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[USACAN] Legislative/Issue Action Resource (AKA "The Francine Project"
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Mark Dorlester <markqd@comcast.net> Francine Simmons/CSST made the suggestion that apart from any general discussions, we (myBO groups) organize an Obama support project in each of the 3 specific reform initiatives underway by the President: Healthcare, Education, and Energy-Environment. Previously, on various myBO lists, I've posted some Obama support links and resources. At the request of a few CSST and USA.CAN members, here's an expanded compilation:
NOTE: This email focuses on healthcare. Similar info on energy and education will be posted later.
FIRST ACTION - HEALTHCARE:
1. Review the White House link on healthcare, below.
2. Generally review the Legislative Process information. Don't try to learn about process in depth/don't worry if something makes no sense now.
3. Familiarize yourself with recent healthcare position papers on the links given.
4. Call Sen. Max Baucus at BOTH his Committee and Office numbers (given below) and demand a single-payer healthcare option per President Obama's agenda.
5. Check to see if any of the Senators listed are from your state (Dem or Repub).
If yes, call them about once per week identifying yourself as a voting/activist constituent until the healthcare bill is passed by the Senate, probable in July.
ALSO, write emails, letters, letters-to-the-editor ... anything you can do.
**If you can possibly engage in heavy-duty community activism (demonstrations, bus loads, media) contact me directly for District Office action details**
If no, call at least one Senator about once per week identifying yourself as someone concerned with/involved in healthcare as above (Better, mention the existence of friends and relatives in their state if you have them).
6. See links to House Committees/members to follow. However, we are in total control of the House; results there will be negotiated between the White House and Speaker Pelosi and will be much closer to President Obama's "wish list." In addition, the leading Dems in the House working on healthcare and energy were largely originally elected right after Watergate and are, IMHO, some of the finest Congressmen ever to serve.
7. Check the list of Senators up for re-election at the end of this post. If your Senator is on the list, call frequently (up to weekly) between now and the time the healthcare bill (not the related budget bill) passes the Senate (probably late July or right after Labor Day). Say you're a constituent/activist, that you want them to support FULLY the President's agenda (healthcare/single-payer option; energy/cap-and-trade; education/major pre-school reform and support for parents) and you're watching him/her closely and will remember their actions and votes when the 2010 elections are looming)
General procedure:
Begin by reviewing the White House official agenda policy statements:
Healthcare: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/health_care/
Education: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/education/
Energy-Environment: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/energy_and_environment/
(Note: there is a website "whitehouse.org" which is the joke website aimed at some (deleted) named George W. Bush, and another website "whitehouse.com" which is N O T an Obama website. If any website you visit does not end in .gov it is not an Obama administration website.) (Note: while you're on the whitehouse.gov website sometime, browse the other "Agenda" policy statements as well as the other sections of the website - it's educational!)
The legislative process (oversimplification): Most bills (over 95% of the 11,000+ bills of the last Congress) are never intended to become law (460 public laws were passed by the last Congress). Many bills are introduced to convince novice constituents that the sponsors are "good guys." It is common practice for a Rep/Sen to introduce or cosponsor different bills cleverly pointed in opposite directions, to be able to boast any position at will to any citizen/interest group. Other bills are serious legislative statements for Rep/Sen colleagues ... sort of "inside baseball" legislative position papers. A few other bills are actual legislative proposals. You can tell the difference by seeing which bills get actual hearings or get placed on the House/Senate Calendars (vs. simply being "referred" to a committee). You can also usually, but not always, detect serious bills by whether or not they are sponsored by the leadership (committee chairmen/ranking minority member, Caucus Leader, Whip, Majority/Minority Leader). (NOTE: it is an infamous ploy for a high-ranking member (e. g., committee chairman) to sponsor a sham bill dealing with a subject over which his/her committee has no jurisdiction whatsoever. You can tell when this is the case by the distinct absence of hearings on the bill.) The most serious bills are traditionally drafted not in Congress but in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and sent to congressional leaders as a kudo, so they can say they wrote the law. But President Obama, in an exquisitely subtle yet brilliant stroke of truly cosmic political savvy, has on many issues (specifically including healthcare) recognized that the Executive has become all too powerful and deferred to Congress! (On the one hand, this hands back legislative power to where the framers intended it. On the other hand, if Congress does a lousy job, as is likely on healthcare, they will bear the responsibility.)
