#58: This is What We Will Do to Take Back the Senate

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It was a week after the November 2018 election when the extent of the victory by the resistance became clear. There was a stunning increase in voter turnout compared to other non-presidential years. Democratic inroads in the suburbs were significant. And thus we won back 40 seats and flipped the House.

There was nothing accidental about any of this. It required unprecedented grass roots campaign activity and financial support. It included dozens of excellent candidates stepping forward who had never intended to run for office and who were motivated by Donald Trump.

Now it falls to all of us to duplicate or even expand on that massive effort and take back the Senate on November 3, 2020. This matters hugely because the Senate provides the sole review of numerous Presidential appointments, including those to the Cabinet and to the Supreme Court. As we know the Supreme Court nomination process puts Roe v. Wade itself at risk. It is not inevitable that it will be overturned, but the very real risk of losing this constitutional guarantee entirely underscores that we must have the Senate majority when Steven Breyer or Ruth Bader Ginsburg retire. The Senate also has extra importance because it has played a more pronounced role than the House in protecting alliances abroad, which Donald Trump has been intent on eviscerating.

Although Doug Jones of Alabama may be the only Democratic Senator who will face re-election problems, Republicans could launch major challenges to Tina Smith in Minnesota and Gary Peters in Michigan. In contrast, there are many states in which Republican Senators are vulnerable. Democrats think they can unseat Cory Gardner in Colorado, Martha McSally in Arizona (where Gabby Giffords’ husband, astronaut Marc Kelly, may run), Susan Collins in Maine, and Thom Tillis in North Carolina. They are eager to challenge Joni Ernst in Iowa, Dan Sullivan in Alaska, David Perdue in Georgia (where Stacey Abrams may run) and Steve Daines in Montana. They may also compete for the seat in Tennessee that will be vacant after the retirement of Republican Lamar Alexander.

That adds up to nine races. Remember how exhilarated you felt after we flipped the House? You can experience that feeling again in less than two years! Beyond these nine, the number of other races which will be competitive depends upon how Donald Trump does between now and then, and how hard we all work. Given that Trump needs to face Mueller and given his shutdown-slip in the polls, we can anticipate a favorable electoral climate. We also fully understand that we must generate massive candidate support. With these motivations, it would behoove this movement to dive into the nine races above, and at the minimum, these three additional states:

• Kansas has a vacant seat due to the impending retirement of Pat Roberts. Democrats are fresh from winning the governorship and a Congressional seat in the Kansas City area, and believe they have a solid chance.

• Republican John Cornyn will likely seek re-election in Texas. Demographics will continue to drive the state toward Democrats. Will Beto O’Rourke be the Democratic candidate?

• How can one not campaign in Kentucky against the soulless service and Trump-tolerating Mitch McConnell? 

We must understand that winning a Senate campaign has notable differences from taking back the Presidency, which is more about national media and less about local organizing. Happily, these Senate races will be a bit more like super-sized House campaigns, for which our postcards, doorbelling, millions of small contributions, voter registration and other ongoing obsessions carried the day.

In the next year, these Senate Republicans will have numerous opportunities to pull away from Trump, or in the alternative to defend the indefensible. It was a recent encouraging sign when eleven Republican Senators challenged the Trump administration, voting to block the removal of sanctions from an oligarch colleague of Putin. Four of these votes came from the politically vulnerable Collins, Daines, Gardner and McSally. But it was more of a shadow of courage, rather than a profile, since they and Mitch McConnell knew all along that they would need 13 Republican votes to help the Democrats prevail. That is, McConnell consented to his caucus members voting their conscience, but would not have been their sweet-hearted uncle if they had found two more votes. The whole episode had value only as a signal of future possibilities.

We must carefully watch the upcoming opportunities for Republicans to either distance themselves from Trump or otherwise be held accountable for not doing so. The first pertains to the theatrics of the budget showdown. The little considered fact is that in December, Republicans in the Senate joined Democrats in passing by voice vote the same set of budget proposals that they now argue are evidence of Schumer’s and Pelosi’s intransigence. These budget proposals would have become law without any shutdown if Trump hadn’t turned on FOX-TV to hear the criticism of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. So why can’t these Republicans figure out that they were right the first time?

There will be at least two other votes in 2019 that will tell a tale about vulnerable Republican senators. First the Democratic House will send over to the Senate a bill that solidifies protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. These Affordable Care Act guarantees have been diminished by Trump and the Republican Congress. Second, Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues will figure out a way for the Senate to have to vote on at least modest steps to respond to climate change. This will handily provide each Republican a chance to recognize the existence of the greatest environmental challenge now faced by humankind.

While the government is closed down, let’s work to change government. Taking back the Senate would be nothing but an excellent thing to do. It depends upon our efforts now, not just a year from this fall. Let’s pretend that it is later than it is, so that it never becomes too late.

