Winning Progressive

A few weeks ago, the Obama Administration, standing up to strong opposition from conservative religious organizations, finalized rules under the Affordable Care Act to require that contraception be included as a preventive health service that insurance policies must cover with no co-pay.  This policy will help millions of women afford access to birth control and also save money by reducing unintended pregnancies.  And, in order to mollify concerns of conservative Christian organizations, the Obama Administration provided an exemption for religious institutions when they are solely practicing their religion.

Predictably, conservatives who are opposed to reproductive freedom are outraged by this development.  The leadership of the Catholic Church, along with the GOP Presidential candidates, seized on the fact that religious organizations that are operating secular entities would still need to provide no co-pay contraception policies to the employees of the secular entities.  Revving up its fake outrage machine, conservatives and their media collaborators portrayed the Obama Administration contraception policy as somehow an attack on religious liberty.

The religious liberty argument rings hollow here.  The exemption for religious institutions from the requirement to cover reproductive health services as preventive care when they are solely practicing their religion protected whatever core religious principles are at stake.  But once an institution, whether religious or non-religious, enters into the rest of society and, for example, runs a hospital, bookstore, nursing home, or charity where people of other religions (or no religion) are likely to work or be served, that institution can and should follow the same rules and receive the same benefits as everyone else.  In the present situation, that means hospitals, etc. that are operated by religious organizations were required to cover preventive services under health insurance plans, just as any other employer would.  Otherwise, we would be allowing the religious beliefs of an employer to be used as an excuse to deprive its employees, whether they agree with those beliefs or not, of their rights to health services.  If employees of a secular organization run by a religious entity don’t want to use birth control, they don’t have to. But now those employees have a choice to do so just like everyone else in society.

Despite the lack of any actual interference with religious liberty, the fake right wing outrage was predictably picked up by the media and started to spook some on the left.  Early last week, the Obama Administration hinted that it would be open to a compromise on the issue, which led conservatives, sensing blood in the water, to increase their feeding frenzy around this issue.  Then, on Friday, President Obama announced the compromise:

Under the new policy to be announced today, women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works.  The policy also ensures that if a woman works for a religious employer with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide, pay for or refer for contraception coverage, but her insurance company will be required to directly offer her contraceptive care free of charge.

In other words, this policy, which is similar to one that has been in effect in Hawaii for at least a few years, ensures that women will have access to contraception as preventive care, while also enabling religious organizations that oppose reproductive rights to avoid directly paying for contraceptive health insurance coverage.

While some have tried to paint this compromise as caving in to conservative pressure, we see it more as a politically astute move by the Obama Administration because, in essence, three things have happened:

* women have been assured free access to contraception and other reproductive health services, just as both men and women are with every other preventive health services

* President Obama has shown himself, once again, to be the only reasonable adult in the room, who is willing to fight for his principles while also working to reasonably compromise on issues

* The GOP has proven yet again that they are out of touch with the American people, by stirring up a tempest in a teapot over an issue that the American people support the President on. 98% of sexually active Catholic women have used contraception, and the majority of Americans, including Catholics, support covering contraception as preventive care.

In other words, the Obama Administration advanced women’s rights, once again demonstrated its reasonableness, and drawn the GOP into a battle that shows how out of touch Republicans are with the majority of the American people.  Well played, Mr. President.

One important way to advance the progressive cause is to ensure that candidates who share our progressive values win Democratic primary elections, especially in districts where the Democratic nominee is likely to win the general election.  One great opportunity to do so is taking place in Hawaii right now, where House Progressive Caucus member Mazie Hirono is running for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that is opening up due to the retirement of current U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka.  The other announced candidate in the Democratic primary is Ed Case, a former Democratic Congressperson in the DLC mold.  Let’s help get another progressive into the U.S. Senate by helping Rep. Hirono win the Senate primary and general elections in Hawaii.

Rep. Hirono was born in Fukushima, Japan and came to Hawaii at the age of five when her mother escaped an abusive marriage.    After attending the University of Hawaii and Georgetown University Law School, she served as a state representative from 1980 to 1994, and then as Lieutenant Governor from 1994 to 2002.  In 2006, Rep. Hirono was elected to Congress, where, according to the website Progressive Punch, she has the fourth most progressive voting record of any current representative.   Rep. Hirono supports single payer health insurance, the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, opposed the Iraq War from the very beginning, and has been a vocal advocate for “Pre-K” legislation that would provide federal financing and support for improving and expanding early childhood education.