In what is known as "regular order," a serious bill is given public hearings (except where classified, such as intelligence) by the committee(s) having jurisdiction. Alternatively, the committee might meet without hearings for a "markup" session, to allow the committee to produce a consensus version of the bill, which is then the subject of hearings (this is the process so far on President Obama's agenda items). The committee nearly always meets after the hearings for a/another markup session, and "reports" both the "markedup" bill and a Committee Report documenting the thinking behind the final bill. (This is important to establish the "legislative intent" of Congress if later legal challenges arise.) Then the bill goes to the floor -- after getting a set of rules for floor debate and amendment from the (House or Senate) Rules Committee. Then the bill is debated, amended, and (let us assume) passed. Then it goes to "the other body" (House->Senate or Senate->House) for debate, amendment, and passage. If there are any differences between House and Senate versions, a Conference Committee with both Reps and Sens resolves those differences, after which the resolved final bill goes back to both houses for final passage, and on to the President for signature into law.
But all this is "regular order." All too often, especially in recent years, the House and/or Senate leadership will jam a bill through by scheduling a vote without any hearings, markup, or committee reports, and/or with floor rules prohibiting amendment and sometimes even prohibiting debate. This creates extreme anger on the part of the minority ... but the Senate, in it's wisdom, deals with such a circumstance by requiring a 60-vote majority on final passage for any bill not presented via "regular order." (This is entirely separate from the standing Senate rule requiring 60 votes to shut off debate ("cloture vote") on any bill. Hence on a bill not in regular order, you will see 2 consecutive Senate votes requiring 60-votes each.)
So in Congress, the key players on any given policy are the leadership, committee chairmen/ranking minority members, and other influential committee members (e.g., a physician on healthcare, or a physicist on energy) - in that order.
One last point on legislative process: There are (as a generalization) three distinct types of bills on any subject (1) policy laws which set the law without dealing with money. (Best example: The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which revolutionized the entire function and procedures of American society in exactly a page-and-a-half of law), (2) authorization laws, which set program budgets, and (3) appropriation laws, which alone authorize the actual expenditure of money. Sometimes, policy laws and authorization laws are combined. (Tax laws are also separate ... some other time, OK?)
If you wish further detailed information from the Congress on How Our Laws Are Made, <-click on this link, scroll down the page until you see "Other Documents" and download the How Our Laws Are Made .pdf file.
ISSUES:
(I'm having some stamina problems and rather than delay this for the complete healthcare-energy-education resources post, I thought I'd just post the general intro material as above and then the healthcare details below to start.)
Healthcare:
If you wish, to give you insight as to the positions of the major (anti-Obama) lobby groups on healthcare, check out these sites - it will help if you get into a discussion while organizing neighbors or talking to legislators:
If you can, check a few healthcare/health insurance industry websites to get their take on why the present system needs little change. Doing this will help you understand the logic (illogic) being jammed up the (nose) of Congress, and sweetened with millions in campaign contributions:
Blue Cross/Blue Shield
If you really want to upchuck your morning coffee, go ->HERE<- and download item 2, the BC/BS BS on the "Cost Shift" burden to be placed on the poor, poor health insurance companies if they must compete with Medicare. THIS IS WHAT YOUR IMMORAL SENATOR/REP WILL TELL YOU AS THE REASON WHY HE/SHE VOTED AGAINST THE PRESIDENT'S HEALTHCARE AGENDA.
American Medical Association
This link is to the 15 document search list on single payer. Explore the site for news releases, etc.
American Hospital Association
This link is to the 25 document search list on single payer. Again, explore.
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PHRMA)\
This link is to the 75 document search list on health insurance. (Take your pills first.) (BTW, PhRMA is now headed by a guy named Billy Tauzin. Good ol' Billy was the key 13-term House player who brought you the Medicare Drug Insurance ("Part D") plan, under which insurance companies get to charge government up to 8 times (by my actual experience) the cost of a generic drug compared to the regular retail price at most large drug chains, WalMart, Target, etc. In my opinion, fmr Rep Tauzin should be in prison for fraud.