1) Making Certain People Can Vote in 2020
	There are all sorts of ways in which election laws and rules can diminish and distort the vote. This is one place where vigilance is the price of liberty. Left on their own, state legislatures can throw up new voting roadblocks. The most pernicious of these are voter ID laws. 35 states require the voter to have some sort of identification. The strictest requirement (a photo ID with little or no option) is in force in six states, and can suppress the vote by as much as 10%. The National Conference of State Legislatures details where there are new voter ID efforts.  Other ways to suppress the vote include reducing polling hours or limiting the use of mail ballots. In the face of such threats, Democrats have proposed all-mail ballots and to confront turn-out at an earlier stage, automatic voter registration. Find out what is happening. As all 50 legislatures head into session, it would be good for you to know whether such organizations with local affiliates as the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union have an active voting law agenda in your state legislature. You can ask them, or write to your state representative. Another way to find out would be to write the chair or executive director of your state’s Democratic Party. Their answer will provide insight regarding what is going on in the area of voting rights and it will give you a hint as to whether the state party is sleepy or spirited.
2) Understanding the Value of Early Investment
	Grass roots contributions from across the country played an indispensable role in the 2016 elections. We stepped away from our previous time-honored tendencies to underfund our candidates. The instruments are already set up so that we can choose the most promising 2020 Senate races (see above) and invest early in our candidate. The funds go into an Act Blue “district account” that will be transferred to the candidate when she or he is nominated. Act Blue has proven itself to be an effective low cost online funding intermediary. In this case, they have selected the nine races targeted above, and are also seeking funding for four Democratic incumbents. They allow us to pick and choose rather than prescribing a single bundle. Early money is like yeast.
3) Making Food Available to Those Who Need to Eat
	We should be pleased and proud that food banks across America are providing groceries to federal employees who have now missed two paychecks. This is an additional load for these food banks, all of whom already have numerous clients who have employment problems even more serious than those who have Donald Trump as their titular boss. It’s a perfect time to donate food to your local food bank through the systems they have established. You are saying something to Trump and to America by making sure these shelves are filled, and thus are accessible to laid-off workers, and to other hungry people who live in a country that needs to pay more attention.

Well, at least we share one sensibility with Donald Trump. Accounts are that he had no desire or intention to be president, evidenced by the fact that he had no true transition team and underscored by his efforts to create Trump Tower Moscow up until the end of the campaign. For our part, we had no intention or desire for him to be president either… We will get this all done, celebrate when he is out of office, and make certain something like this does not happen again.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#57: Let's Guide the Most Diverse Congress Ever

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Donald Trump has asked why his accomplishments of the past two years are not being recognized. Mr. Trump, we are not unwilling to identify the actions you can put on your ledger. For example, we do recognize that you advanced a tax law that massively increased wealth disparity. We are aware that you have severely weakened global alliances and NATO even as Baltic and Eastern European need protection from Putin. We acknowledge that you have removed the United States from the Paris accords even as climate change represents the greatest environmental threat the world has faced. We have noted that you have attacked the Justice Department countless times, apparently believing you are exempt from the rule of law. 

Donald Trump will see quickly that our taking back the House of Representatives will change the world in which he malfunctions. We are just getting started.

A lot is happening all at once. The budget showdown will end up being a huge miscalculation by Trump, the Freedom Caucus and Fox News commentators. As they continue to play to their base the rest of us will to see their base deteriorate. The Republican party continues to vanish before our eyes.

As the turbulence increases, we must be careful not to become vertiginous in our reaction to shifting political news. Nancy Pelosi and her spirited ranks would give us enough activity daily even without Trump’s tweets, firings and indictments. Hence the need for us to be able to sort out things that matter at lot from things that don’t matter quite so much.

• In the very small parade of Republicans who criticize Donald Trump, it matters who is criticizing him and what the basis of the attack is. The sincere but often politically anemic Jeff Flake and Bob Corker have left--- they have been freed to say what they want but their microphones have been taken away. But, Mitt Romney just became a Senator, and he has no worries that affronting Trump will cost him his re-election. In his surprising Washington Post op-ed, he has already signaled the prime battleground--- Trump’s disregard of Britain, Germany, France and Canada and his genuflection toward autocrats. This will give some new energy to the Republican globalists in the Senate.

• In the mass of negative press that Donald Trump deservedly gets, it matters that he is erroneously called a populist, which he is not, since a populist’s care for the common people must be authentic. It matters when the media falls into the “both sides” equivalence trap. In the budget shutdown, Republicans in both houses had agreed to bi-partisan budget compromises. Trump watched Fox-TV, got wounded by Ann Coulter, and torched the agreement that his henchmen (including Mike Pence) had already signaled he would sign. Rather than this being the news behind the budget shutdown, we get the account that the parties squabble so much that they can’t find common ground when it was surprising and commendable that they were together occupying that ground. Most of Pelosi’s package passed the Senate by voice vote in December.

• In the emergence of twenty or more Democratic presidential candidates, it matters that we remember that this winnowing of candidates is going to take 18 months. We must not get ahead of ourselves in over-assessing Elizabeth Warren’s announcement of her candidacy, since it doesn’t put her in any driver’s seat. Because Democrats don’t have “winner take all” primaries, it will be difficult for anyone to build any meaningful lead. We have sorted through a big field before (see the elections of John Kennedy-1960, Bill Clinton-1992, Barack Obama-2008) with the candidates and their supporters coming together at the end, thus enabling to take back the presidency after Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

We have 67 new members of the House of Representatives, including the 40 who flipped Republican seats. It turns out that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is not the only one who was elected! It is not a flaw that the Democratic Party has just elected “moderate” and “liberal” and “progressive” candidates, it is a strength. And, it is splendid that we have fought for and gained the most diverse Congress ever. 

