Winning Progressive

Last week, we discussed some of the victories for progressives in the 2012 Election, from re-electing President Obama and gaining a larger more progressive Democratic majority in the Senate, to winning marriage equality votes in four states and defeating leading tea party members of Congress.  The good news is that there were even more progressive victories in last week’s election that we should celebrate and build upon. Here are some of them:

A More Diverse and Progressive House Democratic Caucus – House Democrats will make history in January as they will be the first major party caucus in US history that is majority female and people of color. In total, at least 57 House Democrats will be women, 41 will be African American, and 23 will be Latino. By contrast, at least 90% of the House Republican Caucus will be white males.

The House will also have a number of new or returning progressive faces, including the following candidates who were endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s Progressive Action PAC - Alan Grayson (FL-09), Jared Huffman (CA-02), Dan Kildee (MI-05), Ann McLane Kuster (NH-02), Grace Meng (NY-06), Patrick Murphy (FL-18), Rick Nolan (MN-08), Mark Pocan (WI-02), Raul Ruiz (CA-36), Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), and Mark Tacano (CA-41).  In addition, progressive House candidate Ami Bera (CA-07) is leading in his race against GOP Congressman Dan Lungren, progressive Hakeem Jeffries won in New York’s 8th District, and Kyrsten Simena (AZ-09) has been declared the winner in her race.  Ms. Sinema will be the first openly bisexual member of Congress and one of a record seven LGBT Americans serving in Congress.

Regaining Strength At the State Level – One of the worst impacts of progressives sitting on their hands in the 2010 elections was that tea party conservatives swept into power in state houses throughout the country just in time for Republicans to be able to control Congressional redistricting in a vast number of states.  Such redistricting played a large role in the GOP keeping control of Congress in the 2012 elections.  Fortunately, we did start to turn the tide back in those state houses this time around. In particular, a total of seven state houses changed from GOP to Democratic control, including both houses in Minnesota and Maine, and one house in New Hampshire.  In addition, California Democrats finally managed to get the supermajorities that are required for revenue increases.

Rejecting Big Money in Politics – Voters resoundingly rejected the ability of corporations and billionaires to spend unfettered amounts of money to try to buy elections. In Colorado and Montana, voters overwhelmingly supported ballot initiatives urging a Constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions establishing a right to spend unlimited amounts on campaign contributions. Colorado Proposition 65 passed with 73.8% of the vote, while Montana Initiative I-166 received 74.8% support.  Voters in 120 cities throughout the country passed similar initiatives. At the same time, voters in California did not fall for the misleading Proposition 32, which was billed as an effort to get special interest money out of politics, but would have actually shut unions and other “special interests” from engaging in political advocacy while including a long list of exemptions that would have allowed hedge funds, investment firms, real-estate developers, insurance companies, and other corporate interests to continue buying elections at will.

Success on Other Ballot Proposals – Ballot proposals provided an opportunity to advance progressive causes in a number of other areas and, while we lost some of those proposals (for example, Californians rejected a proposal to abolish the death penalty), we also achieved some significant victories.  Here are some examples:

In California, voters supported reforming the state’s three-strikes law by passing Proposition 36, and voted to increase taxes on the wealthy to fund eduction by passing Proposition 30.

In Florida, voters rejected an the anti-ObamaCare Proposition 1, anti-tax Propositions 3 and 4, Proposition 6′s restrictions on public funding of abortions, and Proposition 8, which would have allowed for public funding of religious organizations.

In Idaho, voters rejected Propositions 1, 2, and 3, which would have undermined teachers’ collective bargaining rights and sought to subsidize students signing up for online charter schools.

In Maryland, voters approved the state DREAM Act, which allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US by their parents and who attended high school in Maryland for at least three years to be eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges in Maryland.

In Minnesota, voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have required photo ID to vote and eliminate same day voter registration.

In Oregon, voters rejected phasing out the state estate tax (Proposition 84), and voted to allocate excess corporate taxes to education rather than refunding such money to corporations (Proposition 85).

Last week, President Obama and Multiple Choice Mitt Romney both gave speeches to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (“NALEO”) in which they addressed economic and immigration issues.  In his speech, President Obama outlined the economic issues at stake in this election, explained the importance of his new DREAMers immigration policy, reiterated his call for Congress to pass the DREAM Act, and explained why we need immigration reform and a Congress that will stop obstructing such reform.

