ThinkProgress Logo

Security

What Happens To Immigration Reform Now That The ‘Stalwart Of The Senate’ Is Gone

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Aug 26, 2009 at 9:56 pm

Sen. Edward Kennedy At 2006 Immigration RallyIn a USA Today article today crediting Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) for having “fashioned the modern day” immigration system, immigration advocate Frank Sharry pointed out that Kennedy “laid the groundwork” for the sort of humane immigration reform that he had spent much of his political career fighting for, but never achieved. It’s hard to imagine an immigration bill hitting the Senate floor without Kennedy’s binding support, but the truth is he’s already paved the legislative road for its debut and equipped progressives with the guts and principles to see it through.

Sen. Kennedy kicked off his political career in 1965 with a major overhaul of immigration laws that eradicated ethnically-biased immigration quotas that made it nearly impossible for anyone other than Western Europeans to emigrate to the US. “He created Americans,” says Dana Houle of the Daily Kos. After changing the face of immigration, Kennedy spent the next 40 years fighting to change how the nation treated its newcomers. Kennedy helped pass the Refugee Act of 1980 that brought “U.S. law into compliance with the requirements of international law.” He fought with all his might against the harshest provisions proposed in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, described in the Cornell Law Review as the most “the most diverse, divisive and draconian immigration law enacted since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.” In the more recent past, Kennedy cosponsored the DREAM Act to legalize hardworking undocumented students who have lived in the US most of their lives at no fault of their own and the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security (AgJOBS) Act of 2005 to improve the lives of immigrant farmworkers.

Many aspects of Kennedy’s original Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act — which died in the Senate in 2007 — “continue to be the model” for comprehensive immigration reform today. With that said, there are some tough lessons to be learned from what went wrong that year. The final negotiated bill was attacked by both the left and the right, as both sides could point to major aspects of it that they were unwilling to swallow. Mary Giovagnoli says the immigration bill was “met with lukewarm support from many immigration advocates and was pilloried by those on the far right, who turned the Senate’s efforts to find a way out of our immigration mess into a personal vendetta against immigrants.” A small, but vocal minority of restrictionist constituents lit up the phones of Senate staffers who cowered and retreated in electoral fear. Labor was also adamantly opposed to the inclusion of a guest-worker program — something they perceived as a threat to wages, jobs, and immigrant worker rights. Kennedy will be remembered by many as the “master negotiater” and the “stalwart of the Senate.” But in 2007, it wasn’t enough.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is committed to giving immigration reform another shot, and he thinks he stands a good chance at passing it. Much like Kennedy partnered with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on immigration, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) will probably be Schumer’s Republican ally. But bipartisanship can’t just be symbolic. They’ll both have to reach out to conservative Democrats and other moderate Republicans — many who even Kennedy was unable to convince — in order to negotiate the votes needed to pass reform. Most importantly, Schumer will have to balance the delicate interests of business, labor, and immigration advocates, along with conservatives’ demands for harsh enforcement, without losing sight of the compassionate solutions that must be brought to immigrant communities across the country. It helps that the climate is a bit different this time around: immigration advocates are better organized, labor is on-board, the president is more engaged, and Latino voters have made clear that anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from Congress will render vulnerable nativist candidates obsolete. But if Kennedy were still around, he’d probably advise Schumer not to take any of that for granted.

When the 2007 immigration reform bill didn’t pass, Kennedy announced:

We will endure today’s loss and begin anew to build the kinds of tough, fair, and practical reform worthy of our shared history as immigrants and as Americans. Immigration reforms are always controversial. But Congress was created to muster political will to answer such challenges. Today we didn’t, but tomorrow we will.

While some argue that Kennedy’s death has left a “leadership gap,” the truth is his passing has yielded the floor to new voices who are versed in his political skills and progressive agenda. His notable absence doesn’t mean that his legislative triumphs and moral agenda won’t continue to guide the immigration debate closer to a fair and just solution. It would’ve been easier to reach with him, but it must be achieved without him.

Climate Progress

On the 150th anniversary of first commerical U.S. well, the oil industry is headed toward oblivion — and trying to take civilization down with it

By Joe Romm on Aug 26, 2009 at 8:38 pm

http://www.solcomhouse.com/images/drake_well.jpg“I claim that I did invent the driving Pipe and drive it and without that they could not bore on bottom land when the earth is full of water.  And I claim to have bored the first well that ever was bored for Petroleum in America and can show the well.”

So wrote Edwin Draka aka Colonel Drake, who is “popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil in the United States” on August 27, 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania.  His methods were quickly copied by others and “By 1871, the entire area was producing 5.8 million barrels a year.”