We all came together to do this, and now the resistance needs to come together to make sure all this freshness and earnestness gives us some badly needed policy improvements on health care, immigration, climate change and global partnerships, among others. With Mitch McConnell controlling the Senate and Trump in the White House, we will be playing defense and will have limited opportunities to send policies in new directions.

As Pelosi considers compromises on each of these issues, we will have to sort out in which cases the much better alternative that we insist upon will prevent us from grabbing the modest gains that we can achieve. However, we must all be certain that accepting such modest gains won’t create obstacles for more significant gains after we take back the Senate and White House in 2020.

For instance, even if Democrats coalesce around some version of Medicare for All, there is no way that such a proposal will become law between now and 2020. In the meantime, we should be shoring up the Affordable Care Act, protecting people with pre-existing conditions, and showing voters that Republicans are not protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
Let’s not skip weeks or even months by watching rather than doing. Let’s take care of these three things right now.

1) Preventing Further Environment-Destroying Regulatory Changes
	Late in December, the New York Times provided a thorough, exceptional report on the damage Trump has caused the environment and human health through regulation. As discussed in previous missives, this carnage was possible because environmental statutes have traditionally given the executive branch broad leeway through rulemaking. The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) has already developed plans to use the new House majority to continue to fight the 80 rule changes that Trump and EPA have made, and to block new rules wherever possible through litigation or legislative action.  It is time to follow up with the people whose very election depended upon us. Pick one new member of Congress in who you are most invested and make certain that these matters are high on their agenda. Start by emailing the new member and then go one step further. Find out the phone number of their district (in-state) office. Call that number and ask for the email of the legislative aide who is assigned to environmental issues. In most cases they will provide it. Write that aide, cite the New York Times feature, and ask them to keep you posted on what their member of Congress expects to do.
2) Start Winning Back the Senate Today
	It is easy to forget that the early energy to take back the House came not from the shell-shocked Democratic Party, but from two organizations that emerged in late 2016--- Indivisible and Swing Left. They and other advocates were able to secure enormous financial and volunteer support for candidates, including literally millions of individual donations. In more than 80% of the House districts we flipped, our candidate was able to out-spend our opponents, and in all of the districts we worked harder than the opposition. Swing Left invented “district funds”. These collected money for candidates in targeted races well before the primaries and provided the funds immediately after the primary, giving the primary winner a great head start. In 2020 the Senate electoral map is much more favorable for us than it was in 2018, with Republicans holding 22 of the seats being contested and Democrats holding 12. We need to win back four seats. Swing Left has started the equivalent of district funds to go to our winning primary candidate in each of eight races where we have the best shot. These include the races to defeat Martha McSalley in Arizona (perhaps through the candidacy of astronaut Mark Kelly, Gabby Giffords’ husband), Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner in Colorado. These and other Republican senators who are vulnerable in 2020 and 2022 are eager to re-open the government lest their vulnerability increase. At a minimum we should all check out what Swing Left is up to with regard to taking back the Senate. And of course we could do more than the minimum by donating this very moment.
3) Weighing in on the Nuclear Threat
	All of us in the resistance are aware of the threat to humanity posed by climate change. In the light of Trump's alarming foreign policy amateurism, it's time for us to better understand the dangers to humanity from nuclear proliferation. A new generation of weaponry would escalate spending dramatically and imperil our very existence. Representative Adam Smith of Washington is the new House Armed Services Committee Chair. He's the perfect person to help chart an alternative course while attending to national security. Let's prepare for action steps with the new House of Representatives by reviewing Adam Smith's counterpoints to where Trump may be headed.

It won’t be long before we will be absorbing the Mueller report. For now, let’s keep getting our work done. Let’s not let ourselves be carried away by the inevitable backing and forthing among Democrats, including the new members of Congress. Most of these issues are well worth fighting over. We are not going to do something that will keep us from coming together in the summer of 2020.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#56: We Will Extricate a Country From a Morass

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends, if you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

This missive will be shorter than has been the custom. It isn’t just that it is the holiday season, but that we all need a little time to sort through the new crises. Budget politics and the wall are not the least of the issues, but they pale in the face of new deal between Donald Trump and Turkish premier Recip Tayyip Erdogran.

We knew Trump would try our souls, but this is the selling of a nation’s soul. Kurdish fighters have been in Syria successfully fighting ISIS with our help. That Trump would agree to abandon the Kurds in the face of Erdogan’s desire to kill them all is our nation’s new shame. Defense Secretary James Mattis proved he could bear a lot of things, but not this.

There have been plenty of other major challenges in the last two years as we together have sought to protect a nation from its president. We have had some considerable success:

• As Trump has sought to treat Putin as a special friend, Congress has resisted. Our policies and sanctions have remained in place and in some cases they have been strengthened. True, there is disarray in Europe, but the NATO alliance will hold, and we will remain an essential part of it. Angela Merkel has been replaced by her like-minded colleague Annagret Kramp-Karrenbauer. If Theresa May’s government falls over Brexit, her nation will turn to the center and left, not to the right.

