For the past three years, some Republican and Democratic lawmakers have sat next to each other during President Barack Obama’s annual State of the Union speech to Congress in a largely meaningless one-night show of bipartisanship.
Next week when Obama addresses the House of Representatives and the Senate in a joint session, 40 lawmakers from the two parties hope to add some beef: Under their official congressional lapel pins, they’ll wear orange buttons identifying themselves as Problem Solvers and displaying their pledge, “Committed to fix not fight.”
With congressional approval ratings at historic lows, the 23 Democrats and 17 Republicans say they want to move beyond mere symbolism as they tell their peers that they’ve pledged to try to end hyper-partisanship and work across the aisle to solve the country’s most pressing problems.
“We’re meeting on a regular basis, Democrats and Republicans just talking about areas where we think we can work together in a bipartisan way,” said Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat who defeated incumbent Republican Rep. Dan Lungren in November.
“The idea is we’ve got to move past being only Democrat or Republican,” Bera said in an interview. “It’s very evident in my freshman class. All of us got elected knowing there was an expectation that we would work together.”
Bera and his fellow Problem Solvers scored a major victory last week when Congress passed and Obama signed the No Budget No Pay Act. It raises the federal debt ceiling through May 18 while blocking lawmakers’ salaries if they fail to pass a budget for fiscal 2014, which starts Oct. 1.
Bera made the bill a central plank of his campaign against Lungren last year. While Bera preferred a tougher measure than the one that eventually passed – it holds lawmakers’ pay in escrow instead of eliminating it – the new Sacramento-area lawmaker voted for it in the spirit of compromise that he thinks is so important.
“Passing a budget is our core job,” Bera said. “It lets the public know what our priorities are and how we’re going to spend our resources.”
With the House under Republican control and the Senate holding a Democratic majority, Congress has operated without a budget for several years while passing stopgap spending bills that fund the government for shorter periods instead of moving annual appropriations measures…
The Problem Solvers caucus is a key initiative of No Labels, an advocacy organization launched in December 2010 by a group of high-powered politicians and political consultants who were fed up with Washington gridlock.
One of the No Labels founders is Mark McKinnon, an Austin, Texas, Republican political consultant who was a key adviser to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, and John McCain in 2008.
“There really wasn’t a voice reflecting what the American people want,” McKinnon said in an interview. “They want to see Washington start dealing with our problems. They don’t care if it’s a Republican solution or a Democratic solution, they just want to see some progress.”
Jonathan Miller, a former Kentucky state treasurer and onetime head of the Kentucky Democratic Party, is another co-founder from his home base as a lawyer in Lexington.
“Most Kentuckians and other people I run into are fed up with politics and the way the parties are always fighting and nothing is ever accomplished,” Miller said. “We want to bring Democrats, Republicans and independents together to change the dynamics.”…
Miller graduated from Henry Clay High School in Lexington, named after a legendary lawmaker who crafted several measures that helped hold off the Civil War for a decade.
“His nickname was the Great Compromiser, but now ‘compromise’ is seen as a dirty word,” Miller said.
The Problem Solvers insist that theirs is not a centrist group, but rather one that includes lawmakers with viewpoints from across the political spectrum, from liberal to conservative.
Hoping to grow to 75 members by year’s end, they view themselves as a bipartisan and potentially more powerful version of two caucuses whose ranks have shrunk with the rise in partisanship: the Blue Dog Democrats and the Main Street Republicans, each of which bring together moderate pragmatists willing to compromise.
“Our potential is more meaningful because we have members of both parties,” said McKinnon, who is advising the Problem Solvers. “In Congress, if you can bring together 40 or 50 – or hopefully 70 or 75 – votes of Democrats and Republicans, that’s a substantial number of votes that can swing a big issue.”
In another sign of the group’s increasing influence, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s “Make Life Work” address Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute, billed as a major piece of the Republicans’ ongoing rebranding effort, was a strong echo of the No Labels slogan “Make America Work.”
The No Labels office in downtown Washington features two towering posters of Republican President Ronald Reagan and former Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill, who are models for the group because of their ability to work together and reach compromises despite their political differences…
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Feb 8, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
The RP’s latest column for the Huffington Post explains why immigration reform is such an urgent issue for our national economic recovery. Here’s an excerpt:
When it comes to restoring strong, long-term growth in our nation’s economy, there are few solutions more practical, bi-partisan, and urgent than immigration reform.