As Daniel Yergin wrote in his still must-read Pulitzer Prize-winning history, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power (where I found Drake’s quote):

Drake’s discovery would, in due course, bequeath mobility and power to the world’s population, play a central role in the rise and fall of nations and empires, and become a major element in the transformation of human society.

Combined with Henry Ford’s mass production and moving assembly line, the oil boom ushered in the American Century.  For two world wars, America was not just the arsenal of democracy, we were the engine fuel of democracy.  As late as the mid-1950s, we still produced roughly half of all the world’s oil — twice as much oil as the Middle Eastern and North African states combined.

But our drain-America-first policy — coupled with the gross inefficiency of our oil consumption and successful conservative efforts to block an energy policy built around efficiency and alternatives — caused U.S. production to peak decades ago.  And now world oil consumption is peaking, even as the nation’s and the world’s fossil fuel consumption are driving us toward catastrophic climate impacts, Hell and High Water, which would outlast the oil age by a thousand years.

The U.S. oil industry, going back to John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil, has long been guilty of the most anti-competitive tactics.  Originally, those harsh tactics focused on competitors, with the worst impact for most Americans being higher prices than they might otherwise have experienced.  “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1911 that antitrust law required Standard Oil to be broken into smaller, independent companies,” but “ExxonMobil, however, does represent a substantial part of the original company.”

ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute are still guilty of harsh, anti-competitive tactics, but the worst impacts of their massively funded disinformation campaign will be to ruin a livable climate for the next 100 billion people to walk the planet.  If we don’t overcome that campaign and reverse emissions trends quickly, then long after an oil-driven economy is a distant memory, future generations will curse the industry for engaging in the most despicable act in human history — persuading just enough Americans, opinion makers, and politicians to delay or weaken efforts to restrict greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/graphics/exxonlies

Read more

Health

Ted Kennedy’s Record On Health Care Reform

By Igor Volsky on Aug 26, 2009 at 7:00 pm

kennedyhealth

Sen. Ted Kennedy considered health care reform “the cause” of his life. Throughout his 47 years in the U.S. senate, Kennedy fought for universal comprehensive coverage some 15 different times, working closely with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee to pass health care reform bill this year, even while undergoing cancer treatments in Massachusetts.

Looking over today’s health care battle field, one wonders if reform would be in a different place under Kennedy’s leadership. As Ezra Klein correctly points out, “what was important about Kennedy’s career, though, was that he managed to marry compromise and principle. He was not a believer in lonely stands that underscored his purity. Nor was he a believer in compromising simply for the sake of compromise.”

Indeed, in 1971, Kennedy proposed an alternative to President Richard Nixon’s plan to expand private health insurance coverage. Kennedy offered a single-payer like plan that would have expanded coverage to every American, covered 70% of medical expenses, eliminated cost sharing and capped medical expenses. By 1974, the Kennedy proposal morphed into a plan that built on the existing employer system. Employer health benefit plans were unaffected, but Americans without coverage would have been eligible for the national plan administered by the Social Security administration.

Kennedy never allowed the perfect to become the enemy of the good; his passion for health care reform grew out of personal experiences and a deep commitment to justice and equality. He weaved his personal experiences and years of public service into a powerful and compelling narrative for health care reform. As a public servant, Kennedy received government sponsored health insurance coverage through the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program. But for Kennedy, that privilege only highlighted the inequality of America’s health care system. In this speech before the Montgomery County Democratic Committee, Kennedy recalls the time he spent in a children’s hospital in Boston where his son lost his leg to cancer. While his government-sponsored health insurance covered the treatments, the other families — either uninsured or underinsured — paid some $3000 every single week:

And I listened to these families whose children had the same kind of infliction as my child had. And they said, “Look, we’ve sold our house. We have the $30,000. We have $20,000. We are able to afford it for 3 months, for 4 months, for 5 months. What kind of chance does my child have to be able to survive?” I knew that my child was going to have the best because I had the health insurance of the United States Senate. And I knew that no one, no parent, no parent in that hospital had the kind of coverage that I had. That kind of choice, for any parent in this country is absolutely unacceptable and wrong, my friends.

Watch it:

Kennedy explained that “for the 15 times that I have fought on the floor of the United States Senate that we ought to have universal, comprehensive coverage, listen to the voices on the other side who have universal and comprehensive coverage say ‘No, it’s not time. We can’t afford it. It is the wrong bill at the wrong time.’”

Today, opponents of reform are making the same argument. But as Kennedy reminded us in his 1980 concession speech, “for all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” Kennedy spent his life fighting for health care reform, now it’s up for progressives to deliver on that promise.