• Robert Mueller has been protected sufficiently by Congress and is expected to issue his report by mid-February. If Trump had been able to devise a way to stop Mueller, he would have done so. It hasn’t just been Democrats who have been protecting Mueller, it is Republican Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr. Whether or not Trump is impeached, the multiple tracks of justice-seeking will continue. Notably, this is not just about Mueller’s powers, but those of various state and federal prosecutors. Talking to Mueller and prosecutors, Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen know things Donald Trump doesn’t want you to know, which soon will be revealed in detail.

• We took back the House by 40 seats, and generated the largest gap between Democratic and Republican votes in the history of midterm elections. We have filled our House with a new generation of younger, accomplished, principled, diverse Americans who are nicely distributed among the “wings” of Democrats. Over time, we will be as thrilled that we have them as we are overjoyed we have subpoena power. And, that’s saying a lot because the subpoenas will expose the con man at the highest level of his conniving.

It’s important to remind ourselves of these things daily because we need to be steady as this disgrace of a presidency exposes itself layer by layer, and the resultant wounds of the United States become even more apparent and in need of healing. The response of a nation to the Syria action and the Mueller report will reveal who Donald Trump is, and who we are. We are not having a minor dispute over small things. We have known for many months that these battles are about the very future of a country. It is a time that will demand something extra from us, and that’s what we will give. 

In less than two years, our resistance will win back the Senate and the presidency. We are unbowed.
Between now and when the new Congress convenes on January 3, let’s concentrate on one huge element which has been missing up to this point:

Motivating Republican Senators to Act on Behalf of Their Nation

During a constitutional crisis, a bi-partisan response is indispensable. Thus far the willingness of Republican Senators to step forward has been underwhelming. These days, there is no Arthur Vandenberg helping start the United Nations, no Jacob Javits fighting for civil rights, no Howard Baker standing up to Richard Nixon.

It’s good for us to understand that it is not a trivial matter for a sitting Republican Senator to face off against a vituperative and vengeful president who controls their party. It can easily keep you from being re-elected, and all of your life you have wanted to be a U.S. Senator. You have also convinced yourself and those who love you that even though you have not stood up to Trump in ways that have counted, you have been a quiet force protecting the nation. John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voting against the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act is the nearly singular exception. 

We can understand these things, but we can no longer tolerate them. There are glimmers. Senate Republicans do not intend to help Trump issue a free pass to Kashoggi-killing Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Previously unable to walk in Howard Baker’s Tennessee footsteps, Lamar Alexander has put his foot down on Trump’s proposal to change Senate rules to have fifty votes build the wall. The incredulous opposition of Lindsay Graham and the straightforward rebuke of Mitch McConnell over the Syria move and the resignation of Mattis may represent the first straw for a dozen or more Senate Republicans.

These are Republicans who do not love Putin at all in any way. They believe in international alliances anchored by friendship with France, Britain, Germany and Canada. It will not be easy to motivate these people to act, because the political cost to them could be great. They need to know that the cost to the country of them not acting will be far greater.

Please pick one of these vulnerable Republican Senators to target for your year-end activity. They are among the 22 Republicans up for re-election in 2020, compared to only 12 Democrats, who are mostly in safe seats. They Republican Senators know 2020 is coming.

Intensify. Please use the links to call the Senator, and call one or more of her or his district offices - all if you can spare some time. Do some internet searching and see if their legislative director or chief of staff has revealed contact information, and call or email them too. Do some research to determine their likely opponents in case you will need to use that information sooner rather than later.

Tell them that it is your strong expectation that they will defend our country today:
Joni Ernst of Iowa
Thom Tillis of North Carolina
Cory Gardner of Colorado
David Perdue of Georgia
Steve Daines of Montana

These are difficult times. One can disempower oneself as one ruefully absorbs the news. Let’s allow anger and bewilderment and sorrow to cause the redoubling of efforts instead. We will not let this man do these things. In the not too distant future, we will have new leadership for the troubled country that we love.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#55: We Will Be Able to Dream About What America Can Become

When I started this series of missives in November of 2016, I was despairing. I felt even then that we could take back the House in 2018, and that we had a shot at protecting the Affordable Care Act. But I did not imagine that our resistance would reach its present capacity. The reason we had the largest mid-term election margin since World War II is because we all obsessed about taking back the House. Certainly we were fortunate to have some outstanding candidates, but the Person of the Year for 2018 should be the Trump resister, who made those campaigns rock.

Responding to my own despair and that of my dear family, I pledged to provide a missive every two weeks until 2020, when we will no longer have to use the word President and the word Trump in the same sentence. Just think of how elevating that will feel, to once again start to dream about what America can become. In each of my 54 blog entries, I have tried to chronicle what has been happening in a way that cuts through the overwhelming amount of information available and which identifies matters of special importance. I have sought to provide important context about how certain decisions are made and have avoided the temptation to dwell on snarky things that one could say about Donald Trump. I have offered three specific things that my blog readers can do about all of this. I have been pleased at the number of people who act on these three things most every time they receive the missive.

I started with a list of 250 people. Gratifyingly, I have received a steady stream of “enrollments”. Now, between the e-blast, the blog itself and the Facebook post I have 2200 “followers”. This does not account for the further “reach” gained when recipients share the blog with their friends. If you will, please help me add those friends to our list and think of others who can join in on this adventure. The strength of the resistance is that there are hundreds of groups like ours who are intent on changing the world, and that we all just proved that we can. Please help us do even better by continuing to share these messages with your friends, if you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. You can also catch up on current and past missives on my blog page, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020.