Multiple Choice Mitt, meanwhile, was in full-bore Etch-a-Sketch mode.  Romney did reiterate some of his anti-undocumented immigrant policies, saying that he would:

re-double our efforts to secure the borders – that means both preventing illegal border crossings and making it harder to illegally overstay a visa.  We should field enough border patrol agents, complete a high-tech fence, and implement and improve exit verification system.

But gone was much of the anti-immigration rhetoric that Romney spewed during the GOP primaries.  In its place was praise for legal immigration and a softer tone on undocumented immigrants.   Romney also promised a “long term solution” for DREAMers but, outside of a promise to provide a “path to legal status” for anyone who serves in the military, he offered no details as to what that “solution” would purportedly involve.

What Multiple Choice Mitt did not address in his speech is whether he still supports the reactionary anti-immigration positions that he has long espoused, or whether he is willing to support sensible and humane policies to address the status of the approximately 11.5 million undocumented immigrants who are hard-working, taxpaying residents of the US.  So, in this edition of Questions for Mitt Romney, we ask:

* Does Romney support President Obama’s DREAMers policy?  It has been more than a week since that policy was announced, and Romney still refuses to give a straight answer as to whether he supports it, though a campaign adviser says he thinks Romney would repeal it.

* Does Romney still believe that the DREAM Act should be vetoed because it is a “magnet for illegal immigration”

* At a time of limited budgetary resources, does Romney believe it is good policy for the US government to be spending an average of $23,148 of taxpayer money to deport each DREAMer?

* Does Romney support the decision of the office of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Romney’s 2008 Arizona campaign chairman to arrest a six-year-old girl on suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant?

* Does Romney still support the strategy of “self-deportation,” which seeks to make life in the US so hard for undocumented immigrants that they “voluntarily” choose to leave the country?

* Does Romney still believe that Arizona’s harsh anti-immigration law is a “model” for the nation.

* Is Kris Kobach, the virulently anti-immigrant Attorney General of Kansas who crafted the self-deportation strategy, still an adviser to the Romney campaign on immigration issues?  What role would Mr. Kobach play in a Romney Administration?

The simple reality is that Mitt Romney has a long track record of taking extreme reactionary positions on immigration issues, and during the GOP primary Romney espoused views that led blogger Steve Benen to justifiably declare Romney “the the most right-wing candidate on immigration of any competitive presidential hopeful in generations.”  Nothing about Romney’s speech to NALEO last week changes the reality that, when it comes to immigration, a Romney Presidency would be marked by extreme anti-immigration policies of self-deportation, not the sensible and humane policies demonstrated by the DREAM Act.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Earlier editions of this series include Questions for Mitt Romney on health care reform, the NRA and guns, Jerry Falwell and Liberty University, Robert Bork, and Ann Coulter.

(By Fay Paxton, cross-posted at The Pragmatic Pundit)

The Obama administration’s announcement that it will stop deporting some young undocumented immigrants has placed immigration at the forefront of the presidential campaign and candidate Romney in a bit of a stew.  Pundits suggest Romney must moderate his position on immigration, but what exactly is his position?

As Governor of Massachusetts, in 2006, Romney signed an agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency that would have permitted State Troopers to arrest and seek deportation of suspected illegal immigrants they encountered during the course of their normal duties.

A group of 30 special-trained troopers were to be deputized to enforce immigration matters; to make arrests on immigration charges, question and detain suspected illegal immigrants, charge them with a violation of immigration law and place them in removal proceedings.  Soon after signing the executive order, Romney left the governorship to run for President.  In his television ad he said, “As President, I’ll oppose amnesty, cut funding for sanctuary cities and secure our borders.”

The newly elected governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, rescinded the agreement within his first week in office.

Romney, who had the harshest immigration policy of the Republican presidential candidates, has received endorsements from Arizona’s SB 1070’s authors and main supporters,  Russell Pearce, Kris Kobach and Jan Brewer. Two days before the Supreme Court was set to hear opening arguments about the controversial law, Romney held several fundraisers and a rally in Arizona, where he embraced and praised birther-extermist and anti-immigration enforcer, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

From Huffington Post:

Joe Arpaio’s Office Arrests 6-Year-Old Suspected Undocumented Immigrant

Romney’s immigration adviser, Kris Kobach told CNN,  “He [Romney] stated very publicly that Arizona’s law should be a model for how the federal government enforces its immigration laws. And he’s correct there too.”

Romney’s “self-deportation” policy shares the same basic approach as Arizona’s SB-1070.

