The Discussion Democrats Need to Have

The Senate Democratic Caucus currently consists of 47 members. In order to pass any

progressive legislation in 2021-2028, a (hopefully) Democratic president will need a majority in the Senate, so let’s break it down. The path to a Senate majority means flipping Arizona, Colorado, and Maine and holding all other seats. With Alabama Senator Doug Jones likely to lose re-election, Democrats need 1 more seat for 50 seats and two more for outright control. If Stacey Abrams runs for Senate in Georgia next year, this is the best option. However, if the environment is very Democratic friendly and Democrats nominate excellent candidates, then other seats are flippable. In the 2014 North Carolina Senate race,

Republican Thom Tillis beat incumbent Democratic Senator Kay Hagan by 1.5%. In Iowa,

Republican Joni Ernst flipped the Senate seat by an 8.3% margin with five-term Democratic

incumbent Tom Harkin not running for a sixth term. In 2018, Democrats won 3 out of 4 House seats, Steve King only won by 3.3%, and Democrat Fred Hubbell lost by only 2.8% to the incumbent Republican governor. With 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates spending a considerable amount of time in Iowa, maybe the grassroots energy could help flip a Senate seat. Finally, in 2014, Republican Dan Sullivan beat incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Begich by 2.2%.

Arizona Democrats won four statewide races in 2018 including Kyrsten Sinema

defeating Martha McSally to replace outgoing Senator Jeff Flake. McSally was later appointed to fill the seat vacated by former Senator Jon Kyl who was appointed to fill the vacancy left by the passing of Senator McCain. In order to beat McSally again in the 2020 special election, Democrats should follow the same path and platform Sinema took. She is a moderate who ran a centrist campaign which included a statement explaining she would need more time and would need to meet with Kavanaugh before deciding on confirmation. Also, she doesn’t support Medicare-for-All, and although she voted no on the final version of the 2017 GOP tax bill, she voted yes in a vote during the legislative process. Likewise, in 2017, she voted in line with President Trump about half the time.

Progressives and especially the Bernie part of the caucus have beef with moderates

(like Joe Manchin) as believing they are not Democrats. It’s naive to think that a Democratic

socialist or someone running on a Bernie-like platform can flip consistently red states. We see someone like AOC win a primary on that platform, but that’s in a NYC district which is a

guaranteed general election win based on Democrats essentially always winning urban districts. With Democrats winning back the House in 2018, people may believe that since the

Party has moved left since 2016 that the candidates were running on progressive ideas such as Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal. However, that’s not the case. 22 of the 30 freshmen New Democrats come from districts that lean Republican. Here is an excerpt from a recent Vox article that gives some more detail on the freshman Democrats.

These members are less interested in a 70 percent top tax rate or a Green New Deal

than they are in passing targeted fixes to protect the Affordable Care Act and lower the

cost of health care, promoting renewable energy, and maybe looking for an

infrastructure deal to fix crumbling roads and boost rural broadband to speed up slow

internet in their districts. They’re happy to discuss the more ambitious policy ideas

animating the left, like Medicare-for-all, but they still have serious reservations.

The discussion Democrats need to have surrounds the idea of moderates as well as

moderate legislation. In terms of moderates, there are two types. There are the moderates such as Manchin and Sinema whose ideological scores fall somewhat around the middle.

Additionally, there are moderates such as Klobuchar who work across the aisle to get legislation passed. During the 115th Congress, Klobuchar introduced the most bills, got the most bipartisan cosponsors on her bills, got her bills out of committee the 2nd most often, and wrote the 3rd most laws compared with anyone else in the Democratic caucus. To look how effective moderates are, let’s examine the last time one party controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. Moderates such as Murkowski, (8 laws written during 115th Congress), Portman (8), Collins (6), and Flake (6) wrote more laws than the four most conservative senators which were Inhofe (3), Enzi (2), Cotton (2), and Rounds (1). People talk about how politics is broken, and DC is always gridlocked. Clearly, the moderate lawmakers typically do a better job at LAW MAKING which is obviously what their job is.