Donald Trump made a very bad bet. In his previous life first as a real estate developer, and later as a marketer, he developed these habits--- promote your own brand aggressively, exaggerate as much as you can get away with, never apologize, and counterpunch against anyone who criticizes you, regardless of who they are and the significance or aptness of the criticism. He did not reckon that the brand promotion would be recognized as giving thanks for himself on Thanksgiving. As a real estate operative, he did not have to deal with fact checkers who keep posting and proving his prevarications. Once you are president, an ability to admit error and change course is essential, or you could get caught pretending that Kim Jong Un is your special friend who is ridding his country of nuclear weapons. He is not and they are not. Finally, the counterpunching eventually just makes you the world’s biggest bully. 

Many Republicans say that Trump’s political error in November was not talking enough about economic gains. They should be so lucky. He hemorrhaged votes in the suburbs not because these voters didn’t know what he has done, but because they did know both what he has done and, importantly, who he is and how he has done it. From the time that Ike was their uncle, Americans have judged a President’s character and voted as though character mattered. Too bad for Republicans that they have cast their lot behind someone whose tweets remind us of absence of character every single day.

It’s fair that in dying George H.W. Bush was remembered for his dedication to public service, and why wouldn’t we contrast it to Donald Trump’s lack of such dedication? And, it is fair that we find a lesson for these times around Bush’s gentler, kinder personal sensibilities which were seen as uncommon and were thus appreciated by other elected officials.
Of course, that’s why it was so disappointing that the father’s coalition effort to liberate Kuwait from Iraq morphed into the son’s made up war that has destabilized the Middle East. The senior Bush, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice got played by Dick Cheney, and the world has been paying for it ever since.

All of which provides lessons for us as we realize we need to evaluate both the character and the policy approaches of the score of Democratic presidential candidates that are emerging. This vetting will seem odd for a while. For two years all of us have been focused on making Donald Trump an un-president. We have not had to stand by our own candidate. When we start doing the sorting, we are going to rediscover some differences among us.

We can handle that, because there is not as much of a gap between Democratic “liberals” and “progressives” as media commentators would want us to believe. You would be hard pressed to place all our shiny new members of Congress and our presidential candidates on some kind of center to left continuum. We will be able to nominate a ticket that keeps most all of us fully engaged in this movement. This outcome will be even more likely because Democrat primaries award delegates proportionally to the votes received, which will mean delegate totals will grow slowly, and the winnowing process will be as orderly as any group of Democrats can produce.

Those of us who are themselves part of a generation that brought us Trump, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will understand why Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren still would deeply love to be president. It might be the hardest dream of all to put away. As kindly and gently as we can, we should let that them know that we are turning to younger generations, who bring a freshness to our party that will serve us well in November of 2020---- These candidates are Obama’s generation! Barrack Obama is 57. We could definitely stand more of that, no? Cory Booker is 49, Kamala Harris is 54. Amy Klobuchar is 58, Deval Patrick 62, Joaquin Castro 45, Michelle Obama 54, and Beto O’Rourke 46. There are others. Let’s see what their policy approaches are, and what character they can demonstrate.

Right now, it seems that all we are doing is waiting for Robert Mueller. There is no doubt that what he will have to say will be hugely consequential, and it is possible that it will mean that Trump will be unable to serve out his term. Here is a good place to never get ahead of ourselves. The fact that Democrats now control the House means that there will be evidence backing up some of our darkest suspicions about Trump and the Russians. And it could be that the evidence will be so strong that the House will be duty bound to pass articles of impeachment.

However, impeachment talk is political candy for some House members and they could stand to reduce their daily helping. They need to remember successful impeachment would require the votes of 20 Republican Senators. Without those votes, what would we be hoping to achieve? Now that we control the House, we have plenty of ways to expose the truth and support the upcoming indictments outside of the impeachment process. The real prize is not just in taking back the Presidency, but in restoring the American institutions that Trump has weakened and the rights he has trampled. Let’s keep our goals in the appropriate order.

And, in the meantime,we know the lame duck Congress is still sitting there in Washington D.C., and (for the moment) even worse, the lame duck Wisconsin State Legislature is still in session. It would be awful if those bent on whatever mischief they can get away with fell out of the habit of hearing from us. Here are three things we can do right now.