Our current immigration system is rigid, outdated, and simply unable to keep up with demands of the new global marketplace. For our nation to thrive and transcend international competition in the 21st century economy, it is incumbent for us to build an immigration system that welcomes people who share our values, as well as the entrepreneurial spirit that has made our country great.
No one can doubt that we are a nation whose foundation was built by immigrants. But did you know that more than 40 percent of today’s Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant, or a child of an immigrant? Or that more than 75 percent of all the patents received by the top ten U.S. universities in 2011 had an immigrant inventor? While we celebrate our nation’s first immigrants every Thanksgiving — and while many of us cherish the stories shared by our own family members who made the pilgrimage to our shores — we too often forget that today, and every day, recent immigrants continue to play a vital role in the American economy.
Unfortunately, far too often, our immigration policies drive too many foreign-born entrepreneurs and job creators away, even after we have trained them and given them degrees from American universities.
This is not simply a matter of compassion or human interest. This is about the very survival of our economy, way of life, and continued global leadership. We must make it easier for foreign-born, U.S.-educated students to get visas. We must create a startup visa program for entrepreneurs and innovators who want to come to our country to start businesses and hire American workers, especially when they already have U.S. investors to back their ideas. We must be doing everything we can to keep that capital in the U.S., rather than handing the next great idea over to our competitors.
Kentucky Agricultural Commissioner James Comer announced on KET’s Kentucky Tonight “On February 11, when I testify with Senator Hornback for this bill, we’re going to have Senator Rand Paul, Congressman [John] Yarmuth and Congressman Massey all there testifying in favor of this bill [Senate Bill 50]. I’ve been there 13 years, and I’ve never seen three congressmen testify on the same bill, and of different parties. Today we learned former CIA director James Woolsey will be flying in to testify on behalf of this bill…”
Comer, a Republican, has made a full media press in support of industrial hemp in Kentucky, which cannot currently be legally grown in the U.S. Tonight, he was interviewed by KET’s Bill Goodman, on a panel that included former Kentucky State Treasurer Jonathan Miller, Kentucky State Police Commissioner Rodney Brewer, and Dan Smoot, vice president of Operation UNITE.
Senate Bill 50, proposed by senator Paul Hornback (Republican, Shelbyville), doesn’t legalize hemp. It establishes the framework for a regulatory agency (the Kentucky Department of Agriculture) to regulate this crop, if and when the federal government allows the growing of industrial hemp in the U.S. Key provisions: any grower would have to pass a criminal background check. Growers would have to submit GPS coordinates of their hemp fields. Growers would have to agree to inspections and grow a minimum of ten acres.
Comer says industrial hemp grows well in Kentucky (it was prevalent in Kentucky in the 1900s), and it “has a growing demand…. It’s a green crop,” adding “we’re at a crossroads in Kentucky agriculture.”
Jonathan Miller, citing his background as a Henry Clay high school graduate, and a childhood growing up on land that was once part of Henry Clay’s estate, reminded viewers that industrial hemp was Henry Clay’s key crop, but he was most excited about the environmental possibilities. “We’re facing some real issues here in terms of developing energy and developing clean energy.”
“Instead of trying to find examples of other places to follow, I’d love to see Kentucky take the lead. We need to be first in something we can be really proud of.”
Not everyone on the panel agreed with Comer and Miller.
Commissioner Brewer says he agrees with Comer that hemp and marijuana grow well in Kentucky. He says the problem is “you cannot distinguish between hemp and marijuana with the naked eye. You’ll hear a lot of proponents say that you can…but you cannot tell the difference.” He asks what would keep an enterprising or unscrupulous farmer from adding a few marijuana plants to the interior of a hemp tract, “when the going rate for marijuana is about $2300/lb,” adding that “the research has not been done to show [hemp’s] a viable product in Kentucky yet.”
Smoot, of Operation Unite, refers to UK’s 1998 study “concluding there was no market for hemp.” He says the market’s only declined since. He says, “The United States Department of Agriculture says ‘thin market at best, novelty item.’”
SB50 requires that the seeds that the certified growers use will have only trace amounts of THC. It’s an agricultural crop, with no narcotic value.
Comer says he appreciates the concerns of the law enforcement panelists, but that “there is a concern in Kentucky to create jobs. This is an opportunity.”