Congressional Action
House: Committees of primary jurisdiction: Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Health
(Details later - the Senate is the major problem.)
Senate: Committee of primary jurisdiction: Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) chaired by Sen. Kennedy and the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen Max Baucus (D-MT) who is bought and paid for by the healthcare and insurance lobbies (->Check This<-). Sen. Kennedy is ill and Sen, Baucus has taken the lead on healthcare. [Wonks/Wonkettes: email me if you're up for some expert activism with Kennedy's health policy staff (requires much more knowledge than posted here).]
Please, if you do nothing else beyond reading policy on whitehouse.gov, call Baucus (202 224-2651) and the Senate Finance Committee (202 224-4515) and say you want single-payer/Medicare as an OPTION, not a mere model to be translated for the benefit of for-profit insurance companies. If your senator is among those listed immediately below (these are the Finance Committee/Health Subcommittee Members), also call him/her (phone numbers on individual linked websites), identify yourself as a voting constituent/activist and give the same message (see ACTION checklist for further details):
IF you want to be a serious healthcare policy wonk, read Sen. Baucus' sly "Call To Action" white paper (either the summary at the link, or better, the full .pdf document available for download at the bottom of the summary page). Compare Baucus's conclusions to the White House policy statement linked at the top of this post - Baucus begins by saying that most Americans want a single-payer option, but concludes it isn't really necessary because for-profit insurers (his handlers/campaign contributors) will take good lessons from Medicare and fold them into regular insurance. (After you've wonked on this, you're ready to give a college poly sci lecture on how the Congress is a fraud).
John D. Rockefeller, IV, WV, Chairman
Democrats Republicans
IN ADDITION:
Check the following list of Senators up for re-election in 2010, which includes those above marked with an asterisk.
Democrats Republicans
And if you find yourself sluggish in the morning someday, read ->THIS LIST<- and see exactly who it is who are the major bribers of (contributors to) Congress. (If that doesn't get your adrenaline pumping, you're already gone.) FYI you can use this website to research your own Rep/Sens handlers (aka campaign contributors)
Well, that's at least an hour's occupation for you!
WE ARE GOING TO DO THIS, WITH YOUR HELP!
Mark
NOTE: This email focuses on healthcare. Similar info on energy and education will be posted later.
FIRST ACTION - HEALTHCARE:
1. Review the White House link on healthcare, below.
2. Generally review the Legislative Process information. Don't try to learn about process in depth/don't worry if something makes no sense now.
3. Familiarize yourself with recent healthcare position papers on the links given.
4. Call Sen. Max Baucus at BOTH his Committee and Office numbers (given below) and demand a single-payer healthcare option per President Obama's agenda.
5. Check to see if any of the Senators listed are from your state (Dem or Repub).
If yes, call them about once per week identifying yourself as a voting/activist constituent until the healthcare bill is passed by the Senate, probable in July.
ALSO, write emails, letters, letters-to-the-editor ... anything you can do.
**If you can possibly engage in heavy-duty community activism (demonstrations, bus loads, media) contact me directly for District Office action details**
If no, call at least one Senator about once per week identifying yourself as someone concerned with/involved in healthcare as above (Better, mention the existence of friends and relatives in their state if you have them).
6. See links to House Committees/members to follow. However, we are in total control of the House; results there will be negotiated between the White House and Speaker Pelosi and will be much closer to President Obama's "wish list." In addition, the leading Dems in the House working on healthcare and energy were largely originally elected right after Watergate and are, IMHO, some of the finest Congressmen ever to serve.
7. Check the list of Senators up for re-election at the end of this post. If your Senator is on the list, call frequently (up to weekly) between now and the time the healthcare bill (not the related budget bill) passes the Senate (probably late July or right after Labor Day). Say you're a constituent/activist, that you want them to support FULLY the President's agenda (healthcare/single-payer option; energy/cap-and-trade; education/major pre-school reform and support for parents) and you're watching him/her closely and will remember their actions and votes when the 2010 elections are looming)
General procedure:
Begin by reviewing the White House official agenda policy statements:
Healthcare: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/health_care/
Education: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/education/
Energy-Environment: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/energy_and_environment/
(Note: there is a website "whitehouse.org" which is the joke website aimed at some (deleted) named George W. Bush, and another website "whitehouse.com" which is N O T an Obama website. If any website you visit does not end in .gov it is not an Obama administration website.) (Note: while you're on the whitehouse.gov website sometime, browse the other "Agenda" policy statements as well as the other sections of the website - it's educational!)