1) Stop the Perversion of the Democratic Process in Wisconsin
	The reason why the Wisconsin State Legislature is trying to limit the powers of incoming Democratic Governor Tony Evers is they can, as long as outgoing Republican Governor Scott Walker doesn’t veto their cynical, anti-Democratic actions. Some of these late night measures now before the Governor have been vetoed by him before, back when he was feeling it wasn’t such a great idea for the legislature to limit his powers over mostly minor disagreements. Among the provisions under consideration are moving the state’s job creation agency out from under the Governor’s control, and changing how the state decides to participate in lawsuits against the federal government. Republican Scott Walker might veto some or all of this package, which passed the Wisconsin Senate by one vote. If he does, it will be because he suspects the package passing will put him and Wisconsin Republicans under a cloud for a decade. Call the Governor’s office at 608-266-1212 and tell them they are right about that. In addition, attend to the fact that the bill restricts early voting to the two weeks before the election, for no other reason than to suppress voters. The advocacy group One Wisconsin Now believes they have legal grounds for a challenge. You can hear their argument, and you may decide to help them out.
2) Pass Criminal Justice Reform in the United States Congress Right Now
	It is difficult to collect a lot of praise from resisters for Jared Kushner. But it is indisputable that he has been an advocate for federal criminal justice reform, including considerable improvements in drug sentencing and modest improvements in judicial discretion. His early understanding of these issues came from his own father being incarcerated. Though Democrats would have liked the existing bi-partisan bill to go much further, it is still a breakthrough, and it will still release thousands of people from prison who no longer belong there. Can you imagine how much that matters to them and to their families? Mitch McConnell has still not committed to bringing the bill to the floor so the Senate can pass it (which it will) and so the President can sign it. Write or call your own two Senators. If they are already supporting it, please ask them respectfully to not come home for the holidays until they get this done.
3) Members of Congress, Tear Down that Wall
	There will be a government shutdown battle over walling out Mexico that will culminate on December 21. The dispute is between the $5 billion the House provided for a section of the wall and border security and the $1.5 the Senate provided for border security. The Republican leadership is trying very hard to avoid even a partial governmental shutdown on this issue, because they have discerned that it will be blamed on their party. As of this point, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are not being helpful to the Republican leadership, because they agree with the Republicans that Trump shutting down the government will be blamed on Republicans. This wall issue will be with us until Trump returns to marketing hotel properties he does not own. So, it would be a good idea if organizations of which you are a member make their opposition formal. Here’s the list to which you can add your favorite organization.

One step at a time is the way that we need to go about all of this. Through the hardest of work, we won back the House. For our troubles, we saved our country from some but not even close to all of the worst things this highly unusual American presidency will bring us. Let’s keep on. Let’s see each of ourselves as a member of the first team that is carrying on this fight. And, let’s remember we will have some repairs to do even after we regain the Presidency less than two years from now.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#54: We Are Just Getting Started

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends, if you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

It was all there in seventh grade if we were paying attention. Our noble Democratic experiment was built upon separation of powers, including a system of checks and balances. Some would have made George Washington king, but he showed clear disinterest and the Constitution made it impossible. The President would be the chief executive and commander in chief. She or he would carry out the laws enacted by Congress. The President could sign or veto laws passed by Congress, and Congress could override a veto with a 2/3 vote of both the Senate and the House. The President would appoint and the Senate approve members of the Supreme Court, who would settle statutory disputes and, (bolstered by the Marbury vs Madison case in 1803) determine the constitutionality of acts of Congress.

Even the enormous powers exercised during wartime by Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln left mostly unscathed this intentional, carefully-crafted system. It even has survived the worst judicial wrongheadedness, including the Dred Scott decision upholding slavery, and in our time, the tortured resolution of an election (Bush v. Gore) and the establishment of corporations as persons in Citizen’s United.

So, too, the Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit will survive Donald Trump, whose contemptuousness toward government institutions has been clear from the outset. Even so, one would not want to pass over the exchange between Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts too quickly. Some pundits seem to think it was just a bit of political theatre, but the labeling of judges by Trump as Trump judges and Obama judges and Bush judges was one of the greatest affronts to Trump’s oath of office. If there had not previously been scores of other Trumpian epithets hurled at Democratic institutions, more attention might have been paid. 

No one is proposing that John Roberts be elevated in the pantheon, but it is to his credit that he paid attention. The resistance should be more pleased than is presently apparent. John Roberts knows more than anyone that over half of Supreme Court decisions are made unanimously. He also knows that in just over 20% of Supreme Court rulings, five justices outvote the other four. Most importantly, he knows that it is a very dangerous thing for the independence of the courts to be tweet-defined, especially when the tweeter-in-chief may end up having some personal matters before the court.

Especially delicious is that two of the judicial actions Trump criticized (protection of Acosta’s press pass and defense of Muelller’s legitimacy) were taken by Trump appointees. Bush judicial appointees have ruled against Trump positions as well. It is one thing to concede that politics influences everything, certainly the judiciary. But it is foolish to ignore that the facts of the case and the nature of the underlying law are huge factors in the practices of the courts and thus in the decisions impeding Trump. If he stops affronting the Constitution, the courts will stop admonishing him.

The media wants to leave it that each executive action was “ruled unconstitutional”, obscuring that each of these cases has different claims and different merits. The recent case blocking Trump’s reduction of places where asylum can be sought was simple --- the statutory language on asylum-seeking does not in any way provide the President this discretion, so he is unconstitutionally claiming powers he does not possess. The legal arguments over the press pass of Jim Acosta is all about whether a property right (Jim Acosta’s ability to do his job) can be constitutionally extinguished by Trump without “due process of law” guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Adherence by Trump and Sarah Sanders to due process would be establishment of legitimate standards for accreditation. The court didn’t need to address this issue, but any such standards would have to be consistent with freedom of speech and of the press as guaranteed in the 1st amendment. Finally, the initial Trump travel ban was blocked by the courts over its denial of “equal protection of the laws” under the 14th amendment. Trump was faulted for a baseless division of Muslims and non-Muslims.

