Tag Archives: Party of No

The Blame Game

When I first began practicing law, there were still very few women in the profession. One of the very first to have broken the gender barrier was a local divorce lawyer who had become legendary (not in a good way) in the legal community. Whether she’d become embittered by barriers she’d faced, or was just a bit “off,” there were multiple stories of courtroom appearances and client clashes. My favorite arose during her representation of the husband in a nasty divorce, when she explained to the court that the wife’s personality was so unpleasant that it had finally caused her poor husband to stab her.

That old story came to mind because I’ve been reading various pundits’ assignments of blame for Congressional dysfunction. Evidently, it’s all Obama’s fault that members of the legislature are refusing to do much of anything. He hasn’t “played hardball” or “twisted arms,” or maybe he hasn’t “schmoozed” enough…but whatever the tactical deficiency, it’s clearly his fault that the Republicans hate him and refuse to pass any bill–no matter how reasonable or necessary, no matter that the measure was  previously part of the GOP’s own agenda–lest it be seen as compromising with the White House.

The fact that current congressional intransigence stems not from philosophical differences but from petty politics, visceral antagonism and more than a little racism has hardly been a well-kept secret. Pat Toomey, the Republican Senator who cosponsored the recently defeated background check bill, confirmed this state of affairs when he admitted that a number of Republicans had voted against the bill purely out of animus toward the President, and unwillingness to give him a “win.”

Whatever Obama’s strengths and weaknesses, we send people to Congress to focus on sound policy and the common good of the American public. A certain amount of political game-playing is inevitable, but when partisanship dictates every action taken, when calculations of political advantage trump all else, the system is broken. Lawmakers may think they are beating Obama–but they are really betraying the American people.

Blaming the President for the childish behavior of the legislative branch is like blaming the wife whose flawed personality “made” her husband stab her.

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Looking Backward

In 1980, I won the Republican primary for what was then Indiana’s Eleventh Congressional District, defeating three opponents. I was pro-choice and on record supporting equal rights for gays and lesbians (same-sex marriage was not yet an issue), positions that were consistent with the generally libertarian Republicanism of the day. Indeed, my loss to Andy Jacobs, Jr. in the general election was widely attributed to the belief that as a “Goldwater Republican,” I was simply too conservative.

My political philosophy has not changed in the intervening 32 years, but now I’m routinely accused of being a leftist or socialist.

How far the political pendulum has swung! A pro-choice, pro-gay rights candidate winning a Republican primary almost anywhere in the country would be inconceivable today.

In Indiana, even Richard Lugar—who had become steadily more conservative as the party’s center shifted more and more to the right—was deemed insufficiently pure by the rigid party base that now controls the GOP.  Governor Daniels’ argument that Richard Mourdock is in the mainstream of the party is actually true, because the party today is more radical than at any point in my lifetime. The people I worked with on past Lugar campaigns and in the Hudnut Administration are dispirited and dismayed; more and more often, they’re voting Democrat or simply staying home.

That brings me to the new slogan unveiled by the Obama campaign a few weeks ago: Forward. That slogan has generated a lot of derision from Republicans, but they may find their scorn is misplaced. In a very real sense, the 2012 general election will be a choice between going forward and going backward.

The President’s recent statement supporting same-sex marriage is just one example. The principle (which used to be a Republican principle) is that government should treat all citizens equally. Acceptance of the application of that principle to gays and lesbians is clearly the way forward.

The Administration’s support for equal marriage rights is only one example. Yes, my students overwhelmingly endorse equal civil recognition for same-sex couples. But they also support Administration proposals–vehemently opposed by Republicans–to ameliorate climate change, including government support for renewable energy and conservation. While the subject of abortion remains a thorny moral issue for many of them, they are repelled by efforts to humiliate women by mandating vaginal ultrasounds and similarly invasive procedures. And they are appalled by efforts to go backward by denying women access to contraception.

Whatever their opinions of much-maligned and poorly understood “Obamacare,” surveys confirm that most Americans agree with the proposition that our healthcare system is both economically and morally deficient, and that those deficiencies must be addressed.

Surveys also show huge majorities of Americans favor cutting the deficit by raising tax rates on the wealthy, and favor reducing expenditures on defense. (In defiance, the House GOP recently voted to restore proposed defense cuts and to pay for that restoration not with taxes but by cutting services to poor women and children.)

In November, voters will have a choice between an administration that—while often clumsy and ham-handed—is on the right side on most of these issues, and a party that stubbornly rejects dealing with any of them.

At a time when America desperately needs two substantive political parties offering competing solutions to the problems we face, one of them—the one I supported for 35 years—has simply gone off the rails. I miss that party. America misses that party.

Today’s GOP has come to be known as the “Party of No,” and it isn’t just Obama the party is rejecting. It’s rejecting modernity.

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Mirror Images

There must be a special blind spot that allows people to engage in precisely the same behavior that they (correctly) criticize in others.

 In one particularly distasteful example, the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded to counter religious prejudice, recently opposed locating a mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero. Evidently, the ADL’s commitment to civil rights doesn’t extend to Muslims.

Closer to home, a number of local Democrats have savagely attacked three Democratic City-County Counselors for voting to sell the water company to Citizens Gas. They have been especially harsh in their criticisms of Jackie Nytes, one of the most thoughtful, productive and hardworking members of the Council.

These are members of the same party that has complained—justifiably—about the Party of No in Washington. Democrats criticize the GOP for its sustained and uniform opposition to anything the Obama Administration proposes; in just the past few weeks, Republicans have blocked votes on the DISCLOSE Act (increasing disclosure and reporting requirements in the wake of the Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to make direct campaign contributions), a bill to provide medical aid and compensation for 9-11 first responders, and a bill to expand credit to small businesses.   The Party of No has also blocked votes on at least twenty judicial nominees who received bipartisan support in committee.

What is appalling about this behavior is its transparent motivation to deny the Administration any credit for getting anything done, even when the measures being proposed have previously been supported by Republicans.

Local Democrats have been among those who have strongly criticized this conduct, and it is ironic—to put it mildly—that they are now engaging in it by suggesting that a vote for a plan put forward by a Republican mayor is an act of disloyalty.

If I were on the Council, I don’t know how I would vote on the water company sale. I think the transfer itself makes sense; what I don’t like is that we are getting money to fix our decaying infrastructure by shifting the tax burden to ratepayers. We are pandering to the purveyors of the fiction that we can run a city on the cheap, and our cowardice will inevitably come back to bite us in the future. That said, the infrastructure needs are critical, and a direct tax increase is politically untenable.

Councilor Nytes has a well-deserved reputation for integrity and responsiveness to her constituents, and the accusations of betrayal by more partisan members of her party do not reflect poorly on her—such accusations diminish her critics, and reduce the effectiveness of their justifiable criticisms of the Party of No. 

We elect people to the Council to make decisions on our behalf in the exercise of their best judgment, not to play politics. It is one thing to disagree with a colleague’s vote on the merits—that’s fair enough. It is another thing altogether to insist on lockstep partisan voting.

It’s wrong to be the Party of No in Washington—or in Indianapolis.