Author: David Dayen

Sen. Harry Reid (credit: TalkRadioNews via Flickr)

For one week, at least 200,000 out-of-work Americans have seen their jobless benefits expire, despite near double-digit unemployment and a growing number of people who have been unable to find a job for 27 weeks or more. The Congress recessed for two weeks without reaching agreement on an extension of those benefits, which has been historically customary during periods of high unemployment. In particular, Senate Republicans objected to a one-month extension, passed by the House, without offsets like spending cuts or paying for the extension using unspent stimulus money. And Democrats failed to file cloture early enough to get the extension done.

The Majority Leader’s office vowed to take up a cloture vote today on a motion to proceed with a one-month extension, both of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and the 65% subsidy for COBRA to help the unemployed keep the health insurance from their former job. If cloture passes, it kicks off a process that could last several days before the ultimate passage. To break cloture, the Senate would need at least one Republican to vote to proceed on the bill. Sen. Harry Reid has said that the bill would include retroactive benefits to compensate those who saw their benefits expire, but this is both expensive and confusing to individuals and state unemployment compensation offices.

This is assumed to be a short-term fix until the House and Senate agree to a version of the “extenders” bill passed by the Senate back in March. That bill extended unemployment insurance and the COBRA subsidy through to the end of the year.

Today’s vote may not even clear the initial hurdle if all Republicans hold firm. The party line is that they support the extension but merely want to offset the cost.

“We both want to extend unemployment benefits,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), the GOP’s No. 3 leader. “The Democrats want to do it by adding to the debt. Republicans don’t want to add to the debt.”

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) made the same argument when he led the GOP’s stand against a previous extenders package at the beginning of March. That blockade lasted five days and drew national press attention, much of it unfavorable to Bunning and his party.

Unemployment extensions of this type have almost always been treated as emergency spending previously. Furthermore, these benefits represent, according to the nonpartisan CBO, practically the best economic stimulus possible.

It boils down to a high-stakes political game, with struggling, jobless families used as pawns. Regardless of who is to blame for letting the benefits expire, today’s vote will truly offer a stark choice between helping the most vulnerable in society or grandstanding on so-called “principle” that goes away when it comes to funding tax cuts for the rich or unnecessary wars.

UPDATE: Per David Waldman, that motion to proceed cloture vote is expected for 5:30pm ET.

Democratic Senatorial candidate Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA7) (photo: Progress Ohio)

Joe Sestak’s primary campaign against Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter just hasn’t been able to gain traction, and he’s been searching for some angle to get back into the race. You cannot go wrong in a Democratic primary linking your opponent to Rick Santorum, I’d gather, so Sestak has to love this development:

Rick Santorum said Saturday that he endorsed then Republican Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in the 2004 U.S. Senate primary because he received a guarantee from the incumbent that he would support President Bush’s Supreme Court nominees.

The statement could be politically tricky for Specter, who faces Joe Sestak in the Democratic Senate primary on May 18, and his opponent immediately jumped on the statement as more evidence that Specter puts electoral survival over principle.

Santorum, speaking at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, responded to a question from a conservative who asked why he supported Specter over Toomey in what was a bitterly fought contest that year.

“The reason I endorsed Arlen Specter is because we were going to have two Supreme Court nominees coming up,” said Santorum, according to The Washington Post. “I got a commitment from Arlen Specter that no matter who George W. Bush would nominate, he would support that nominee.”

With the Supreme Court in the spotlight with John Paul Stevens’ retirement this has the potential to be major news. If this deal is correct, Sestak can lay a multitude of bad decisions from the Roberts/Alito court at Arlen Specter’s feet, up to and including all the truly horrible corporate decisions, like the Citizens United case.

Sestak’s initial statement was extremely aggressive:

“Rick Santorum’s stunning confirmation that Arlen Specter sold his influence as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee for a political endorsement should be extremely troubling to Pennsylvanians. There are few people in this nation who have a greater impact on the lives of the American people than the men and women who serve lifetime appointments on the Supreme Court. For Arlen Specter to take his marching orders from Rick Santorum and George W. Bush and pledge to support any nominee — no matter how partisan, no matter how unqualified — in order to win an election is a stunning betrayal of his duty as a public servant. This is one of the most glaring of the many red flags in Specter’s record that he is willing to put his own political survival over his principles and his duty to the people.”

Sestak actually cited the Citizens United decision in a follow-up statement.

Specter denied the existence of any deal today, but Santorum appeared to confirm it. . .:

UPDATE: A spokeswoman for Santorum didn’t back down from the former senator’s account despite Specter’s denial.

“Senator Santorum stands firmly by the statement he made today about the commitment he received from Senator Specter in 2004 to support President Bush’s nominations to the Supreme Court,” Santorum spokeswoman Virginia Davis told PoliticsPA. “And there was no better illustration of that commitment than Senator Specter’s ardent defense of both Justices Alito and Roberts during their confirmation hearings.”

Santorum could be engaging in a political dirty trick here by trying to choose Pat Toomey’s opponent for him, as well as defending himself from some conservative purists as he seeks (no really) a Presidential nomination. Regardless, I think this controversy has the potential to become a cornerstone of Sestak’s argument in the final weeks of the campaign. The primary is May 18.

graphic: CIA Factbook

A true tragedy and a political crisis in Poland:

A plane carrying the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, and dozens of the country’s top political and military leaders crashed in a heavy fog in western Russia on Saturday morning, killing everyone aboard.

Television showed chunks of flaming fuselage scattered in a bare forest near Smolensk, where the president was arriving for a ceremony commemorating the murder of more than 20,000 Polish officers by the Soviet secret police after the Red Army invaded Poland.

The irony, noted above, is that they were headed to Russia to commemorate the Katyn massacre. As former President Aleksander Kwasniewski told Polish TV today, “It is a damned place.” The leader of the lower house of Parliament now takes over as President, but must call elections within 60 days.

As you can see, a substantial chunk of the political class was on the plane:

Among those on board, according to the Web site of the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, were Mr. Kaczynski; his wife, Maria; former Polish president-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski; the deputy speaker of Poland’s parliament, Jerzy Szmajdzinski; the head of the president’s chancellery, Wladyslaw Stasiak; the head of the National Security Bureau, Aleksander Szczyglo; the deputy minister of foreign affairs, Andrzej Kremer; the chief of the general staff of the Polish army, Franciszek Gagor; the president of Poland’s national bank, Slawomir Skrzypek; the commissioner for civil rights protection, Janusz Kochanowski; the heads of all of Poland’s armed forces; and dozens of members of parliament.

Kaczynski has an identical twin brother who runs the conservative Law and Justice Party he represented as President and who used to serve as Prime Minister.

In a statement, President Obama called the loss “devastating.”

SNDA sponsor Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO 2)

Lisa Derrick has done great work detailing the fake prom incident in Mississippi. In case you haven’t been following things, a lesbian student named Constance McMillen wanted to attend her high school prom with her girlfriend, and the school decided they’d rather shut down the prom than allow that. A court ruled that this violated McMillen’s rights and came close to ordering a prom, but parents organized a “private” prom for McMillen and the other students. Except it was a fake-out. The prom McMillen attended only included seven students, including her, her girlfriends, and two disabled students. Everyone else at the high school partied at another prom at a country club.

This is just unspeakably cruel, and an insult not only to the LGBT community but to the disabled. And this has justifiably angered the civil rights and civil liberties communities.

The ACLU thinks they’ve found a solution. In a letter to supporters, they highlighted a piece of legislation that would make cruelty like this illegal:

So many people have contacted us because they are outraged by this situation and want to do something. I can tell you from my conversations with Constance that there’s nothing she wants more than for these kinds of hurtful actions to end for students all across the country.

There’s a way we can all help Constance with that goal— by demanding that Congress pass the Student Non-Discrimination Act.

The Student Non-Discrimination Act would be the first comprehensive federal prohibition against discrimination in public schools based on a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Please help make schools safer for all students like Constance by urging your Representative to support the Student Non-Discrimination Act.

Discrimination and harassment are an unacceptable daily reality for too many LGBT students all across the country. If outrageous experiences like the one Constance McMillen has been through are going to end, we have to respond.

What’s the Student Non-Discrimination Act? It’s a piece of legislation quietly introduced by Rep. Jared Polis in January. According to Open Congress:

Under this bill, no school program that receives public funding would be allowed to exclude children because of their gender identity or sexual orientation, be they gay, transgender or straight. Harassment based on gender or sexual orientation, defined as “conduct that is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive to limit a student’s ability to participate,” would also not be allowed as a sanctioned element of a public school program. If schools discriminate or sanction harassment in their federally funded programs, federal education agencies would be given the authority to terminate their funding.

The right obviously would point to this the same way that they point to ENDA, as a restriction on bigot’s right to discriminate. But given the profile of this incident, support could easily galvanize in the country for a corrective measure.

Change.org notes that the kind of discrimination McMillen experienced is happening all over the country, and SDNA would prohibit it. They have a quote from Rep. Polis, an openly gay member of Congress:

Congressman Jared Polis took a stand earlier this year to fight for LGBT students when he introduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act. “Like Title VI for minorities in the 60s and Title IX for women in the 70s,” Congressman Polis said at the time of the bill’s introduction, “my legislation puts LGBT students on an equal footing with their peers, so they can attend school and get a quality education, free from fear.”

I have a call in to Brian Branton, who handled LGBT issues for Rep. Polis, and I will let you know if I have more.

Lady no longer in waiting: Dawn Johnsen

Multiple sources have reported and Sam Stein confirms that Dawn Johnsen, the Indiana University law professor whose bid to run the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department has been delayed for over a year, has just withdrawn her nomination. The White House confirmed this to Stein.

Johnsen has been delayed since early last year, in particular because of her views on abortion causing Ben Nelson to balk at her confirmation, which makes no sense because that would not be any part of her purview at OLC, which essentially is the Supreme Court of the executive branch. Her views on executive power, which pleased civil libertarians, comprised the main objection for Republicans.

It is baffling that the White House would have bothered to re-nominate Johnsen at the end of last year if the outcome would simply be a withdrawal. This raised a lot of hopes that they would actually fight for Johnsen’s nomination on a second pass. Well, they didn’t.

More broadly, with a Supreme Court vacancy, withdrawing Johnsen at this point sends the message that she was ideologically insufficient for confirmation. It’s a pretty obvious signal that the next SCOTUS Justice will not stray into Johnsen territory. I assume the White House did this as some kind of peace offering, but needless to say the right wing doesn’t really get mollified by things like this.

Meanwhile the Justice Department still has nobody at OLC, as hundreds of opinions requiring expert advice pile up.

Sucky Friday news dump.

(photo: L. Marie)

One positive feature (OK, this isn’t so positive) of a Supreme Court fight is that the formidable Supreme Court commentator cottage industry gets to ramp up again. Conservative groups raise a mint off a Court fight; most of it goes to enrich movement conservatives and little else. So now we get to see folks like Curt Levey on the teevee for the next 4-5 months. Huzzah!

In his first such media appearance, speaking to TPM, Levey pushed for one of the names on Obama’s short list to replace Justice John Paul Stevens over the others:

Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, tells TPMDC: “We’ll certainly be involved one way or another. As the loyal opposition I’m sure we’ll point out what we see as the weaknesses” of any Obama nominee.

But he continued: “It does depend on who he nominates — if he nominates someone like Garland, there won’t be a lot to complain about,” referring to DC federal appeals court Judge Merrick Garland. “You’ll have, if not a love fest, something close to it if it’s a Garland. If it’s a Wood or Karlan, you’d have a huge fight,” says Levey, referring to Chicago appeals court Judge Diane Wood, whose name was floated last time around, and Pamela Karlan, a Stanford Law School professor.

Merrick Garland is seen as the most moderate court pick. You can certainly see something of a bargain in the works, where Garland gets essentially “pre-approved” by conservatives and sails to confirmation. Keep in mind that this is basically how Steven Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg made it through a Republican Senate. The difference is that Obama has 59 seats and doesn’t really need to make such bargains, or at least not with the most conservative elements of the party. He needs only to pick off a couple Republicans.

But we know about the lure of the path of least resistance and getting a “W”, so certainly Levey is tipping his hand here. And I think he’s being at least somewhat sincere. It makes sense for him to push the most moderate of those named on the short list; this is how the Court has shifted rightward for the last 30 years, in small doses. He does tip his hand, however, in a way that suggests that Obama will not get off too easily no matter who he picks. Levey and his wingnut welfare colleagues HAVE to scream about a Court selection, as a fiduciary responsibility to their staffers. In this partisan age, I see no value in a “safe” pick, because it won’t be described as safe, except right here where Levey lets his guard down.

I’d pay attention, if I were the White House, to what Mitch McConnell is saying.

“As we await the president’s nominee to replace Justice Stevens at the end of his term, Americans can expect Senate Republicans to make a sustained and vigorous case for judicial restraint and the fundamental importance of an even-handed reading of the law,” McConnell said in a statement.

I’ll throw a couple other statements from key Senators on the flip.

UPDATE: This NRO post also puts Garland most in the center, followed by Solicitor General Elana Kagan. Read Glenn Greenwald on Kagan.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

“Justice Stevens has been a strong presence on the Court for almost 35 years and worked to build consensus and protect the rule of law. I honor his service to America and wish him well in his retirement.

“I am confident that President Obama will use the same wisdom that he showed with his nomination of Justice Sotomayor and name a well-qualified successor. I encourage my Republican colleagues to join us in conducting fair, respectful hearings and swift confirmation of the President’s nominee.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy:

When the Supreme Court recesses on Justice Stevens’ final day on the bench, it will mark the end of an extraordinary judicial career spanning four decades, including 35 years on our highest court.

The last Justice from “the Greatest Generation,” John Paul Stevens first answered the call to service when he joined the Navy during World War II. Our nation called on him again years later, and he returned to public service as an appellate judge before accepting President Ford’s nomination to serve on the Supreme Court. He has since become one of the longest serving Justices on the Court. His confirmation was the first of a dozen Supreme Court nominations I have considered in my years in the Senate. As a young, freshman senator, it was a privilege to support his confirmation in 1975.

Justice Stevens’ unique and enduring perspective is irreplaceable; his stalwart adherence to the rule of law is unparalleled. The federal judiciary, and indeed the entire nation, will miss his principled jurisprudence. While it is with a heavy heart, I wish him the best in his retirement.

As we move forward with preparations for the second Supreme Court nomination of this Congress, I am reminded of the Vermont marble inscribed above the entrance of the Supreme Court which pledges “Equal Justice Under Law.” I hope that Senators on both sides of the aisle will make this process a thoughtful and civil discourse. I expect President Obama to continue his practice of consulting with members on both sides of the aisle as he considers this important nomination. The decisions of the Supreme Court are often made by only five individuals, but they impact the daily lives of each and every American. All Senators should strive to fulfill their constitutional duty of advise and consent, and give fair and thorough consideration to Justice Stevens’ successor.

Justice Stevens

It’s retirement Friday, it seems. The AP has a report (no link yet) that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is retiring. This has been rumored for a while.

UPDATE II: Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed this in a letter. Stevens will serve out the current term, giving the President and the Senate until October, basically, to fill out the Court.

More when I have it.

UPDATE: There’s a link now.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the court’s oldest member and leader of its liberal bloc, he is retiring. President Barack Obama now has his second high court opening to fill.

Stevens said Friday he will step down when the court finishes its work for the summer in late June or early July. He said he hopes his successor is confirmed “well in advance of the commencement of the court’s next term.”

His announcement had been hinted at for months. It comes 11 days before his 90th birthday.

Last week, three names were floated as potential replacements: Circuit Court of Appeals judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland, and Solicitor General Elana Kagan.

Stupak campaign sign–now a collector's item (photo: Brian Rendel)

Bart Stupak will not seek re-election to Congress, Marc Ambinder reports.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) plans to announce his retirement today, Democrats briefed on his decision said. Stupak, the leader of a pro-life faction within his party, had received death threats and was under intense political pressure after he agreed to support the Democratic health care reform legislation, even though pro-life groups insisted that it would allow federal funds to be used for abortion.

If you’re a politician not inclined to deliver under “intense political pressure,” you have no business being a politician. And if death threats were a factor in resigning, there pretty much wouldn’t be a member of the Democratic caucus left. Stupak sought the spotlight. He wanted to lead the pro-life Caucus and hijack the health care debate. He refused to quit even when he essentially won by getting the Nelson compromise, which functionally did about everything he wanted. He made the debate a living hell and went out of his way to punish half the US population. And in the end, everybody hated him, left and right. Well played.

Stupak’s district is swingy, but a lot of the top legislators in the area are Democrats. Right now, Connie Saltonstall is in the race, but I would expect a state legislator to get in. This Swing State diary has some potential names, including Senate Minority Leader Mike Prusi and State Rep. Mike Lahti. It sounds like Prusi would be the less conservative and more winnable option – and he happens to be pro-choice, which would be an interesting turnabout for a seat where Stupak said he was merely voting his district.

I can’t shed much of a tear for Bart Stupak. He put himself in the spotlight, then realized he didn’t like it.

(photo: taberandrew)

I’ve been saying for a while now that the vaunted “accountability moment” that labor and Democratic allies will run against those in the caucus who voted against health care is a mirage. I don’t know how many examples people need. First the primary challenger to Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin was talked out of the race, then Jason Altmire’s challenger realized he waited to long to make a serious run, then Stephen Lynch’s possible primary disintegrated.

Now Greg Sargent tells us that It’s War! The SEIU will not just run primary candidates but institute an entirely new third party in North Carolina, the North Carolina First Party, and they plan to put candidates on the ballot in the fall.

Well, if it’s war, I hope they have a cannon.

SEIU isn’t really at war with the Obama Administration. Andy Stern was just appointed to the President’s deficit commission. They may have problems with some of the Blue Dogs in North Carolina, to be sure. But the third party route is just destined to be squelched by national Democrats.

Furthermore, I don’t see how this is even that viable. The NC First Party needs 85,000 signatures to qualify as a state party, and they tell Greg that they have 100 canvassers on the ground. Needless to say, this isn’t the best ratio in the world. What’s more, the NC First Party is hedging their bets on the front page of their own website.

North Carolina First is on the ground talking to voters. Right now, North Carolina First is gathering signatures to determine whether to qualify as a state party – to give working families the ability to choose a candidate that will fight for their interests – or to identify Congressional candidates who will stay accountable to the needs of working families not Washington’s special interests.

They haven’t even figured out if they’ll create a third party. And if they don’t, and stick to “identifying” Congressional candidates? Well, that won’t do much good for 2010, because… getting out my trusty Swing State Project sortable filing deadline calendar…. yes, the North Carolina ballot is set for the May primaries.

Larry Kissell, one of the three North Carolina Dems who voted No on health care, has a primary challenger in Nancy Shakir, and this might be somewhere the NC First Party wants to go. But the primary is, um, next month, and right now NC First is in the “talking” and “figuring out what it wants to do” stage of development. It is virtually impossible for it to be a factor in the 2010 midterms.

I don’t know why anyone believes one labor official saying that they will “hold accountable” these ConservaDems. Labor is walking the walk in the Bill Halter/Blanche Lincoln race, and that’s about it. Wake me when any other accountability takes place.

The disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine in Coalmont, West Virginia has justifiably brought a lot of attention to the issue of worker safety and the need for strong regulation to protect America’s workers. But as Chris Bowers points out, this is the kind of story you can write every day in America. Worker safety didn’t become a problem because of one mine explosion in West Virginia. Indeed, 16 American workers die every single day, on average, at the workplace, and the federal agencies tasked with making sure that doesn’t happen need more resources and more tools to combat such tragedies.

Why, just days before the Massey Energy mine accident, another energy plant saw a deadly workplace disaster:

The death toll from Friday’s fire at Tesoro’s Anacortes refinery in Washington state grew to five, according to news reports.

Three refinery workers were earlier reported to have died following the fire, and a fourth and fifth died of their injuries after being taken to a hospital in Seattle, according to news media reports.

Two other injured workers remained in critical condition at the Seattle hospital.

Sources indicated to Reuters that the fire was caused by a failed heat exchanger, which alternately heats and cools hydrocarbons at the plant. Workers were replacing a separate heat exchanger when this one failed, causing an explosion.

The Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency which oversees refineries like this, was already investigating a flash fire at a separate Tesoro refinery in Utah from last October, as well as multiple other fires across the country. A similar blast killed 15 workers at a BP refinery in Texas in 2005. This is becoming an epidemic.

CSB (Chemical Safety Board) Chairman and CEO John Bresland said, “The CSB has 18 ongoing investigations. Of those, seven of these accidents occurred at refineries across the country. This is a significant and disturbing trend that the refining industry needs to address immediately.”

And yet, the Chemical Safety Board cannot issue citations or fines, only safety recommendations. They can request that a refinery shut down because of safety concerns, but they cannot mandate it.

This is just an example of where government lacks the tools and resources necessary to keep American workers safe at their jobs. There are worker’s memorials all over the country which are a living reminder that we have not succeeded in creating safe and secure workplaces. Every April, Worker’s Memorial Day serves to deliver that reminder.

That’s where the Protecting America’s Workers Act (PAWA) comes in. The Obama Administration under the leadership of Hilda Solis is actually doing a great job of restoring the gutted agencies under the Labor Department’s purview, which have been ravaged by 30 years of deregulation and industry capture. But the regulations themselves need to be beefed up, in addition to having better regulators and better tactics. David Michaels and Jordan Barab are leading the Occupational Health and Safety Administration into a new era. They actually slapped the largest fine in history on BP for their failure to fix safety violations even AFTER their 2005 refinery explosion. OSHA is reconfiguring their inspections to target severe violators.

All of this is good. But now they need to be given the ability to succeed. PAWA would do that, by extending OSHA coverage to 8 million more workers, by updating civil and criminal penalties for violations, and by providing an effective deterrent to employers to maintain unsafe workplaces.

We need to eliminate the kinds of headlines we see in West Virginia or Washington or Texas. We need employers to live up to their responsibilities. We need to protect America’s workers.

I’m a blogger fellow with Brave New Films on their 16 Deaths Per Day campaign for worker safety. Join us on Facebook.

A decommissioned Titan missile in its silo near Tucson (photo: Telstar Logistics)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a statement upon the signing of the new START treaty (I really want to pump the “Prague Treaty” into the media bloodstream, but it looks like it isn’t happening) that expressed confidence he would be able to find the 67 votes needed for ratification. Reid cited three committees – Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Intelligence – that would be involved in bringing this bill to the floor.

Strategic arms control treaties similar to this one have historically passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support, and I am confident that this agreement will receive the 67 votes from both sides of the aisle needed for passage. There is no need to play politics with something as important as this is to our national security. I look forward to passing this out of committee and working with Chairs Kerry, Levin and Feinstein to bring this treaty to the Senate floor.

John Kerry, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, for his part set a timeline of early May for new START. (h/t)

“Today’s signing of the START treaty strengthens our security while affirming the vital role the nuclear arsenal plays in our nation’s defense. I will work closely with Senator Lugar and our colleagues to see that this historic treaty is ratified this year.

“The White House has indicated that the full treaty will be completed and submitted to the Senate in early May. I plan to begin hearings on the treaty in the coming weeks, and then report a proposed resolution of advice and consent to ratification out of the Foreign Relations Committee for approval by the full Senate as soon as possible.

“The Senate has a long history of approving strategic arms control treaties by overwhelming margins and I am confident we will renew that spirit of cooperation and bipartisan tradition on arms control and national security to approve ratification of this vital treaty. This is too important to delay.”

There’s an awful lot of focus on “long histories” in both statements, which may not reflect current partisan realities. Ranking member on Foreign Relations Dick Lugar previously signaled support for the treaty, so it’s likely to get out of committee unscathed, but I have trouble counting to 8 – the number of Republicans who would be needed for passage. And that’s assuming that hawkish types like Joe Lieberman and Jim Webb don’t bolt.

Between now and then, expect to hear a lot of bogus nonsense about missile defense.

Still Senator John Ensign (R-NV)

The troubles of Sen. John Ensign have finally dawned on Republican leaders in Nevada. They realize that having a corrupt, indicted leader at a time when they’re trying to take down the state’s Democratic Senator with candidates who have embraced that same indicted figure would be devastating. So gradually, they’re backing away from Ensign.

Rep. Dean Heller kicked off what looked to be a coordinated effort today.

U.S. Rep. Dean Heller stopped short of calling for U.S. Sen. John Ensign’s resignation, but he said Wednesday his fellow Republican’s ethical woes are dragging him down and could end up harming the state’s GOP candidates in the fall.

“The fact we have a wounded junior senator, yeah, it is cause for concern,” Heller said.

“Will it have impact up and down the ticket for Republicans this fall? I think there is the potential for that happening,” he said on KRNV-TV’s “Nevada Newsmakers.”

Heller went so far as to say that he thought a “stronger voice” was needed in Washington, and that he declined to challenge Harry Reid because he feared the Ensign fallout would bring him down.

Similarly, two former Clark County GOP officials openly called for Ensign’s resignation. Clark County includes Las Vegas and the majority of the population of Nevada.

We are on the verge of great victory come November, but the most long awaited victory can quickly slip through our grasp unless we immediately put the focus back on conservative issues. We call on all true conservative Republican leaders and activists to speak out now for the resignation of Senator Ensign.

There is no uprising by Republicans to fight the barrage of anti-Ensign media. Nobody is coming to his rescue. Only a small handful of Republican candidates have even sought his endorsement.

Nor are the elected Republican leaders in Washington throwing any lifeline to Senator Ensign. While they are not publicly calling for his resignation, they are not supporting Ensign either. Let’s all stop ignoring the problem. The only way the Ensign-problem for the GOP will go away is if enough of us call for his resignation.

I suspect this will only get louder in subsequent days. The Nevada GOP is in serious self-preservation mode. This has less to do with Ensign’s conduct, which is deplorable, and more to do with the threat to victory in November. For that reason alone, Ensign may actually be held accountable for his conduct, a rare thing in the GOP.

…Atrios is absolutely right, it’s downright bizarre that nobody in the media seems to care about the Ensign scandal.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA 9)

This is kind of strange. I jumped on a White House conference call with Barbara Lee (D-CA), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, yesterday. The topic was the youth summer job program, which the House has passed but the Senate has yet to take up. I get an advisory in my inbox that there’s another call with Lee today, where she’ll be joined by Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA) and Biden economic advisor Jared Bernstein.

What’s going on?

I assume that the White House is signaling their support for CBC priorities, after facing criticism for their inattention to urban policies and helping the catastrophic unemployment in the black community. The summer youth job program, which provides jobs and training to mostly inner-city youth across the country, has been a touchstone for the CBC. It created 300,000 short-term jobs last year when it was part of the stimulus, and the $600 million dollar proposal to extend it this year would create, according to analyst’s predictions, another 200,000. So it’s a low-cost way to provide productive work for teens (whose employment picture is perhaps the worst in the nation) and set them on a career path with real-life experience.

More than that, this is a symbolic action, backing up not only the CBC but the House. The summer job program is really the least that the Senate could do on the jobs front, and given the low cost the CBC has seized on it. They haven’t had much to call their own so far during the Obama Presidency, and they’ve made their frustrations well-known. They represent some of the most depressed districts in the country, and even though they are safe seats, it’s a matter of time before someone in the community starts calling their members ineffective at delivering anything of value. So this is a way for the White House to defuse tensions with the African-American community and provide something that CBC members can point to as a tangible achievement.

Lee expressed confidence on yesterday’s conference call that “Senator Reid is going to have the votes to pass it.” I’m not sure what vehicle the Senate would use for such a measure; perhaps the $150 billion dollar “extenders” package would include the summer jobs program when it comes out of a proposed conference committee. Senate Democrats tried to insert that program into the extenders bill last month, but couldn’t round up 60 votes for it.

Congressional candidate Marcy Winograd (photo: 350.org via Flickr)

In a fairly impressive feat of organizing, Marcy Winograd, the progressive challenger to Jane Harman in California’s 36th District, was able to pull Harman’s state party endorsement after amassing enough objections from state party delegates. From the press release:

Congressional Candidate Marcy Winograd (CA-36), working with the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party (CDP), successfully pulled opponent Jane Harman’s Party endorsement prior to the April 16th-18th CDP convention in
Los Angeles.

This means neither candidate will go into the convention with a pre-endorsement — and that a floor debate is likely over which candidate to endorse in the 36th congressional district race. Harman was the only incumbent to have her endorsement pulled by delegates to the California Democratic Party.

After calling delegates throughout the state, the Winograd for Congress campaign, working with leadership of the Party’s Progressive Caucus, Women’s Caucus, Rural Caucus, and Veterans Caucus, collected 329 delegate objections, more than the bylaws’ requirement of 300 to pull a local pre-endorsement of Harman by elected officials, appointed delegates, and others […]

Winograd raises pertinent questions, “What does the California Democratic Party stand for? Who do we endorse? Someone who rushes us to war, covers up illegal wiretapping,
and votes with Wall Street to make it easier for banks to foreclose? Or someone committed to global diplomacy, the Bill of Rights, and an end to run-away greed on Wall Street? I look forward to this debate on the floor of the California Democratic Party convention as we
continue the fight for the heart and soul of our Party.”

Let me take a stab at explaining this. Nobody gets an endorsement from the state Democratic Party until the convention, which is next weekend. But delegates attend “pre-endorsement” conferences to state their preferences, I believe out of a desire to make things tidier at the CDP. However, this means that the delegates in the particular district, not the entire state party, really makes the early endorsement decision, even though the whole state party’s resources and imprimatur eventually go with that endorsement.

Harman won that pre-endorsement conference with around 70% of the vote. But there’s an option in the bylaws where an opponent can collect 300 signatures – about 1/6 of the entire state party delegates – to pull the pre-endorsement. In this case, that means that the Winograd/Harman endorsement will be fought out on the floor of the convention on Sunday. I believe Harman would actually need a lower threshold to win the endorsement than Winograd will, given her status as the incumbent.

Now, the question arises, does the CDP endorsement matter? Well, any endorsed candidate can get their name on slate mailers and door hangers sent out by the CDP. They typically get an increased amount of organizing from CDP precinct captains. It’s a quick, cheap and easy way to boost advertising and give a patina of authority.

Harman, one of the richest members of Congress, won’t need the financial aid of having the CDP doing her mail campaign. But if this ends, as is likely, with no endorsement, that’s a pretty big victory from Winograd’s perspective, as Harman would be the only incumbent member of Congress in the state not endorsed by the CDP.

In addition, this represents a real organizing victory. Winograd got these 329 objections in a little less than a week. I know I received dozens of emails about it (I’m a former state party delegate who actually served with Marcy). The Winograd campaign showed their ability to realize a goal and turn out supporters quickly, using volunteers and staff. If they can bring the same kind of tenacity to turning out voters, she has a chance at the upset.

In addition, I can tell you that some incumbent state legislators joined the grassroots activists in signing the objection, suggesting that Harman’s establishment support is not monolithic.

Ultimately, the endorsement doesn’t mean a ton, but as an example of good organizing, Winograd proved her mettle. And the fight on the floor should be interesting (although if I had to guess, based on the rules involved I’d say “no endorsement” is the most likely outcome). Not only will I be at the convention next weekend, but a certain Jane Hamsher is attending as well.

Ta da! (photo: purplejavatroll)

The American Medical Association, in a new report, shows that almost every single health insurance market in America is “highly concentrated”.

In 24 of the states, the two largest insurers had a combined market share of 70 percent or more. Last year, 18 of 42 states had that type of market situation.

Among the other findings:

• In 54 percent of metropolitan markets, at least one insurer had a market share of 50 percent or more — up from 40 percent of metropolitan markets the year before.
• In 92 percent of metropolitan markets, at least one insurer had a share of 30 percent or more — up from 89 percent of metropolitan markets the year before.
• Ninety-nine percent of metropolitan markets are highly concentrated, according to federal merger guidelines, compared with 94 percent the year before.

99% of all health insurance markets are highly concentrated. That hasn’t been seen in an entire sector since the Gilded Age.

When markets are highly concentrated, consumers have no choice but to accept extreme rate hikes, denial of benefits and other industry games. And that’s exactly what’s happened in recent years. The Affordable Care Act seeks to solve this problem by fostering competition in the exchanges, but without a renewed effort to break insurance monopolies throughout all insurance markets, including the large-group sector, consumers will continue to get screwed.

The President of the AMA, Dr. J. James Rohack, reacted to this report by calling on the Justice Department to enforce anti-trust laws prohibiting “harmful mergers.” Central to that would be a repeal of the insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption. A bill to that effect passed the House earlier this year. It has, say it with me, stalled in the Senate.

Hawaii’s special election format presents unique challenges for Democrats. All candidates compete in a single election, with the winner taking the seat regardless of percentages. There are two high-profile Democrats in the race and one Republican, which raises the possibility of the Democrats splitting the vote and delivering the race to Charles Djou, the Republican.

This has led Democratic operatives to want to push one of the Democrats out and pave the way for a victory. However, they appear to have chosen the moderate LieberDem who is hated by the state political establishment.

Dem strategists have largely determined that ex-Rep. Ed Case (D) is the strongest candidate to run for the open House seat vacated by ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D). Case polls better than state Senate Pres. Colleen Hanabusa (D), sources say, and he doesn’t carry the same baggage she has.

But Case has baggage of his own, especially among Dem voters. During his 2 terms in Congress, Case had a largely centrist record. He said he would have voted to give George W. Bush the option to go into Iraq, a position at odds with Abercrombie and the state’s 2 Dem senators. He voted for the PATRIOT Act and voiced support for the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The DCCC is clearly lending support to Case, finding top-level advertising and polling strategists for him, on the grounds that Hanabusa… is a political insider. I’m not going to untangle that pretzel logic, but Reid Wilson in his story sees it as a trade-off between Case’s centrism and the political pragmatism that sees him as the only viable option. I don’t understand that a bit. Case has a slightly higher name ID than Hanabusa, but she has the support of both political legends in the state, the two Senators, as well as most labor unions, and she leads in fundraising. What’s more, the district is not moderate or centrist in any respect.

So far, the DCCC has only released one ad in the race, which you see above. It attacks Djou as a Norquistian anti-taxer. But the signs of the D-Trip’s sympathies are unmistakable, and I don’t see Hanabusa – or her legion of backers – acquiescing to the national Democrats’ strategy.

A few months ago, it was put to me that Case and Djou would split the center-right vote, with Hanabusa winning the majority. That could still happen – I wouldn’t be at all surprised with the DCCC misreading the electorate. But their bigfooting into races should definitely cause some worry (especially because they’d have a free shot to pick off Djou in November, if he manages a fluke victory).

Brooksley Born

At today’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearing, Brooksley Born, the former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, declared Alan Greenspan’s tenure at the Federal Reserve an unmitigated failure – to his face. Greenspan accords a certain degree of respect on Capitol Hill, despite Born’s accurate take on his many failures, and so this outburst was highly unusual – and gratifying.

Born, who pushed to strictly regulate derivatives under the Clinton Administration, but lost the battle to, among other people, Alan Greenspan, told the former Federal Reserve chair that his agency “failed to prevent housing bubble, failed to prevent the predatory lending scandal, failed to prevent the activities that would bring the financial system to the verge of collapse.”

“You failed to prevent many of our banks from consolidating and growing to a size that are now too big or too interconnected to fail,” Born added. She added that Greenspan’s views on deregulation, which he took as an article of faith, contributed to the Federal Reserve’s failure in delivering on its mandate.

Looking as angry as he could at his advanced age, Greenspan replied, “The flaw in the system I acknowledged was an ability to fully understand the state of potential risks that were fully untested… That means we were under-capitalizing the banking system for 40 or 50 years.”

He then pivoted to a defense of his work, using an innocent bystander argument. “I don’t have the discretion to use my own ideology to affect my judgments on what Congress did. If somebody asked my view on a particular subject, I would give it to them. But I ran my office as required by law… I fundamenally disagree with your perspective.”

This is frankly ridiculous. Alan Greenspan was known during his days at the Fed as “The Oracle.” Every word of his moved the markets and moved politicians. His viewpoints absolutely contributed to the deregulation of the financial sector. He also had lots of broad discretion while at the Fed to deal with the housing bubble. Instead he hyped it.

If anyone was watching this but me and the WSJ, they would have seen a cornered rat. Born nailed Greenspan – although, given the relative lack of interest in the FCIC, the benefit to that will be merely psychic in nature.

You may know by now that Meg Whitman added $20 million more of her own money to her campaign war chest this week, bringing her personal stake in the California gubernatorial race to $59 million. Fortunately, she does have her limits: she says she won’t go a dime above $150 million. (Because she needed some help, the state Chamber of Commerce is attacking the Democrat in the race, Jerry Brown.)

This Whitman’s sampler is only the most egregious of a trend toward self-funding of outrageous sums in elections. Michael Bloomberg, Jon Corzine, and dozens of other uber-rich men and women have stratified our political space, widening the gap between the electable and the unelectable. Very few Senators are not millionaires; very often the first question out of a political operative’s mouth about a new candidate is “can they self-fund?”

Massive self-funding has the possibility of backfiring, of course, with charges of “buying the election” hurled at Whitman from her primary challenger and her Democratic opponent. And there are certainly isolated examples of big money self-funders doing a belly-flop: Al Cecchi right here in California in 1998 comes to mind. But Whitman is actually testing a model of spending comparable to a corporate marketing budget, where nothing else in the same space can even get in a word to challenge it. “We’ve never seen anything like it,” said longtime California journos Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine.

As it happens, we have an opportunity to see if Whitman’s purchase of the election can spark an immediate backlash. Because on the same day as her Republican primary in June, there’s an initiative on the ballot, Prop. 15, which would create a pilot program for public financing for the Secretary of State’s races starting in 2014. It would also drops a restriction for local governments to allow clean money elections in their municipalities. Robert Cruickshank writes:

Here’s the background. In 1988, Proposition 68 made it to the June ballot, an initiative that would have created a public financing system for statewide elections. Polls showed it was likely to pass, so the legislature under Speaker Willie Brown, and with the encouragement of Governor George Deukmejian, placed a competing proposal on the same ballot, Proposition 73. Prop 73 provided some campaign contribution limits, but also barred anyone from being elected to office who had received public funds […]

Prop 15 would reverse the Prop 73 restriction – which is why it has to go to the ballot in the first place. If Prop 15 passes, local governments will be able to create their own publicly funded elections systems, though they’ll have to also create the funding source. The state legislature could also expand public funding to other statewide offices as well, including governor, but they too would have to create a new funding source.

As Meg Whitman dumps another $20 million into her campaign, it’s another reminder of how Californians need publicly funded elections to return democracy to this state and power to its people. Prop 15 opens the way to such reforms, and should be strongly supported. For more info on Prop 15 and how you can help pass it, go to YesFairElections.org.

Incidentally, Prop. 15’s financing for the Secretary of State’s race would be financed by a tax on lobbyists. Might as well charge the people who run Sacramento.

There’s a hope that the incredible amount of money and advertising Whitman is putting into the election will create an overkill effect and just make people sick of her. We will know whether it will lead people to conjure if another way is possible for financing elections. Prop. 15, aside from being good policy, could signal a desire from the voters to end the buying of our elections.