With the Mueller report coming out soon, and more indictments certain to emerge, we need to retain a sophistication regarding the role of the courts and each of the constitutional protections that block many Trumpian excesses. The Brennan Center, Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union (82 separate cases against Trump actions) have all been well funded by resisters to make certain we use every tool afforded to us in a country that has an independent judiciary. We will all make certain that they and our environmental litigators continue to have the support they need.

In the meantime, the lame duck Congress is coming to town, a month ahead of the best freshman class of new members of Congress to ever hit Washington. The goal for all of us is constant oversight, as vigilance is the price of liberty. We certainly don’t want to lose our edge during a lame duck session. The worst sort of mischief can be avoided by taking these three steps:

1) Knock Down the Wall
	Yes, there is going to be another wall show down. The House has passed $5 billion for the wall, and the Senate provided $1.5 billion for multiple border security efforts. The good news is that any appropriations compromise requires 60 votes in the Senate. Get used to this. The 50-vote budget reconciliation process was anomalous, and with the House going with the Democrats, it is a forgotten relic, mercifully. Trump’s selective interest in caravans (and the entirely bogus number of 500 criminals in the caravan) is designed to put pressure on the Senate in order to get 60 voters, as is his pledge to close down the government if his wall isn’t supported. Of course, Trump threatening to close down the government to get his way on the wall is a “go ahead, make my day” moment. But it remains the case that Charles Schumer would cut a $5 billion deal in a second if he could get some relief for Dreamers. You wouldn’t want Schumer or your own Senator of whichever party to get too careless on all of this. It is a good time to email your own two Senators, letting yourself get swept up by their email systems that favor people from their own states. They suspect what you think, but tell them anyway. The wall is un-American. It sends a signal to the world that we aren’t who we always said we were. Tell them that you want policies that provide a clear path forward for immigrants, asylum seekers and Dreamers. You might want to underscore your feelings on this matter. Peace Supplies has “No Wall” t-shirts, yard signs and bumper stickers.   Also, although it is a dismal picture, there is no time like the present to think about those in your region who might be considering sponsoring the few refugees (30,000 or so per year) who are being allowed into the country.
2) Don’t Forget Stacey Abrams
	It is one thing to campaign hard in a contested election in which a state has huge ideological splits. It is another thing to be Stacey Abrams and have to do it when your opponent is in charge of the election process, is bent on voter suppression and will not recuse himself. Please don’t forget that Stacey Abrams’ story is not even close to over. Get on the mailing list of her new organization Fair Fight Georgia and give her a little money if you can. If we can get an election in Georgia where people are encouraged to vote rather than being frightened, she will win.
3) Get Ready for All New Action of Climate Change
	It’s all there in the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which was legislatively mandated twenty years ago. The Trump administration would have done away with it if they could have found a way to do so.   This assessment was prepared by 13 federal agencies and is blunt and dramatic about the projected costs, which it says could be hundreds of billions of dollars. It notes that warming will continue to make weather events and fires more calamitous. Trump’s simple answer: “I don’t believe it.”  This will not be the status quo for long. Next year the Democratic House will pass a climate change bill to increase our national efforts and Charles Schumer will look for Republican votes in the Senate. There are several Republican up for re-election in 2020 in states that have turned blue or are turning blue. These Senators will either put the battle against climate change on their plate or be held politically accountable for not doing so. With the House in Democratic control we have all new ways to up the pressure. This is going to be an intensive effort. A good start would be to place yourself on the mailing list of the U.S. Climate Action Network, which includes the major environmental organizations and hundreds of local action groups.

It’s a new day, but not one that brings even a momentary thought of complacency. We are not tired, we are energized. The blue wave of November 6 is not signaling to us that we can walk away. It is telling us that we must not. We just created the biggest Congressional vote margin of victory since 1974. The Presidency is at stake in 2020, and with it our democracy’s essence. We’re just getting started.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#53: We Can Take Advantage of These Huge Gains

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends, if you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

Tuesday, November 6 was a monumental day for the resistance, significantly more successful than many pundits and headlines reveal. We gained 35 or so House seats, the most since Watergate, and we did it in the face of Republican gerrymandering after the 2010 census. In terms of blocking many of the worst of Donald Trump’s abuses, hardly anything beats controlling one of the Houses of Congress. And where and how we did it is revelatory. We captured two thirds of America’s suburban districts. We won districts that we wouldn’t even have put into play in other years. We elected shiny, bright, focused younger people and diverse people who will make Congress look more like America. Youth voting increased by a third over 2014. 

We won a seat in Kansas, and its governorship. We won three of the four House seats in Iowa! We beat Dave Brat of the tea party in Virginia, and the Putin-admiring Dana Rohrbacker in California. Donald Trump dumped the insufficiently toadying Mark Sanford in South Carolina during the primary, permitting us to take the seat by beating his chosen acolyte Katie Arrington. We were not able to get the Georgia seat for Jon Ossoff in the special election in April, and now we have won it with Lucy McBath.

We took back seven governorships. We defeated Scott Walker in Wisconsin and won back Michigan behind Gretchen Whitmer and Illinois behind J.B. Pritzker. With the easy gubernatorial victory in Pennsylvania, we made a statement throughout the industrial Midwest. We flipped control of legislatures in six states and unseated 350 Republican state legislators. The red states of Idaho, Nebraska and Utah expanded Medicaid in their states to reach far more people who would otherwise be denied health care. In three states, we passed initiatives to turn away from gerrymandering.