Brewer says “marijuana and hemp are not first cousins, they are twin brothers.” He adds, “you can get high off of hemp.” [If they are brothers, however, they are Cain and Abel — destroying each other every chance they get. “Hemp and marijuana, both members of the cannabis family, aggressively cross-pollinate with undesirable results for both. Interbreeding marijuana valued for high THC content with low-THC hemp dramatically lowers THC content and thus economic value of smoked marijuana. Likewise, lanky hemp plants grown for the fiber in their stems would lose those desired characteristics if interbred with bushy pot plants.” Ace 2000 archive.]
Miller says, this debate makes it “so compelling why we need Senate Bill 50. It’s not legalizing hemp. It says IF hemp is legalized at the federal level,” this establishes a strong regulatory framework around it.
He spoke of “empowering” the farmers with “new opportunities,” particularly as tobacco has faded from the economic landscape…
Host Bill Goodman then read an email from James Higdon, author of Cornbread Mafia:
“In reporting my book, I found that many illegal pot farmers were against the idea of reviving Kentucky’s hemp industry out of fear of what the increase in hemp pollen would do to the value of their crops. Why is it that Operation Unite and the Kentucky State Police agree with criminal marijuana growers that hemp is a bad idea?”
Smoot responded, first to the caller:
“I will guarantee you that those people that died of the pill overdoses, their first experience with illegal drugs was marijuana. “
He then suggested that anyone growing industrialized hemp should be prepared to hire armed guards.
Smoot countered, “If you take our whole federal delegation from Kentucky to DC, combined, I don’t think they have put a fraction of the time and effort into the drug crisis in Kentucky and this nation as Congressman Hal Rogers…He has made battling drugs a priority.”
Goodman adds, “he is one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress because he is chair of the appropriations and revenue committee.”
Comer says he respects Rogers’ point of view, but stresses “when Senate Bill 50 passes, that still doesn’t legalize industrial hemp in Kentucky. It just sets up the framework for how it will be regulated in Kentucky,” referring to the arguments against the bill as “shallow,” saying “it’s ok to be bold.”
Miller says, “we don’t claim this is a magic crop or panacea. It’s not gonna solve all of Kentucky’s problems.” But he referenced UK’s 1998 survey (before new applications for hemp were developed) identifying one processing plant as capable of generating 300 new jobs and $6.7 million of revenue.
Commissioner Brewer says law enforcement will have to prepare for “The Hemp Defense.”
“Everybody we stop from now on that has a bag of marijuana is going to say ‘that’s not marijuana, that’s hemp.’”
He estimates the testing that necessitates will cost the state about $1.75 million the first year.
Goodman asks, “can it be tested in the field? It can’t be tested when someone is pulled over for a nickel bag? Can it be tested in a growing field? It has to be taken to a laboratory?”
Miller says, “if someone is pulled over for a nickel bag and says it’s hemp, the immediate response should be to arrest them for marijuana possession.”
Commissioner Brewer says, “oh we will,” citing the arrest of Dr. Bronner last summer for growing hemp.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Feb 7, 2013 at 2:15 PM ET
A great column by Chuck Culpepper at Sports on Earth, “The Gay Super Bowl” (h/t Joe Sonka)
Eight days before the gayest Super Bowl week on record, I walked toward the Baltimore Ravens’ locker room in New England consumed entirely with thoughts of football, pure football, undiluted football.
I am that exotic creature, a gay male sportswriter, but on this frigid walk I was thinking only of Baltimore’s rout of the Patriots and how it had sustained my sense of the Ravens’ uncommon camaraderie. Hoping to learn more about a cohesion I had admired for five years, I joined the reporter scrum at linebacker Terrell Suggs’ locker, known to be a harbor of humor and insight.
Oh.
Oh . . .
There stood Brendon Ayanbadejo, age 36, born in Chicago to an American mother and Nigerian father, educated at UCLA, three Pro Bowls as a noble special-teams sort, a man whom I had never met but for whom I held a vast gratitude. In a giddy locker room in which the great Ed Reed waltzed around singing Eddie Money’s “Two Tickets To Paradise,” I momentarily had misplaced Ayanbadejo’s face. In fact, in the urgency of the game, I had not thought of him all weekend. Yet here was a man I had never expected to exist in all my life, a heterosexual football powerhouse who had spoken up voluntarily and beautifully and repeatedly for g-g-g-gay people.
Now a storm coursed through my head. Should I make this personal? Should I thank Mr. Ayanbadejo right then and there, just after Suggs had finished teasing a famous NFL reporter for an inaccurate game prediction? Or should I stick with my customary etiquette and proceed with the football questions?
