Tuesday night’s election is over, and it looks like the next two years will give the Democrats a chance to stop complaining and start legislating. In the last few years, a Republican sex scandal, corruption and stalled governments in both the U.S. and in Iraq created the perfect opportunity for a Democratic takeover. The Democrats promised voters they would morph Congress into an ethical and effective branch if the electorate would let them. Now they have their chance.
With Democrats controlling the House and the Senate, the Congressmen and those who elected them need to be realistic about what the Democratic Party can accomplish. If Democrats spend the next two years fiddling over stalled bills instead of initiating changes, in 2008 they could face the same electoral punishment that expelled the Republicans. This time, the White House would be at stake.
The party needs to figure out what they can and cannot change. The Democrats used Iraq as an issue that will motivate people to go to the polls, and it worked. Exit poll results collected for the Associated Press showed that two-thirds of surveyed voters said Iraq was an important issue. Now, Democrats can and should pressure Bush to change course in Iraq, especially now with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation. But if Democrats think they can unilaterally extricate the United States from the quagmire in Iraq, then they are in for a disappointing two years. Even with the legislative power the Democrats now have over President George W. Bush, demoting the president to a sort of lame-duck status, Bush is still the Commander in Chief. All military policy flows directly through the White House, not the blue House(s), and Democrats just don’t have the power to regulate his policy.
Nancy Pelosi, the first female House Speaker and a vocal leader for the party, will need to be more realistic with what reforms the party can make if her party is to make effective changes. According to an agenda unveiled in May 2006, Democrats plan to use their newly elected power to raise the minimum wage, revise the Republican prescription drug law, promote homeland security measures and begin to reel in the budget deficit. These are noble goals. But Democrats are also overexcited, and they may be overcommitting themselves with too many issues in order to prove to constituents that they are agents for change. The truth is that there are just too many issues for the Democratic Congressmen to take on. Democrats need to prioritize salient, changeable issues in order to stay accountable to the electorate.
Even a legislative majority and a narrowed focus on what can be changed is still not enough to get initiatives passed easily. Take the prescription drug law: Bush signed the bill into law in 2003. Any new bill the Democrats introduce in order to revise the original will need 67 votes to overturn Bush’s likely veto. Even with a unified Democratic majority in the Senate, rolling back the drug law will still require 16 Republican votes.
A more realistic change would begin with ethics reform. Rewriting House rules isn’t as exciting as ending a war, but it’s a lot more feasible. With control of the House, Democrats have the opportunity to devise an ethics code that will outline the government’s financial responsibilities and prevent corruption. National exit polls showed that three-fourths of voters surveyed cited corruption and scandal as important factors in their decision – compared to the two-thirds of voters who cited the war in Iraq as an important factor. A Democratic House should make an ethics code soon -changing House rules does not require White House approval.
Democrats made promises that increased voter expectations, and voters responded by giving them this one chance. If the Democrats want to capitalize on their newfound power in numbers, they need to be aggressive as well as pragmatic.
Otherwise, 2008 could be a blue year for all the wrong reasons.