When discussing politics, there’s some value to labels because there’s a clear difference

between Bernie and Manchin, but politicians and voters never 100% fit their respective labels or identity. The Democratic Caucus has two Senate seats in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maryland, but all 4 states re-elected GOP governors in 2018. Trump won West Virginia by 43% in 2016, but Manchin won re-election by 3.3% in 2018. The main goal of Republicans since 2010 was to repeal and replace the ACA, but Collins, Murkowski, and McCain voted no.

This moderate discussion also includes legislation. The ACA is a moderate healthcare

expansion law that was born from The Heritage Foundation’s individual mandate and modeled after “Romneycare” in Massachusetts. Context is key as to why it’s not “progressive.” Democrats had a filibuster-proof 60 Senate vote majority for some of 2009-2010 and used that to pass the ACA. This meant everyone had to be on board, so when Joe Lieberman and a group of senators demanded a public option be withdrawn from the final bill, it had to be done. What gets lost is why they held this position. A public option would mean millions of people moving away from private insurance. These companies would lose business and as a result may cut jobs. Lieberman represented Connecticut whose capital Hartford is the “Insurance Capital of the world.” An elected official will rarely vote for a bill that could mean fewer jobs for their constituents.

However, the ACA is an achievement in numerous ways. More than 20 million

Americans gained coverage which cut the uninsured rate in half. It created the 10 essential

health benefits that every plan must include which are: 1. ambulatory patient services

(outpatient services), 2. emergency services, 3. hospitalization, 4. maternity and newborn care, 5. mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment, 6. prescription drugs, 7. rehabilitative and habilitative services (those that help patients acquire, maintain, or improve skills necessary for daily functioning) and devices, 8. laboratory services, 9. preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management, and 10. pediatric services, including oral and vision care. Additionally, people with pre-existing conditions cannot be denied coverage, and it banned lifetime caps. I could go on and on, but the most important impact is that it moved the goalposts for universal health care. Since we know the ACA and its implementation weren’t perfect, policymakers have drafted legislation to expand upon it (like Medicare-for-all). Since there’s no issue (pro-choice vs pro-life, bigger vs. smaller government, etc.) that holds up through either party or its voters, I think it’s dumb for voters to pick out a piece of proposed legislation or a label to use as a litmus test. Even Bernie has said Medicare-for-all isn’t a litmus test for Democrats. What does unite the Democratic Caucus is protecting the ACA which is healthcare expansion.

So, if it’s a 50-52 seat majority, we need the conservative part of the caucus on board

(Manchin, Tester, Sinema, maybe Jones, and probably at least 1 2020 Democratic Senate flip)

just like we did for the ACA. As mentioned before, Sinema is against Medicare-for-all, but she could always change her position. Tester and Manchin have not ruled out supporting it. Tester said, “Maybe it’s something we should, quite frankly, take a solid look at.” Manchin said, "It should be explored” but is “skeptical.”

Any Democratic legislation would likely require the removal of the legislative filibuster or

budget reconciliation. I’m not sure the votes are there to get rid of the filibuster. In early 2017, 61 senators including 32 Democrats sent a letter to McConnell to uphold the 60-vote threshold. Since that time, two Supreme Court nominees have been confirmed mostly on party lines. Several 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidates and Democrat Chris Coons have yet to fully move on from the filibuster. Dylan Scott, a reporter for Vox, recently broke down what budget reconciliation means for Medicare-for-All. It’s an extremely great read, and I highly recommend it. The difficulties mentioned likely apply for any progressive legislation such as a Green New Deal. And this assumes Democrats have the White House and Senate and can get at least 50 senators on board. Legislating ultimately comes down to compromise, so the entire caucus must come together on any legislation under the next president. The biggest takeaway is the moderate wing will ultimately decide whether unified Democratic control of DC passes any progressive agenda. This may inhibit large-scale progress, but as Obama has said in the past, “Better is good.”