Politics

Cheney Biographer Cherry-Picks CIA Report To Claim There Is ‘No Debate’ On Whether Torture Is ‘Effective’

By Ben Armbruster on Aug 26, 2009 at 7:00 pm

In April, Vice President Cheney insisted that then-classified CIA memos prove that the torture program he helped authorize saved lives. At the time, President Obama said he had read the documents, and they don’t “answer the core question which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques?” The Obama administration released the memos this week, along with a 2004 CIA inspector general (IG) report, and indeed, none provide any evidence to back up Cheney’s claim.

But last night on Fox News, Weekly Standard writer and Cheney biographer Steve Hayes refused to accept the truth. Obama was “simply misrepresenting what is in the report,” Hayes said. He then read a quote from the report claiming that it proves torture was “effective”:

HAYES: And forgive me, indulge me for reading one of these about Al Nashiri, who was the plotter of the USS Cole attack, “Following the use of EITs (techniques), he provided information about his most current operational planning as opposed to the historical information he provided before the use of the EITs.” It doesn’t get clearer to that.

So we can debate the morality, we can debate whether this was torture. We can’t debate any longer about whether this was effective.

Watch it:

Hayes is to be commended for the strong effort. The quote he picked out of the 2004 CIA IG report does indeed make it seem like it says torture worked. However, looking back at the actual report, the sentence just before what he quoted on Fox expressly states that it is unclear why Al-Nashiri gave up information:

Because of the litany of techniques used by different interrogators over a relatively short period of time, it is difficult to identify exactly why Al-Nashiri became more willing to provide information. However, following the use of EITs, he provided information about his most current operational planning and REDACTED as opposed to the historical information he provided before the use of EITs.

So who is “misrepresenting” the report? Certainly not President Obama.

Climate Progress

‘China will sign’ global treaty if U.S. passes climate bill, E.U. leader says

By Joe Romm on Aug 26, 2009 at 6:38 pm

Much of the fate of the U.N. climate treaty talks now rests in the U.S. Senate, according to a leading E.U. official, who says China would “lose its last reason” not to support an international pact if the United States passes a cap-and-trade bill.

“I know for the American Senate it’s absolutely crucial to know that China will sign the treaty,” said Sweden’s environment minister, Andreas Carlgren, whose country currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency. “I understand that. We fully support that. We have the same expectations.”

“The difference is that we [Europeans] have done so many things already, and the Senate is still deciding on cap and trade,” Carlgren said yesterday in an interview at the Swedish embassy. “If the Senate would pass it, there would be no reason for China not to sign up.”

The pressure is building on those swing Senators, as E&E News PM (subs. req’d) makes clear in its reporting tonight.  It is increasingly clear that a handful of senators — maybe 3 to 5 (see “Epic Battle 3: Who are the swing Senators?“) — hold in their hand not just the fate of domestic climate action, but the fate of an international climate deal.

China is pushing hard to become the clean energy leader and is strongly considering major emissions commitments (see “Peaking Duck: Beijing’s Growing Appetite for Climate Action“).  Europe is obviously prepared to make a stronger climate commitment than the United States.  We are the linchpin.

Interestingly, Carlgren makes clear that the Waxman-Markey bill contains elements that make up for its relatively weak 2020 target — so it will be crucial for the Senate to keep those pieces:

Read more

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 26, 2009 at 6:14 pm

Everybody loves you:

— A real cost-benefit analysis of HSR.

— Eric Holder had no choice.

— Given that we know how these things go, it seems to me that Mary Landrieu deciding to hold a health care town hall probably means that she’s looking for some constituent pressure to help rationalize a “no” vote on reform.

— Leon Wieseltier hates the internet.

— IT departments should unlock people’s browsers.

— I always love Ta-Nehisi Coates’ posts on discovering white culture.

Song of the day: Rat Silo, “Everybody Loves Paul Wong” an interesting lyrical pastiche brought to my attention by the excellent CBC Radio 3 podcast.

Politics

Andrew Breitbart Unleashes A Torrent Of Invective Against Sen. Ted Kennedy’s Legacy On Twitter

By Matt Corley on Aug 26, 2009 at 5:30 pm

Early this morning, news broke that Sen. Ted Kennedy had passed away after serving in the U.S. Senate for nearly 50 years. Soon after, conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart began a sustained assault on Kennedy’s memory, tweeting “Rest in Chappaquiddick.”

Over the course of the next three hours, Breitbart unapologetically attacked Kennedy, calling him a “villain,” “a big ass motherf@#$er,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.” “I’ll shut my mouth for Carter. That’s just politics. Kennedy was a special pile of human excrement,” wrote Breitbart in one tweet.

When Politico’s Michael Calderone highlighted Breitbart’s attacks in an article called, “Not all Kennedy critics hold fire,” a pleased Breitbart tweeted:

Andrew Breitbart tweets about Politico covering his tweets.