President Obama took a bold step this past Friday when he announced that his Administration would no longer seek to deport “Dreamers” – young, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children by their parents, have been in the US for at least five years, and are law abiding and willing to attend college or serve in the military. The decision has triggered wholly predictable outrage from nativist conservatives, combined with a politically motivated effort by a handful of Republicans to suggest that President Obama’s action would somehow prevent Congress from addressing this issue. The reality is that President Obama’s decision was the right one and that Republicans have stopped Congress from helping Dreamers for years.

President Obama’s new immigration policy will lift the threat of deportation from nearly 1 million Dreamers and is an important step towards making our immigration system fairer, more efficient, and more just.  Therefore, it is critical that we all express our support for this step, and share the word about what the new policy is and why it is the right one.  Here are some of the details.

What The New Policy Is

The new Dreamers policy is set forth in a memorandum from Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano that calls on immigration officials to use their prosecutorial discretion and not spend limited resources attempting to deport individuals who:

• came to the United States under the age of sixteen;
• have continuously resided in the United States for a least five years preceding the date of this memorandum and are present in the United States on the date of this memorandum;
• are currently in school, have graduated from high school, have obtained a general education development certificate, or are an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States;
• have not been convicted of a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor offense, multiple misdemeanor offenses, or otherwise poses a threat to national security or public safety; and
• are not above the age of thirty.

Instead of facing the threat of deportation, the approximately one million people who qualify under this new policy will instead be able to apply for a two-year work visa that can be renewed at the end of the two years.

Why The New Policy Is the Right One

The new immigration policy is a matter of basic fairness, and also furthers the interests of our country as a whole.  The Dreamers who are covered by this policy are in the US without proper documentation through no fault of their own and are law-abiding people who are contributing to society through obtaining an education, working, and/or serving in the military.  There is simply no moral or rational justification for deporting such people.

The policy would also be economically beneficial, as the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that keeping the Dreamers in the US would generate $1.7 billion in additional federal revenue and reduce the deficit by $2.2 billion over 10 years.  And by reducing the number of people in the US whose undocumented status enables employers to underpay, the policy could help to place some upward pressure on wages for all Americans.

Why The New Policy Is Legal

Republicans have responded to the Obama Administration announcement by claiming that the policy is somehow illegal and an abuse of Executive authority by the President.  For an especially ironic presentation of this argument, see this essay by John Yoo, who infamously found while he was serving in the George W. Bush Administration that the President had the authority to authorize torture of enemy combatants.  But the claims by Yoo and other conservatives that President Obama somehow abused his authority ignores the import of the well-establish doctrine of prosecutorial discretion, which provides that the Executive has considerable discretion in deciding exactly how and against whom criminal laws should be enforced.  As explained in a letter to the White House from nearly 100 law professors, the law plainly allows this sort of exercise of prosecutorial discretion and Presidents have exercised that discretion in similar situations in the past.   Given that it costs the federal government $23,148 to deport each individual, it is perfectly rational for the Administration to decide to focus limited resources on pursuing serious lawbreakers, rather than blameless and law-abiding undocumented immigrants.

The GOP Was Not Going to Act to Help Dreamers

Perhaps the most disingenuous objection from conservatives has been that President Obama should have waited for Congress to act. But the DREAM Act, which would provide Dreamers with permanent residency status, has been floating around Congress for more than a decade and has received majority support in both Houses of Congress on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, it has never become law because Republicans in the Senate have filibustered the legislation a number of times, most recently in December 2010 when it was halted by 41 Republican Senators.  The fact that the GOP has been preventing the majority in Congress from passing the DREAM Act for years now completely undermines their argument that President Obama should have waited for Congress to act.

Conservatives also claim that President Obama’s action was not needed because Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was purportedly going to propose a watered-down version of the DREAM Act.  But Rubio has been all talk and no action on this issue for months, and still has never submitted an actual legislative proposal.

What is Mitt Romney’s Position on This Issue?

Perhaps realizing the political peril that this issue puts him in, Mitt Romney responded with a vague statement that legislative action should be taken to deal with the Dreamers issue, but not explaining what such action should involve.  Previously, however, Romney vowed to veto the DREAM Act, which he called a “magnet for illegal immigration,” and announced his support for an approach to undocumented immigrants of “self-deportation,” which involves making life so difficult for immigrants that they will “voluntarily” decide to leave the US.  And Romney’s “informal advisor” on immigration issues, the virulently anti-immigration Kris Kobach, has made clear that he would not support even the watered-down version of the DREAM Act that Senator Rubio has discussed.  While Romney may try to Etch-a-Sketch his way out of his previous statements about the DREAM Act, his behavior during the Republican primaries makes clear that were Romney to become President, he would be answering to the anti-immigration advocates in his party, not seeking to find ways to help the Dreamers.

