differences in 2001, and shows that, contrary to Edwards's attempts to portray himself as the farthest left in this primary, he actually was more likely that Hillary to be pro-business and anti-campaign finance reform. I was particularly disappointed to learn that Edwards, for example, supported the 2001 Bankruptcy Act that progressives like Paul Wellstone fought against. Obviously, Edwards (whom I supported in 2004) has had time to change his views, and I hope that further parts of the series will show that he did so while in the Senate, not more recently because he thought it would position him better. But it does support those who would say it's easier for Edwards to position himself as more progressive since he's no longer in the Senate After all, it's easy to tell Congress to cut funding for the Iraq War, when you're don't actually have to vote for it.