What Should the Dems Do Now?

Since November 7, there's been much discussion about what the Democrats should be doing now that they have majorities in both houses of Congress. There are disagreements within the party -- and among key constitutency groups -- on some key questions of strategy and policy. The Dems will control the committees, control the flow of legislation, decide what issues should be subjects of public hearings, decide what investigations to initiate, decide which of Bush's nominees for judgeships and Cabinet posts to accept or reject, and decide when to compromise with the President on legislation and when to allow Bush to veto, and Congressional Republicans to register votes opposed to, Democratic-sponsored bills.  The key question: how can progressives help the Democratics turn their recent victory into a more stable long-term reallignment of American politics in order to fashion the next New Deal?

Here is some food for thought on these strategic and policy questions:

1.  Nancy Pelosi has already said the Dems will propose an increase from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour.  In today's TomPaine.Com website, I've written an article urging the progressive Democrats in Congresss to push not only to raise the minimum wage, but also to index it to inflation, as a growing number of states have already done.

2.  In this week's issue of The Nation, William Greider outlines a policy agenda and political strategy for progressive Dems.  He writes:

"Republicans lost, but their ideological assumptions are deeply embedded in government, the economy and the social order. Many Democrats have internalized those assumptions, others are afraid to challenge them. It will take years, under the best circumstances, for Democrats to recover nerve and principle and imagination--if they do. But this is a promising new landscape. Citizens said they want change. Getting out of Iraq comes first, but economic reform is close behind: the deteriorating middle class, globalization and its damaging impact on jobs and wages, corporate excesses and social abuses, the corruption of politics. Democrats ran on these issues, and voters chose them. The killer question: Do Democrats stick with comfortable Washington routines or make a new alliance with the people who just elected them? Progressives can play an influential role as ankle-biting enforcers. They then have to get up close and personal with Democrats. Explain that evasive, empty gestures won't cut it anymore. Remind the party that it is vulnerable to similar retribution from voters as long as most Americans don't have a clue about what Democrats stand for."

3. In the same issue, John Nichols discusses how Dems can use their increasing influence in state-level politics -- governorships and state legislatures -- to advance a progressive agenda:

4. ACORN is calling for what it calls a Working Families Agenda. This includes: 1) a higher minimum wage, indexed to inflation; 2) expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); 3) a right to paid sick days for all workers; and 4) subsidies and tax credits to help families with cost of child care. For more, go to ACORN's website.

5. In his Washington Post column, Harold Meyerson suggests how the Dems can strengthen their mandate by focusing on progressive economic reforms.    He also notes, in an American Prospect column, that most of the new Dems in Congress strongly favor a "fair trade" -- rather than a "free trade" -- approach to US trade, a significant victory for environmentalists, unions, and consumer groups.

6.  In case you missed this in my email last week, Jim Webb, Senator-elect from Virginia, wrote a great post-election piece, "Class Struggle: American workers Have a Chance to be Heard," in the Wall Street Journal.

7.  Republican strategists and opinion-leaders disagree how to interpret, and respond to, their November 7 loss. Influential GOP pollster Frank Luntz offers some advice for Republicans on how to get back in the game in last week's issue of The Weekly Standard.  It will be interesting to see if they take his suggestions.