Interest Groups Don't Care For Centrists Who Vote For Cloture

There are two basic reasons why a Red State Democratic Senator might feel the need to maintain a moderate or conservative public profile (it's always possible that this sort of Senator often is less liberal, but lets at least assume they would like to be more liberal than they think they can get away with and still win reelection). The first is that such a Senator needs to win the votes of a more conservative electorate. The second is that such a senator has a much smaller in-state donor class of ideological liberals. To mitigate the first requires that you be a "different kind of Democrat"; pro-life, pro-gun, pro-military-industrial-complex, whatever. To mitigate the second, though, requires that you kowtow to whatever interest group is willing to fill your campaign coffers. And interest groups know what's up; they're not going to be fooled by a vote against final passage if it comes right after a vote for cloture.

When you see Ben Nelson or Evan Bayh or Mary Landrieu standing up for the poor, downtrodden, put-upon health insurance industry, and wonder why Harry Reid doesn't just tell them to vote for cloture but against passage to let them show off their "independence", ask yourself whether the Centrists are trying to appear Centrist in the eyes of their constituents or the eyes of their donors.

Public Health Announcement

If this piece from Matt Cooper is any indication, do yourself a favor and make sure not to watch cable news during next week's Sotomayor hearings. In fact, you might want to yank any mainstream news outlets out of your RSS reader for the next few days. I'm not necessarily able to articulate what the "proper" role of the press ought to be during nomination hearings, but I'm pretty sure breathless panting of "ZOMG Republicans to call appellant in reverse discrimination hearing! In a case where Sotomayor was WRONG[1]!" isn't it.

[1] Again, speaking very slowly, existing precedent made it pretty clear that Sotomayor ruled the way she should have, and it's hard to call a 5-4 decision fundamentally wrong in any real sense.

SUPERSOLARPANEL

Coming soon to Cle Elum, Washington.

My impression is that Eastern Washington has large deposits of whatever natural resources are needed to make solar panels, and, of course, lots of sun (once you get past the Cascades, the climate of the rest of the state is much closer to that of Southern Idaho than Vancouver). Combined with the states very green-tinged political culture, you have lots of incentive to get this sort of project up and running.

Senator Fifty Versus Senator Sixty

It would seem that the 50th Democratic vote in the Senate -- and I don't know who exactly that is, probably some Southerner -- would have much to gain by the de-emphasis of the filibuster. If legislation needed only 50 votes to pass the Senate, people designing stimulus bills and health care plans and energy legislation would take that into account. They wouldn't have to sell their bill to Ben Nelson, and they'd write more ambitious things. Figuring out some way to tailor bills to Senator Fifty, or else buy Senator Fifty's vote with a variety of shiny trinkets, would be the goal. You can see how Senator Fifty might be quite pleased with this dynamic.

But I haven't seen any evidence that potential Senator Fifties are acting on these incentives. You don't see, say, Bob Casey or Mark Pryor or Mary Landrieu or Kay Hagan dissing on the filibuster and calling out Ben Nelson for obstructionism. And I don't really know why. Obviously, there are going to be a number of people jockeying to be Senator Fifty, but in a session where people are trying to move lots of historic legislation, the stock of rewards is probably large enough that everybody in the 45-55 range has a reasonable shot at some share of the goodies. So why is everybody letting Ben Nelson have all the fun?

Should I Give Henry Waxman Money?

With my much-loved Nancy Pelosi's Speakership secure, I don't care that much about converting another Republican seat into a Blue Dog seat. And while there are some vulnerable Democrats I'm interested in defending -- Tom Perriello's international human rights heroism makes me interested in helping him -- there really aren't many people on there who I see as having a big progressive impact.

So I'm starting to think that it might be time to throw some money at the awesomest legislator in the House, Henry Waxman, in hopes of giving him a big pile of cash that he can use for various wonderful Waxpurposes. Like: gaining influence for his Waxprojects by donating his stash to other Congresscritters. I've read so many awesome articles about Henry Waxman that I can't remember which one I heard this from, but apparently one of the secrets to his success was making contributions from his personal stash to other Congressional Democrats. This was effective in causing them to cast excellent Waxvotes.

If you're wondering why I'm being so Waxlaudatory here (I promise that's the last one), let these Henry Waxman Facts be your appetizer:

In the midst of the Reagan era's cutbacks, Waxman expanded the number of working poor eligible for Medicaid a stunning 24 times.

For virtually the entire 1980s, Waxman blocked Dingell and the Reagan administration from weakening auto emission standards. At one point, he blocked a key vote on a bill to debilitate the Clean Air Act by introducing 600 amendments, which he had wheeled into the room in shopping carts.

He publicized an obscure EPA report that established secondhand smoke as a carcinogen, uncovered the onetime Philip Morris lab director who had determined that nicotine was addictive, and publicly grilled tobacco company CEOs about their failure to share that fact with the public.

And then, for your main course, you can read Charlie Homans' piece in the Washington Monthly on how Waxman always wins. I guess I should keep our Klein/Yglesias streak unbroken by linking to today's Ezra Klein interview for dessert.