The legislative process (oversimplification): Most bills (over 95% of the 11,000+ bills of the last Congress) are never intended to become law (460 public laws were passed by the last Congress). Many bills are introduced to convince novice constituents that the sponsors are "good guys." It is common practice for a Rep/Sen to introduce or cosponsor different bills cleverly pointed in opposite directions, to be able to boast any position at will to any citizen/interest group. Other bills are serious legislative statements for Rep/Sen colleagues ... sort of "inside baseball" legislative position papers. A few other bills are actual legislative proposals. You can tell the difference by seeing which bills get actual hearings or get placed on the House/Senate Calendars (vs. simply being "referred" to a committee). You can also usually, but not always, detect serious bills by whether or not they are sponsored by the leadership (committee chairmen/ranking minority member, Caucus Leader, Whip, Majority/Minority Leader). (NOTE: it is an infamous ploy for a high-ranking member (e. g., committee chairman) to sponsor a sham bill dealing with a subject over which his/her committee has no jurisdiction whatsoever. You can tell when this is the case by the distinct absence of hearings on the bill.) The most serious bills are traditionally drafted not in Congress but in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and sent to congressional leaders as a kudo, so they can say they wrote the law. But President Obama, in an exquisitely subtle yet brilliant stroke of truly cosmic political savvy, has on many issues (specifically including healthcare) recognized that the Executive has become all too powerful and deferred to Congress! (On the one hand, this hands back legislative power to where the framers intended it. On the other hand, if Congress does a lousy job, as is likely on healthcare, they will bear the responsibility.)
In what is known as "regular order," a serious bill is given public hearings (except where classified, such as intelligence) by the committee(s) having jurisdiction. Alternatively, the committee might meet without hearings for a "markup" session, to allow the committee to produce a consensus version of the bill, which is then the subject of hearings (this is the process so far on President Obama's agenda items). The committee nearly always meets after the hearings for a/another markup session, and "reports" both the "markedup" bill and a Committee Report documenting the thinking behind the final bill. (This is important to establish the "legislative intent" of Congress if later legal challenges arise.) Then the bill goes to the floor -- after getting a set of rules for floor debate and amendment from the (House or Senate) Rules Committee. Then the bill is debated, amended, and (let us assume) passed. Then it goes to "the other body" (House->Senate or Senate->House) for debate, amendment, and passage. If there are any differences between House and Senate versions, a Conference Committee with both Reps and Sens resolves those differences, after which the resolved final bill goes back to both houses for final passage, and on to the President for signature into law.
But all this is "regular order." All too often, especially in recent years, the House and/or Senate leadership will jam a bill through by scheduling a vote without any hearings, markup, or committee reports, and/or with floor rules prohibiting amendment and sometimes even prohibiting debate. This creates extreme anger on the part of the minority ... but the Senate, in it's wisdom, deals with such a circumstance by requiring a 60-vote majority on final passage for any bill not presented via "regular order." (This is entirely separate from the standing Senate rule requiring 60 votes to shut off debate ("cloture vote") on any bill. Hence on a bill not in regular order, you will see 2 consecutive Senate votes requiring 60-votes each.)
So in Congress, the key players on any given policy are the leadership, committee chairmen/ranking minority members, and other influential committee members (e.g., a physician on healthcare, or a physicist on energy) - in that order.
One last point on legislative process: There are (as a generalization) three distinct types of bills on any subject (1) policy laws which set the law without dealing with money. (Best example: The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which revolutionized the entire function and procedures of American society in exactly a page-and-a-half of law), (2) authorization laws, which set program budgets, and (3) appropriation laws, which alone authorize the actual expenditure of money. Sometimes, policy laws and authorization laws are combined. (Tax laws are also separate ... some other time, OK?)
