the sad sad state of the New York Democratic Party

       Ah New York, the progressive leader of the nation.  We gave you FDR, Bella Abzug, John Lindsay, Senator Robert Kennedy and Mario Cuomo's soaring speech at the 1984 Democratic convention.  If only the lofty words of those iconic figures had translated into a truly motivated push for progressive policy in the Empire State.  Instead we have the bizarre spectacle of five (wait actually six) elected Democrats joining in a coalition to keep Republicans in power in the State Senate and block major goals of liberals and progressives.  Even more depressing, this power arrangement has the tacit support of the Democratic majority in the State Assembly and Governor Andrew Cuomo.

      New York gave Barack Obama one of his largest majorities in any state and yet we have a Republican State Senate where liberal hopes go to die.  Yes they did pass marriage equality last year and that was a huge victory.   But while that was allowed to go through, public financing of elections, stronger tenant protections, higher minimum wage, stronger gun regulations, a reproductive rights bill, legislation addressing stop and frisk abuses, an NYS DREAM act and more equitable school funding could have been passed, but all of this has been blocked by the Republican State Senate.

  There is no reason this needs to be happening.  If district lines were drawn at all fairly, there would be a solid Democratic majority in both houses of the legislature (as there already is in the Assembly).  But every ten years the lines are drawn in such a screwy way that the GOP ends up winning (even when their candidates get less vote overall, as in 2010 & this year).  It didn't need to be this way.  The Democratic majority in the Assembly didn't need to agree to these lines, the Governor didn't need to sign them into law.  At any point, these district lines that keep the State Senate from reflecting the will of the voters could have been blocked, the courts would have drawn fairer districts and right now we could be talking about all the above mentioned initiatives being signed into law.

  But they didn't do that, and four dissident "independent democrats" in the Senate even supported the gerrymander.  Which leads one to wonder, do all of these Democratic elected officials in the Assembly (and some in the Senate) who actively enabled Republican control of the upper house of the legislature really want any of these progressive goals they say they are for to actually happen?   It's a valid question considering that by one simple action (opposing the redistricting bill that creates the only viable chance Republicans have of controlling the Senate) they could have ensured a Democratic majority large enough to withstand any possible defections and able to pass the goals listed above.  Instead, because of the actions of top Democrats in New York State, (Sheldon Silver and Jeff Klein being at the top of that list), tenants are still being priced out of their homes, campaign financing is a disgrace and NY's minimum wage is the lowest in the region.  It's embarrassing.  But even more so, it's infuriating and leads to the feeling among voters that it wont matter what they do, the power arrangements in Albany are already worked out beforehand.

5 little dictators

I spent 6 hours this week listening to the entire Supreme Court oral arguments over the health care law. It was a chilling experience. The more these justices asked questions the more it became alarmingly clear that 5 of them are reaching for a justification to invalidate the entire law. I hope I am wrong, I really really do. But if this is what is happening, if five unelected judges are about to throw out the most important social legislation in 45 years, the implications for our society, our system of government, and for our most vulnerable citizens are staggering.

This is not a perfect piece of legislation by any means, but it was passed by both houses of Congress in a torturous process and signed by the President. It would insure 30 million people who right now have no access to quality health care. The expansion of medicaid alone would cover 15 million people. This offers some hope to the people in this country who suffer every day under a system of health care apartheid where what care you get is dependent not on your health condition but your economic condition.

It was clear from the arguments that the five conservatives are looking for a legal justification to throw out a law that they just don't like. If they can do this, if they basically say to congress, "you have no power to solve big problems", then what is the point of debating these issues at all? What is the point of elections? This has been the conservative critique of liberal "judicial activism". But for the most part, "liberal" decisions have not affected major economic legislation. The government cannot tell you who to pray to or that you must carry a pregnancy to term but it can tell you that you have to pay your workers minimum wage, you can't poison people with your food products, and you have to contribute to social security or in this instance national health care.

In a roundabout way, as Justice Ginsburg noted. The mandate is basically the federal government's way of providing health care while keeping a private system. There is no doubt the Federal Government could require a payroll tax for health care and then provide public insurance based on that. In this instance, the tax is basically the mandate (which is levied like a tax in a progressive manner through subsidies that mean the lower your income the lower your premium until you have no premium under expanded medicaid).

But none of this matters if the court decides to strike it down. And this problem will not be solved anytime soon if this happens. It practically took a nuclear war to get this modest legislation through the congress. In the meantime, more people will suffer and die.

As the solicitor general stated at the end of his argument yesterday ... One can only hope that a majority of these people who will never know what it is like to wonder if they will get the health care they need will listen.

15. "But if I may just say in conclusion that the provision, the Medicaid expansion that we're talking about this afternoon and the provisions we talked about yesterday, we've been talking about them in terms of their effect as measures that solve problems, problems in the economic marketplace, that have resulted in millions of people not having health care because they can't afford insurance. There is an important connection, a profound connection, between that problem and liberty. And I do think it's important that we not lose sight of that. That in this population of Medicaid eligible people who will receive health care that they cannot now afford under this Medicaid expansion, there will be millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease, and as a result of the health care that they will get, they will be unshackled from the disabilities that those diseases put on them and have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty. And the same thing will be true for -- for a husband whose wife is diagnosed with breast cancer and who won't face the prospect of being forced into bankruptcy to try to get care for his wife and face the risk of having to raise his children alone. And I could multiply example after example after example. In a very fundamental way, this Medicaid expansion, as well as the provisions we discussed yesterday, secure of the blessings of liberty. And I think that that is important as the Court is considering these issues that that be kept in mind. The -- the Congress struggled with the issue of how to deal with this profound problem of 40 million people without health care for many years, and it made a judgment, and its judgment is one that is, I think, in conformity with lots of experts thought, was the best complex of options to handle this problem.

    Maybe they were right; maybe they weren't. But this is something about which the people of the United States can deliberate and they can vote, and if they think it needs to be changed, they can change it. And I would suggest to the Court, with profound respect for the Court's obligation to ensure that the Federal Government remains a government of enumerated powers, that this is not a case in any of its aspects that calls that into question. That this was a judgment of policy, that democratically accountable branches of this government made by their best lights.And I would urge this Court to respect that judgment and ask that the Affordable Care Act, in itsentirety, be upheld. Thank you."