The Current Battles in Congress Deserve Our Response!
To
My Fellow Democrats,
If
you are concerned about Constitutional checks and balances being preserved,
that the United Nations is respected and reformed by international norms or
that ethical inquiries remain fair and honest in Congress, then you need to be
aware of this month’s ongoing critical decisions in Congress on these
issues. They involve whether or not the
filibuster will be eliminated on judicial nominees (the ‘nuclear option’), whether
or not John Bolton will be confirmed as UN Ambassador and whether or not the
inquiry into a very long list of allegations against Tom DeLay will go ahead in
a bipartisan manner. All of these cases
are about the potential for the United States to lurch much farther to the
right than the public mainstream wants or deserves.
Because
public opinion is on the side of Democrats on all three of these issues,
there’s a chance we could win all of them, but only if our opinion is expressed
loudly. The Bush administration has
made it clear often enough that it will not listen to the silent majority that
shows up in polls and neither will most Republican Congressmen. But the fact of the matter is that most all
Congressmen have a system in place within their offices to record the leanings
of their constituencies, particularly on hot topics of the day. Congressional aides do read and count
letters of opinions on issues and the best letters are presented to your
Congresspersons directly, according to inside sources. It’s just like voting but even more
important. On the internet there are
now dozens of sources to help you find your Congressman including clicking
‘Resources’ at our own international web site, democratsabroad.org or at our
own site, demsinberlin.de.
Posted
there you will also find the latest Letter from Washington by Tom Fina which
goes into detail on why saving the filibuster, which can now be used against
extremist judicial nominees is so essential to all Americans. The federal courts are already stacked with
conservative judges in 10 out of 13 districts.
Fortunately, most of them are relatively moderate and independent,
usually shunning judicial activism. The
religious extreme right lobby wants to change that entirely, especially in the
Supreme Court, in order to overturn Roe vs. Wade, make the death penalty
harsher, eliminate gay rights and curb many other rights which Americans have
come to take for granted. While the
Republicans claim they just want a straight up and down vote because they
already claim a simple majority, the Democrats are simply wanting to express
their opinions by raising the bar to a 60 vote majority to make confirmations
bipartisan and thus ensuring an independent judiciary. That’s what Americans want, too!
In
regards to John Bolton, hardly a day has gone by in the past few weeks without
revealing extremely serious allegations that he has meddled somehow to put his
views above intelligence analysts or
even the State Dept. in regards to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Iraq, Taiwan and
Cuba. His bullying tactics have become
infamous as well as his long term disdain for the United Nations. Moderate Republicans like Voinovich (OH),
Murkowski (Alaska), Chafee (RI) and Hagel (Neb.) are on the fence and could
jump either way to block the nomination in committee. But each of them face intense battles from Republican colleagues,
organizations and lobbyists if they turn their back on the President. No one seems to know if they’ll choose
loyalty above the credibility and national security of the United States. If current plans go forward, the Foreign
Policy Committee will vote on May 12th. Americans who don’t want Bolton representing us to the world must
say so now!
Perhaps
the lesser of the 3 monster battles over the next weeks regards the Ethics
Committee in the House and countless allegations against Tom DeLay. Already the Democrats claimed a major
victory when the Ethics Committee backed down and said it would allow an
inquiry after all. However, as DeLay
claims he’s looking forward to it, plenty of dirty tricks seem to be in the
works to avoid the real truth coming out, as usual. DeLay is primarily accused of taking excessive gifts from
lobbyists, particularly Jack Abramoff, which are illegal. The ‘Hammer’s’ defense strategy appears it
will be that these gifts or funds came legally through an organization and ‘he
just didn’t know’ Abramoff’s personal money was used all the time. Democratic congresspersons are united in
getting DeLay out of his noisy leadership role and out of office as soon as
possible. Apparently, his own Texas
constituency is leaning that way, too.
But he needs all the kicks from us that we can give.
Many
other battles are brewing in the near future, most importantly regarding Social
Security. Again, public opinion is with
the Democrats despite the fact that privatizing Social Security is the primary
issue Bush has been pushing for over the past two months. With proposals still in draft form, nobody
knows what will come out in the end but supposedly the GOP wants legislation up
in June. Today there was a report that
Senator George Allen is looking at many options and went so far as to suggest
seniors should sell their homes to get by because then they won’t have to cut
the grass. With knucklehead ideas like
that floating around, the GOP will not gain in popularity to secure the votes
they need to destroy Social Security.
Otherwise,
though the Democrats are amazingly showing a lot of spine and unity on all of
the above, there is an internal debate on the table coming from the Progressive
wing.
The
question is whether or not Democrats should push for a timetable to withdraw
from Iraq. Everybody, even Republicans,
seems to be saying as soon as possible.
But no one knows what that means because of the unpredictable fragile
democracy and the ever more violent insurgency. Tom Hayden, a Progressive Democrat leading the movement to
quickly end the occupation, will be in Berlin this month. Will this movement weaken or strengthen the
Democratic party? There’s a lot to
think about and discuss. Feel free to
join us.
Eva
Adams
Jazzineva@aol.com