By contrast, the other declared Democratic candidate, Ed Case, is far from a progressive.  He supported the Iraq War when campaigning for Congress in 2002, voted for the horrendous 2004 bankruptcy reform bill, supported abolishing the estate tax, and was the only Democrat to vote for a 2005 GOP proposal to eliminate federal funding for NPR, PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Title X family planning programs.  Mr. Case’s Senate campaign website includes numerous bad conservative ideas, including a criticizing “harmful” levels of taxation, regulation, and spending; supporting a balanced budget amendment; adding tort reform to the health care reform law; and the type of “reaching across the aisle” language that too often means failing to stand up for progressive values.

Early polling shows Hirono beating the likely Republican nominee handily, but the primary campaign to be a close one, with the results likely to turn on whether this is a head-to-head matchup between Hirono and Case (which Hirono would likely win), or whether the progressive vote is split by other candidates entering the race.    So, now is the time to help make sure Hawaii’s next U.S. Senator is a true progressive.  Show your support for Mazie Hirono by:

* Liking her Facebook Page

* Contributing to Hirono’s campaign

* Signing up to support her campaign

* If you live in Hawaii, writing a letter to your local newspaper in support of Rep. Hirono’s Senate bid

As we’ve explained previously, a big part of winning progressive is celebrating progressive victories as they happen.  Here is our latest celebratory installment. If you have a progressive victory to add to the list, please let us know at the Winning Progressive Facebook page.

* Hawaii Approves Same-Sex Civil Unions – Last Wednesday, Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie sign legislation authorizing same-sex civil unions, making Hawaii the seventh state in the U.S. to do so.

Contact Gov. Abercrombie and thank him.

* Maryland Moves Closer to Marriage Equality – Last Thursday, the Maryland Senate passed legislation granting full marriage rights to same-sex couples.  If the legislation passes the Maryland House of Delegates, Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley has promised to sign it.

Here is the roll call vote in the Maryland Senate.  Contact the state Senators who voted yes and thank them, and also contact Maryland House members and urge them to support marriage equality by voting for House Bill 175.

* Thousands of Lives to be Saved With New U.S. EPA Rules – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last Monday finalized Clean Air Act regulations that will require coal-fired boilers at factories, hospitals, and other industrial and commercial facilities to significantly reduce their air pollution emissions.  This so-called “Boiler MACT” rule will prevent an estimated 2,500-6,500 premature deaths, 4,000 non-fatal heat attacks, and 3,700 cases of acute bronchitis every year starting in 2014.

Contact the White House and thank the Obama Administration for enforcing the Clean Air Act.

* American Autoworkers to Receive Profit Sharing Checks – Two years ago, the Big Three automakers were on the verge of collapse.  This week, however, General Motors announced that it had a $4.7 billion profit in 2010, and will be sending profit-sharing checks of $4,300 to each of its 45,000 unionized workers.  This is further proof that the Obama Administration’s rescue of the auto industry was the right thing to do and was done effectively. It is also important to note that a few years the unionized auto workers gave up $7,000 – $30,000 per year in concessions to help the auto companies recover.

Write a letter to the editor to spread the word about the success of the auto industry rescue. Here are links for submitting letters to the editor for national papers, and to newspapers in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware,  Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

* Obama Administration Stops Defending DOMA – Last Wednesday the Obama Administration announced that it would no longer defend in court the Defense of Marriage Act, which authorizes states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages entered into in other states, and which restricts marriage at the federal level to being between only a man and a woman.

Contact the White House and thank the Obama Administration for standing up for equality, fairness, and our Constitution.

Here are links to the letter to the editor email addresses and websites of Hawaii newspapers.  Keep your letter to under 150 words.  Make sure to include your name, address, and telephone number as the paper will want to contact you to verify that you wrote the letter.

Please send us an email if any of these links are broken or if you’d like to suggest a Hawaii newspaper to add to the list.

Hilo Hawaii Tribune-Herald

Honolulu Hawaii Reporter

Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Lihue Garden Island

Wailuku Maui News