If you wish further detailed information from the Congress on How Our Laws Are Made, <-click on this link, scroll down the page until you see "Other Documents" and download the How Our Laws Are Made .pdf file.
ISSUES:
(I'm having some stamina problems and rather than delay this for the complete healthcare-energy-education resources post, I thought I'd just post the general intro material as above and then the healthcare details below to start.)
Healthcare:
If you wish, to give you insight as to the positions of the major (anti-Obama) lobby groups on healthcare, check out these sites - it will help if you get into a discussion while organizing neighbors or talking to legislators:
If you can, check a few healthcare/health insurance industry websites to get their take on why the present system needs little change. Doing this will help you understand the logic (illogic) being jammed up the (nose) of Congress, and sweetened with millions in campaign contributions:
Blue Cross/Blue Shield
If you really want to upchuck your morning coffee, go ->HERE<- and download item 2, the BC/BS BS on the "Cost Shift" burden to be placed on the poor, poor health insurance companies if they must compete with Medicare. THIS IS WHAT YOUR IMMORAL SENATOR/REP WILL TELL YOU AS THE REASON WHY HE/SHE VOTED AGAINST THE PRESIDENT'S HEALTHCARE AGENDA.
American Medical Association
This link is to the 15 document search list on single payer. Explore the site for news releases, etc.
American Hospital Association
This link is to the 25 document search list on single payer. Again, explore.
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PHRMA)\
This link is to the 75 document search list on health insurance. (Take your pills first.) (BTW, PhRMA is now headed by a guy named Billy Tauzin. Good ol' Billy was the key 13-term House player who brought you the Medicare Drug Insurance ("Part D") plan, under which insurance companies get to charge government up to 8 times (by my actual experience) the cost of a generic drug compared to the regular retail price at most large drug chains, WalMart, Target, etc. In my opinion, fmr Rep Tauzin should be in prison for fraud.
Congressional Action
House: Committees of primary jurisdiction: Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Health
(Details later - the Senate is the major problem.)
Senate: Committee of primary jurisdiction: Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) chaired by Sen. Kennedy and the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen Max Baucus (D-MT) who is bought and paid for by the healthcare and insurance lobbies (->Check This<-). Sen. Kennedy is ill and Sen, Baucus has taken the lead on healthcare. [Wonks/Wonkettes: email me if you're up for some expert activism with Kennedy's health policy staff (requires much more knowledge than posted here).]
Please, if you do nothing else beyond reading policy on whitehouse.gov, call Baucus (202 224-2651) and the Senate Finance Committee (202 224-4515) and say you want single-payer/Medicare as an OPTION, not a mere model to be translated for the benefit of for-profit insurance companies. If your senator is among those listed immediately below (these are the Finance Committee/Health Subcommittee Members), also call him/her (phone numbers on individual linked websites), identify yourself as a voting constituent/activist and give the same message (see ACTION checklist for further details):
IF you want to be a serious healthcare policy wonk, read Sen. Baucus' sly "Call To Action" white paper (either the summary at the link, or better, the full .pdf document available for download at the bottom of the summary page). Compare Baucus's conclusions to the White House policy statement linked at the top of this post - Baucus begins by saying that most Americans want a single-payer option, but concludes it isn't really necessary because for-profit insurers (his handlers/campaign contributors) will take good lessons from Medicare and fold them into regular insurance. (After you've wonked on this, you're ready to give a college poly sci lecture on how the Congress is a fraud).
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH CARE
John D. Rockefeller, IV, WV, Chairman
Orrin G. Hatch, UT, Ranking Member
Democrats Republicans IN ADDITION:
Check the following list of Senators up for re-election in 2010, which includes those above marked with an asterisk.
Democrats Republicans
|
|
And if you find yourself sluggish in the morning someday, read ->THIS LIST<- and see exactly who it is who are the major bribers of (contributors to) Congress. (If that doesn't get your adrenaline pumping, you're already gone.) FYI you can use this website to research your own Rep/Sens handlers (aka campaign contributors)
Well, that's at least an hour's occupation for you!
WE ARE GOING TO DO THIS, WITH YOUR HELP!
Mark
Copyright 2009 my.barackobama.com. Copied with permission.
