Specter Joins Dems, Puts Party on the Spot

For almost a generation, the Democrats in Congress have been able to
pretend to be the party of ordinary working people, the party of
progressives, and the inheritor of the mantel of Franklin Roosevelt and
the New Deal, all the while doing little of substance and catering
primarily to the interests of Wall Street and the nation's corporate
interests.

The Democrats managed this sleight of hand for so long by claiming
that while they had the best of intentions, really, in the form of
their inability to pass legislation, even when they were in the
majority in both houses of Congress, that could avoid being
filibustered to death by a Republican minority.

That situation has continued to this day, with the party currently having 58 seats in the Senate.

It appears likely that Al Franken has won his tight race defeating
former Sen. Norm Coleman in Minnesota, with the contest all over but
the shouting. (A 3-judge state panel already found Franken to be ahead
by 312 votes, with no outstanding issues in the count, and public
opinion in the state widely favors Coleman finally conceding.)

And now comes the changeling Arlen Specter, the onetime Democratic
district attorney of Philadelphia, who switched to a Republican to run
for the US Senate and has held that state's senior senator position now
for 29 years. But facing likely defeat from the right in a Republican
primary for his party's nomination by a conservative challenger who
almost knocked him off last time around, Specter has finally faced
reality: In a state that has been moving steadily into the Democratic
column for years, his future is with the Democrats.

With Specter switching his party affiliation to Democrat, the
Democrats will finally have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the
Senate, and an already solid majority in the House.

There will, at that point, be no more excuse for Democrats to duck
progressive, liberal, pro-worker, pro-ordinary person issues, using
their old-standby excuse of needing to compromise and win over
Republican votes. There won't even be any need to cater to party
turncoat Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) to get things done. For that matter,
there won't be any justification for President Obama to seek
"bi-partisanship" for his programs.

So the way I see it, it's time for progressives, for the union
movement, for the peace movement, for the environmentalist movement,
the single-payer health care reform movement, indeed for all
progressive elements in the US, to pour on the pressure to get Congress
and President Obama to pass real, progressive legislation in this
Congress.

`We don't need no effin "bipartisanship" anymore. The Republicans
can just be steamrollered--and should be, since that's exactly why
there are so many Democrats in Congress and why we have a Democratic
president.

Now granted, not all Democrats are progressive, but getting
Democrats on board for issues like overriding a filibuster attempt is
different from getting Democrats to vote for a particular bill. The
party leaders have plenty of leverage in the form of control over the
moving forward of members' bills, of committee assignments, office
assignments, etc., to get members of the caucus to line up on
procedural votes like terminating a filibuster, if they want to use
them.

And of course, that's where the pressure comes in. No longer can
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-CA) claim that they are hamstrung by the need to win over Republican
members to their side. If they don't use their caucus power to control
their own members, they will stand exposed as fake liberals, and fake
advocates of ordinary Americans. They will stand exposed as agents of
the corporatocracy.

Maybe that's what they want, but I don't think the party will survive that kind of exposure.

So let's get moving. We can start with renewed pressure for
single-payer healthcare reform, passage of the Employee Free Choice Act
and a real end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are litmus
test issues for progressives and will let us know if the Democrats are
going to keep being the other corporate party, or are going to be a
real liberal alternative.

The Employee Free Choice Act will be an interesting one to watch in
Specter's case. Specter, who has long enjoyed union backing in
Pennsylvania, a few weeks ago said that after earlier backing the
measure he was now not going to support it. But that was when he was
facing a bitter Republican primary. Now he has to earn his spurs as a
prodigal Democrat, returned to the fold. Unions in Pennsylvania are
going to put heavy pressure on him to back the measure if he wants to
avoid a primary now in the Democratic Party for nomination as its
candidate for Senate next year.