The Restoration of Our Government.

I am amused by the Democrat’s and other Trump Denialist’s reactions to the Republican’s failure to pass their American Health Care Act (AHCA) House legislation.  To me, a good analogy is a basketball team ridiculing their opponent for missing a breakaway dunk…even when the opponent is up twenty with two minutes left in the game.  Has the composition of Congress (that being the House and the Senate) changed since Friday, the 24^th of March?  Has the date for the next mid-term election been moved up or is it still scheduled for the fall of 2018?  Is Donald Trump still the President of the United States?  I believe the clear answers to these questions will lead one to conclude that even though the initial Republican effort to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) failed in a rather public and pathetic fashion, there is ample opportunity and likelihood that a more reasoned Republican effort will be executed well before the fall of 2018.  The more pertinent question that begs answering is what, if anything, have our Legislators learned from this exercise?  Let us consider a few things that we might hope have become a bit more apparent.

As I have written before, the single biggest error committed by Obama was his and his party’s insistence on passing the ACA on a strict party-line vote using extraordinary legislative chicanery.  It poisoned the political well for his entire eight-year term.  Had the Republican’s AHCA legislation passed, it would have done so in the exact fashion that the ACA was brought screaming and fighting into this world; on a party-line vote using extraordinary legislative chicanery.  To me and many other voters who reluctantly chose Trump over Clinton and helped to put Republican majorities in Congress, one of the first orders of business should have been to restore the regular order of business. 

Instead, Senators placed themselves in the middle of House debates; debate and amendments were limited in the name of expediency; terms like binary choices were bandied about; facile efforts were made to include Democrats (in spite of their recalcitrant attitudes) in the legislative mark-up; the President was inserted into the process in a premature way that diminishes the true role of Congress; and a 3-step strategy was developed that would make Solomon throw up his hands in frustration.  The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, with the blessing of our President, started down the same treacherous path as the Democrats; apparently secure in their self-image as an all-seeing, all-knowing, entity with all the damn answers.  Apparently, they prescribe to the same philosophy as their Democratic predecessors…the end justifies the means.  What is in the water in WDC that makes these people leave their senses back home in the handful of counties where their constituents reside?  Do they not understand there is established procedure and regular order for our Congress and the best way to good government is conducting business based on that regular order?  It has now become standard fare for our Congress to reverse engineer legislation.  A small handful of individuals in positions of power and authority decide what the end product should be and then the process is rigged to arrive at that predetermined conclusion.  Instead of bi-partisan legislation and organic law-making, we are witnessing bi-partisan subversion of Congressional function.

Instead of the proper House Committees and Sub-Committees authoring legislation in a deliberate and thoughtful manner based on debate, hearings, and (God Forbid!!) an open and honest exchange of ideas and principles; we are presented with the Just Say No Democrats, the Tuesday Group Republicans, the Freedom Caucus Republicans, and who knows what other organized group of legislators running their own little games and agendas on the sidelines.  Folks…there is a blueprint for exactly how the House of Representatives should operate.  I am not an expert, but I doubt that part of that blueprint is worrying about how the Senate Parliamentarian will or will not rule on a particular Senate bill.  The House is where the tea is brewed; the Senate is where it is sent to cool.  The House needs to get down to some serious brewing.

And when did we get to the point where the main consideration in the legislative process is a spinning game with the media?  Must everything first be leaked or floated or in some way presented in the media before it can be tackled by actual Representatives in the true context of the legislative process?  These men and women were selected by the people in their respective districts to work and use their best judgment to pass legislation that will best serve them and, in a broader sense, our nation.  Steve Bannon, the Koch Brothers, George Soros, and all the other PACs and influence-peddlers be damned; our legislators need to make their laws using regular order and then, once the process is completed, defend themselves to the people who elected them.  Can we find some intestinal fortitude?

Obama began retreating to the (ab)use of the Executive Order when he became frustrated with the legislative processes of the House and Senate; even when his own party was in control.  His frustration was understandable; but his over-reliance on executive actions did serious and long-term damage to our nation, our government, and the ability of our national political parties to coordinate in any reasonable fashion.  If the Republicans in the House cannot get their act together quickly, it is entirely likely that President Trump will allow that same frustration felt by his predecessor to drive him towards governance by executive action.  And whether you agree with his policies or not, that move would simply worsen the crisis our government finds itself in today.  President Trump’s potential abuse of executive power would be no less improper than was Obama’s.  Somehow, someway…someone has to restore some degree of statesmanship to our Congress. 

That someone must be President Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress.  They alone can do this because they are operating from a position of power with their majorities and can fall back to power politics if their invitation falls on deaf ears; they can afford to be magnanimous. They must restore regular order to their operations.  They must make a sincere and reasonable invitation to their fellow Democratic legislators to join in that regular order.  Once that legitimate entreaty is made and if the Democrats as a Party refuse to participate in a meaningful way, then (and only then) the Republicans should use the regular order of the House and the Senate and the Chief Executive to pass party-line legislation that makes sense for this country.  Our nation needs a smaller government, a more efficient and effective government, and a more open and transparent government; but it needs to be done the right way…not necessarily the fast way.  Congress needs to get down to business, forget about their re-election prospects, ignore the media meddling and heavy breathing, follow the established rules of order that are in place, and do the work of the people.  Republicans: Act like winners and reach out to your fellow Democrat legislators for their legitimate input.  Do not run roughshod over the minority.  Instead, make extraordinary efforts to include their ideas in the final product.  Democrats: Accept your President and the fact that the voters have put the Republicans in charge (at least temporarily) of this government; seek your opportunities to participate in the process and do so in a meaningful and constructive fashion.

For all of the things that Donald Trump is or isn’t, I believe it has become apparent that he views (in the main) political negotiations as true compromise.  For all of his partisan instincts that occasionally rear their ugly little heads, his business background has ingrained in him the reality that you never get everything you want the way you want it; the art of the deal is give and take.  The real world of corporate America has taught him this and it is part and parcel of his approach.  This makes him different than recent past presidents.  Judging from the way he has handled the AHCA process thus far, he appears to be sincerely ready to compromise on the final package in order to get something done.  Democrats need to recognize this trait in our President, recognize that he has some innate moderate-to-liberal instincts,  and work with him; not only on health care, but on all the other necessary legislation that should be addressed.