When a fellow conservative tweeted to Breitbart asking him not to treat Kennedy like they believe some on the left treated the passing of Tony Snow and Ronald Reagan, Breitbart responded “How dare you compare Snow & Reagan to Kennedy! Why do you grant a BULLY special status upon his death? This isnt lib v con.” Despite his claim that his attacks weren’t about “lib v. con,” Breitbart repeatedly justified them in ideological terms.

“Look, this man was granted absolution for nothing. Class, life station played a part but PARTY was everything. GOP couldnt get away with it,” complained Breitbart in one tweet. “IF a GOP possesses 1/100 of human failings of T. Kennedy he/she is TOAST,” he claimed in another. “In this moment I cant but recognize absolute backwardness of media & society. Bush=EVIL. Ted Kennedy=SAINT. Im gonna keep fighin’, folks,” Breitbart said in another tweet.

Update

Megan Carpentier has rounded up other conservative Twitter attacks on Kennedy.

Economy

Despite Historic Pell Grant Demand, Kline Defends Needlessly Subsidizing Private Loan Companies

By Pat Garofalo on Aug 26, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Rep. John Kline (R-MN)

Rep. John Kline (R-MN)

Yesterday, the Office of Management and Budget released an updated version of its ten-year deficit projections, which upped the cost estimate for the administration’s reformed Pell Grant program by $27 billion over ten years.

The OMB reported that the increase “is driven almost entirely by technical revisions to reflect historic increases in the demand for Pell Grants as more individuals choose to go to college in a weakened labor market.” But that didn’t stop Rep. John Kline (R-MN), the ranking member on the House Education and Labor committee, from criticizing the administration for being fiscally irresponsible in its proposals for student loan reform:

The deficit is soaring, a substantial portion of the so-called savings in [the administration's loan reform] may never materialize, and now we learn it will spend billions more than expected…The more we learn about this bill, the more obvious it becomes that there is nothing ‘fiscally responsible’ about it. These new figures are yet another reason Democrats should slow down and consider the consequences of the plan they’re recklessly rushing through Congress.

Is Kline blaming the administration for more people wanting to go to college than it anticipated? That seems like something we’d want to encourage instead of criticize. But this response is in line with the rest of Kline’s awful record in terms of doing what’s best for students.

The administration has proposed changes to the Pell Grant program that would expand the grant pool and ensure that the grants automatically increase to keep up with inflation, as opposed to requiring Congress to constantly adjust when the grants decline in value. In order to pay for this, the administration wants to end the practice of subsidizing private loan companies to originate and service loans.

Meanwhile, Kline’s response to historic grant demand (and the undeniable need to increase America’s level of educational attainment) is to defend the federal government unnecessarily subsidizing ostensibly private companies to the tune of $87 billion over ten years.

Republicans have already conceded that the proposed student loan reforms save money, yet they keep defending the status quo, out of some sense that “a government program is somehow less socialistic when business is allowed to take a huge cut.” Given that demand is higher than ever, it’s time to stop pretending that private providers are anything but middlemen, taking money that would be better spent on students.

Yglesias

The Price of Seniority

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 26, 2009 at 4:43 pm

US Capitol Building

US Capitol Building

Timothy Noah opens his Ted Kennedy profile on this note: “Talk about inauspicious beginnings. At the tender age of 30, the youngest sibling of President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy seemed pathetically unqualified to enter the U.S. Senate.”

The point is to highlight the irony that Ted went on to become the greatest of the Kennedy brothers. But it’s worth being clear about the fact that he had such an impressive career in part precisely because he initially got a job he wasn’t qualified for. The Senate operates largely on the basis of seniority. A guy who can enter his fifth term and only be 54 years old is a guy who’s going to be able to wield some major influence for a long time. And yet Massachusetts must have had many better-qualified potential senators who, had they gotten the gig, never would have acquired Kennedy’s legacy not just because they would have lacked Kennedy’s skills but because they would have been too young.

This winds up having some odd systematic effects. It’s nice, for example, to see a veteran progressive legislator like Bernie Sanders get a “promotion” up the Senate. But the man’s 67 years old, so he’s never going to amass tons of seniority and we’re never going to hear about “powerful Energy Committee Chairman Bernard Sanders of Vermont.” And yet Vermont is a reliably liberal state. If some other, equally progressive but much-less-qualified man had won that Senate seat instead, the cause of progressive politics might have been much better served in the long run. In large part, I think this is just one of several reasons why both houses of congress ought to reduce the significance of seniority (and also of committee chairmen) but given the system we have in place it’s something savvy political activists should keep in mind. When you’re looking at a fairly safe seat, it’s very good to find a young candidate.

Older

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up