Democratic Oak Tree

Some people believe that there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Others believe the opposite — that Democrats and Republicans are too far apart and need to work more cooperatively.

Yet  others believe that Democrats compromise too readily and shouldn’t cave in to Republican demands.

Now that Democrats have “controlled” Congress for seven months, what does the record show?

The House has a fairly strong Democratic majority (231 Democrats to 202 Republicans). Since January – when Democrats began leading the committees where legislation moves or stalls — the House has passed bills to improve the lives of millions of Americans and invest government funds more productively. Bills passed so far would:

• Increase the minimum wage
• Increase college grants for low- and middle-income students
• Broaden  federal support for stem cell research
• Require the federal government to negotiate with drug companies to get better prices for Medicare recipients
• Reduce tax breaks for oil companies

The legislation on the minimum wage was long overdue. Because of inflation, the value of the minimum wage had reached its lowest level in fifty years – scandalous in a country that believes in equality.
This legislation may not seem momentous in Massachusetts, because our minimum wage has been higher than the federal minimum of $5.15 an hour.

But think of the impact in states like Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee, which don’t have their own minimum wage law, and Kansas, Oklahoma and West Virginia, which have very low minimums. Nationally, more than twelve million low-paid workers will benefit.

All Democrats in the House voted for passage of this most fundamental expression of economic justice. Eighty-two Republicans joined them. But a majority of Republicans – 116 – voted “nay.”

Remember that for a bill to become law, it has to be passed by both the House and the Senate and signed by the President.

There’s the rub.

The Senate has 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, one independent, and one Democrat who ran as an independent (Lieberman). (Remember that the Democratic Senator from South Dakota is recovering from illness and hasn’t yet voted this year.)

Because the two independents are grouped with the Democrats, the Senate committees are chaired by Democrats and usually have one more member on committees than the Republicans do.

It’s an excruciatingly tight “majority,” and compromises are of necessity made even at the committee level. Amendments by both parties are offered when the bill comes before the full Senate.

With sixty votes required to move legislation in the Senate, any bill that makes it to the President’s desk has to be bipartisan.

In January, right after the House approved the minimum wage hike, the Democratic majority in the Senate tried to pass the same legislation. Five Republicans joined Democrats and the independents in voting for the minimum wage with no strings attached, but the other Republicans would not budge, and the sixty votes needed to proceed could not be obtained.

It took four more months for the minimum wage to pass and get signed into law by President Bush. Democrats had to agree to new tax cuts for business, even though five Republicans had thought they weren’t necessary. The President signed the bill because it included funding for the Iraq war.
Last month the House passed the College Cost Reduction Act with bipartisan support. The vote was 273 to 149.  Of those voting, two-thirds of Republicans said “nay”; all Democrats said “yea.”

Again, a measure on which Democrats and quite a few Republicans agreed, but a majority of Republicans were opposed.

A  couple of weeks ago, the College Cost Reduction Act passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support. But still – on an issue that is causing havoc in the lives of millions of parents and their children — about a third of Republican senators voted “nay.” The bill is now in a conference committee with the House.

There’s not space today to delve into the details of other legislation that passed fairly easily in the Democratic House but has been stalled in the Senate, where Democrats and Republicans are basically tied.
If you like the bills that the House passed this year, you have a lot in common with what the Democratic Party stands for: working for the Common Good.

What we need next is a strong Democratic majority in both houses of Congress and Democratic leadership in the Presidency.  If that happens (thanks to voters in states across the country), you’ll see faster progress on domestic legislation — and a much wiser foreign policy.