Even in the Senate, with Kristin Sinema now winning the open seat in Arizona and Bill Nelson still a possibility in Florida, we minimized our losses to a maximum of two seats. This was in the face of the most favorable Republican map since the direct election of Senators began in 1913. Jacky Rosen beat Dean Heller in Nevada, after Trump turned him away from demonstrating the tiniest interest in the Affordable Care Act. 

We did all of this together. We all became a part of this movement when the Democratic Party itself was in disarray in November of 2016. We never asked permission of anyone. Working together in countless living rooms, we started aiming toward Tuesday’s outcome very early and with open wounds. With each month, our efforts got bigger and better. That’s why so many of our candidates won. And that’s why if we exhibit the same behavior going forward, wisely and relentlessly, we will take back the Presidency in two years.

It is good that we have never been more energized, because we still have a distance to go. It is intriguing to know that if we roll out the same margins in the same states in 2020, we would win the electoral vote 314-224. Of course now that we know that, let’s forget it, lest it lead to even a bit of comfort that could turn into laxity. If you are looking for a dose of information on resistance efforts in the future, sign up for Swing Left's "What's Next?" debriefing this Sunday the 18th.

The question is how we will use what we just did going forward, not only in the 2020 electoral process but through legislative action prior to then. We know that controlling the House means being able to block approaches that Trump and Mitch McConnell would otherwise advance. This is an especially powerful position on spending and on the domestic policy agenda, and less so in influencing or blocking Trump’s foreign policy. Of course, there also will be the fact-finding advantage of Committee chairs Adam Schiff (Intelligence), Jerome Nadler (Judiciary) and Elijah Cummings (Oversight) being able to issue subpoenas. The protective zone around the president’s varied misdeeds has been breached. 

Another change has received less attention. The Democratic control of the House will alter voting dynamics in the Senate. Last session, the Republicans were able to put their debates on health care and tax reform under the rubric of the budget reconciliation process. This meant that on these issues they would only need 50 votes in the Senate, rather than the 60 (to close debate) for ordinary legislation. The fact that they couldn’t lose two votes from their caucus on these reconciliation votes gave Susan Collins, John McCain and Lisa Murkowski political leverage even though they did not exercise it as often as we would have preferred.

Now tactics will change. The most common operative number for Mitch McConnell will be 60 Senators, because the House can block any such reconciliation process ploys. No more comforting the comfortable through tax bills. Outside of the painful confirmation processes where only the Senate acts, we are back to bi-partisan compromise. The President can wield influence by threatening to veto a bill, but his ability to advance legislation without Democrats just went away. McConnell’s approach will be to try to persuade eight or so Democrats to join his position on any specific issue so the Senate Republicans can get to 60.

Budgets must be negotiated and appropriations passed, so the government can run. There’s talk of some joint interest in infrastructure improvements and controlling drug pricing. Beyond those things, everything else is up in the air, including immigration and taking even tiny steps to battle climate change.

There will be plenty of work for all of us to influence these legislative processes, but there is some business we will need to take care of even before that. Let’s do these three things now:

1) The Elections are Not Quite Over
	We’re all watching Staci Abrams’ effort to get every vote counted, which could push her opponent under 50% of the vote and lead to a runoff election in December. It may well not happen (he is at 50.2%), but if it does we will all need to act quickly to provide support, because the runoff would be in December. Democrat Mike Espy is in a runoff on November 27 for a Senate seat from Mississippi. Because the more “moderate” of the Republicans survived the November 6 ballot, this race is a long shot for Espy. He was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Agriculture and is a good candidate. Even with the longer odds, now that your treasury isn’t being sought from multiple political directions, you might want to give Mike Espy a boost to see what happens.
2) Protecting Robert Mueller
	We’ve all been successfully defending the Mueller investigation for two years, and more indictments are imminent. Now that we have taken back the House, we will get the extra measure of protection from Adam Schiff being Intelligence Committee chair. Goodbye Devin Nunes and your justice-impairing proclivities. Donald Trump’s appointment of Matt Whitaker as acting Attorney General is a new thumb in the eye. It may not meet the constitutional standards for confirmation. Equally important, Whitaker has publicly declared that there is no collusion between Trump and the Russians. Since this is a primary subject of the investigation, this statement should immediately disqualify Whitaker from any supervision of Mueller. Richard Burr, the Republican Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has prided himself in protecting Mueller. Please call one or both of two senior Republican members of this committee and ask what they are doing to protect the integrity of the investigation: Senator Marco Rubio of Florida: (202) 224-3041 Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma: (202) 224-5754
3) Remember the Impact of Non-Partisan Organizations
	It’s the season for charitable giving. There are many ways to use gifts to tax-exempt non-profits to fight against voter suppression and for free and fair elections. Depressing the vote has become the standard practice of the Trump party. Fighting back, The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and the Southern Poverty Law Center are both able to accept your charitable giving under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. For those resisters over 70 ½, these organizations are also able to receive a portion of your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from your Individual Retirement Account.

It’s mystifying that not every resister has grasped the full implications of what we did together on November 6. Maybe some are just not wanting to celebrate knowing how much remains to be done before Trump is displaced and replaced. Bring it on.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington