Like many Americans who voted last week for change, I’m delighted the whole thing is over. Or is it? Pundits on the Sunday talk shows belabored ad nauseam what they saw as the causes of Democratic ascendancy. Most were simply reiterating what they’d been saying for the past year.
With no real insider information, chats with political leaders and such, I just had a feeling the country was fed up with the status quo and motivated to go to the polls in sufficient numbers to affect change. I do hope they prevail.
I’m not gloating. However, I was delighted that two of my least favorite congresspersons were defeated: Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Montana) and California Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Tracy). Both had strong ties to a disgraced lobbyist and were seriously bad news for the environment, which needs all the help it can get.
I was looking forward to quiet, as in the absence of “robodialers” and inflamed rhetoric clogging my e-mail inbox. Well, the amount of robocalls has decreased but the e-mails continue with every organization in the country taking credit for its part in the GOP defeat. And for as many reasons as there were candidates and ballot initiatives.
The ACLU views it as a compelling reason to repeal the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act and to end Bush’s domestic wiretapping.
The AFL-CIO, which spent millions to get Democrats to the polls, says voters demanded a boost in the minimum wage and changes to allow Medicare to negotiate drug price discounts.
Planned Parenthood claims women voters have demanded expanded family planning options for poor women and an end to abstinence-only education. But they seem to ignore the winning candidacies of several high-profile cultural conservatives.
Brady Bill advocates see the vote as a victory for sensible gun legislation and a revival of the lapsed ban on assault weapons. But some winners in the Rocky Mountain States are NRA card-carrying, gun-totin’ outdoorsmen.
MoveOn.org, a liberal activist PAC, says it represents the party’s base and will hold the new House and Senate majority leaders’ feet to the fire on promoting its issues.
With pundits in general agreement that the vote was a referendum on the Bush Administration’s floundering war in Iraq, the anti-war folks are trying to take all the credit. Well, Rummy’s gone from the Pentagon, on the “Thank God Express,” as they say.
How’s that for dancing in the end zone?
But with all the talk about Iraq, corruption in Congress and general disgust with everything in Washington, not much was heard about six years of direct attacks on our environment. The Natural Resources Defense Council, with support from the likes of Robert Redford and Robert Kennedy Jr., is in a celebratory mood. NRDC President Frances Beinecke wrote in an e-mail to members: “In one fell swoop, the American voter terminated the Congressional onslaught against nature and gave us new leaders who share our deepest values of environmental protection.” Let’s hope so.
Beinecke notes as proof that of the “Dirty Dozen” members of Congress named by the League of Conservation Voters for the poorest environmental voting records, nine were defeated. And eight out of nine of the League’s “Environmental Champions” won their races. That is indeed cause for hope.
So what can we reasonably expect from our new lawmakers? So far, we have only promises. Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi has promised to tackle the energy issue in her first 100 hours in office. That would be a start.
With Rep. Pombo and Sen. Burns gone, there’s a chance we won’t have to fight weekly attacks on the Endangered Species Act, our wildlife refuges, national forests, and clean air and water. The new leadership has promised aggressive oversight of Bush’s Interior Department and Forest Service, which have done little but front for energy and timber companies. Imagine that. Oversight. And I thought that’s what Congress was for.
But it’s not over. The lame duck session could still do a lifetime of environmental damage, the NRDC warns, opening protected coastal areas to drilling, clear-cutting our national forests.
Can we expect a significant change from the Bush Administration? Hard to say. So far, Bush has sounded a bit conciliatory, “I took a thumpin’,” and all that bipartisan, reaching across the aisle stuff. But six years ago he told us with a straight face that he was a “uniter not a divider.” Since then, he’s told us only that he’s “the decider.”
Let’s hope he doesn’t summon the courage to actually veto the new Congress’ efforts.
That would be a shame. I get the feeling the 2008 race has already started.