Life has gotten really busy here with some work deadlines, so blogging will be light until this weekend.  However, just a quick update that Senator Reid is planning to hold a vote to break the Republican filibusters on DADT repeal and on the DREAM Act on Saturday.   With the unfortunate news that Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore) has to undergo treatment for prostate cancer (let’s all wish him the best of luck for a full and speedy recovery), he is going to miss the vote, so we will need to pick up one extra Republican.

Keep making calls so that we can get DADT repealed and the DREAM Act passed!   Key Senators to contact on DADT repeal are here.  To see where various Senators stand on the DREAM Act, go here.

For those of you who have been making calls, thank you and keep up the good work!  By way of encouragement, we’d like to share an e-mail from reader Steve V. who we think has the message on DADT repeal spot on:

Hi. I was able to reach the following senators to urge them to support the repeal of DADT (S. 4023):

Joe Manchin (West Virginia) – 202-224-3954 – left comment
Richard Lugar (Indiana) – (202) 224-4814 – left comment
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) – (202) 224-6665

I haven’t been able to reach anyone else on the l list. I also left a comment for my own state Senator, Mark Kirk (Illinois) and sent him an email as well, though I don’t think he’ll be voting for the repeal.

I went with the following argument: These are patriotic Americans who merely wish to serve their country – the least we can do is let them do their jobs without prying into their private lives. This is also a national security issue – we’re losing an alarming number of linguists through DADT (we’ve lost over 55 Arabic linguists since 2006) – this drastically affects our military’s ability to function in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. The enforcement of DADT also provides incentives for foreign intelligence to blackmail members of our military with threats of outing them and ruining their military careers.

I’m hoping we reach enough senators and that they do the right thing and this gets passed.

If you reach your Senator’s office, send us an email and let us know how the call went.

As we assess the success of President Obama and the Democrats in moving the progressive agenda forward, it is important to remember that political leadership is only one part of the equation.   The other key part of the equation is what we progressives do to make sure that progressive goals and policies are the focus of our politicians and the media.  

Unfortunately, over the past two years conservative activists have been beating us progressives in this realm.  For example, when health care reform was being debated, conservatives flooded Congressional offices with telephone calls and swamped town hall meetings.  Similarly, newspaper editorial pages tend to be filled with letters from conservatives.

This disparity matters.  For example, as John Judis explained recently at The New Republic’s Citizen Cohn blog -

If half the 41 percent of the electorate that is conservative is marching in the street, crowding local political meetings, and raising money for their candidates, and only a tenth of the moderate and liberal electoral is similarly agitating for their causes and candidates, the conservatives’ influence over election outcomes and over the political debate in the country will be much greater. And that’s a lot of what happened in 2010. Outside of a few Washington organizations, the liberal electorate that took to the streets in 2006 and 2008 was demoralized and demobilized. And the results showed not just in the election, but in the political questions that are currently being debated in the press and in Congress. It’s not whether to have a single-payer health care system, but whether to have a national system at all. It’s not whether social spending should be increased, but whether it should be frozen or cut.

So, what do we progressives need to do?   As Matthew Yglesias recently wrote:

What’s needed is less whining and more doing. Doing what? Doing politics, of course. That means that every time there’s an election you’re eligible to vote in—be it a primary election or a general election—you look at which are the two candidates most likely to win and you vote for the better one. And you encourage your friends and coworkers to do the same. You should donate money to the PACs of politicians who you like. You should volunteer in person to do election work near where you live. And you should donate money to organizations that you like. When there are issues being debated, you should write to your elected representatives. You should consider running for local office, and you should urge good people you might know to consider running. If you have local elected officials who you like, you should encourage them to run for higher office

Right now is a great time to start changing this dynamic.  There are a series of issues - including DADT repeal, extension of unemployment benefits, passage of the DREAM Act, ratification of the START Treaty, and tax policy - that can still be addressed during Congress’ lame-duck session if we demand it.  Call your Representatives, Senators, and the White House now so we can rack up some progressive victories before the end of the year.  Contact information and talking points here.