In my offbeat life, I have clomped my klutzy size-13 shoes in two worlds you might call disparately disparate. On six continents I have hung around excellent gay people who find sports an unappealing mystery and look flabbergasted at my interest. I have hung around excellent sportswriters who would never stray near a gay bar unless they wandered too far down Bourbon Street at a Final Four. The gay people seldom ask about the sports people, and the sports people seldom ask about the gay people.
I am believed to be the only gay male extant who can recite the final scores of all 47 Super Bowls, and if we’re together and you’re unlucky, I might start it up.
So I have endured all the stages of my plight: the long dislike-myself stage, the longer please-tolerate-me stage, the still-longer I-might-be-OK stage and even the world-is-absurd stage, which arrived one day in a tiny flat in London when I read on Andrew Sullivan’s blog that a museum in Oslo would be exhibiting the 1,500 species in which homosexuality had been observed or studied.
Fifteen hundred! You mean I’m part of some natural continuum, and I’ve spent chunks of my life fretting myself silly over this?
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Feb 7, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
A quite moving speech from Mike Freer, a conservative, Tory Member of Parliament in favor of marriage equality in Great Britain. The bill passed in a rout, 400-175.
To all of my friends, liberal and conservative and everyone in between. Jump on in — the water is quite warm.
Last night, Kentucky Educational Television’s Kentucky Tonight program, hosted by Bill Goodman, featured a deeply substantive, and occasionally emotional, debate about the future of industrial hemp in the Bluegrass State. The combatants included The RP (Jonathan Miller), Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, Kentucky State Police Commissioner Rodney Brewer, and Dan Smoot, vice president of Operation UNITE.
Mentioned in the debate were the following studies and legislative proposals.
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Feb 4, 2013 at 7:30 PM ET
As The RP (Jonathan Miller) and Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer debate industrial hemp legalization with state law enforcement officials on Kentucky Tonight, join in the online debate on Twitter.
Your tweets will be posted LIVE below, and whenever possible, the panelists will respond to them, either on air, or afterwards online.
Some Guidelines:
Use the hashtag #KYTonight somewhere within your tweet, and it will be posted LIVE below
Refer to Jonathan Miller as @RecoveringPol, Commissioner Comer as @KYComer, and host Bill Goodman as @BillKET
Click the following links to read the reports referenced in the debate:
KET’s Kentucky Tonight program with host Bill Goodman will discuss industrial hemp this evening at 8:00 PM ET.
Scheduled guests are:
– Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer
– Kentucky State Police Commissioner Rodney Brewer
– Former Kentucky State Treasurer Jonathan Miller, founder of The Recovering Politician
– Dan Smoot, vice president of Operation UNITE
The program is live on KET and at www.ket.org/live at 8:00 pm ET.
Viewers with questions and comments may send e-mail to kytonight@ket.org or use the message form at www.ket.org/kytonight. All messages should include first and last name and town or county. The phone number for viewer calls during the program is 1-800-494-7605.
You can come back to this site at 8:00 PM and join a LIVE Twitter debate — all of your tweets that use #KYTonight will be published LIVE at The Recovering Politician.
Kentucky Tonight programs are archived online, made available via podcast, and rebroadcast on KET, KET KY, and radio. Archived programs, information about podcasts, and broadcast schedules are available at www.ket.org/kytonight.
For your reading prior to or after the show, click here for a 1998 report produced by the University of Kentucky on the “Economic Impact of Industrial Hemp in Kentucky.” As you read the report, keep in mind that farmers and scientists have developed dozens of new applications for the crop since the report was prepared 15 years ago. The key findings in the report include:
A market for industrial hemp exists in a number of specialty or niche markets in the United States, including specialty papers, animal bedding and foods and oils made from hemp.
Additional markets could emerge for industrial hemp in the areas of automobile parts, replacements for fiberglass, upholstery, and carpets. Using current yields, prices, and production technology from other areas that have grown hemp, Kentucky farmers could earn a profit of approximately $320 per acre of hemp planted for straw production only or straw and grain production, $220 for grain production only, and $600 for raising certified seed for planting by other industrial hemp growers. In the long run, it is estimated that Kentucky farmers could earn roughly $120 per acre when growing industrial hemp for straw alone or straw and grain, and $340 an acre from growing certified hemp seed.
Industrial hemp, when grown in rotation, may reduce weeds and raise yields for crops grown in following years. Several agronomic studies have found that industrial hemp was more effective than other crops at reducing selected weeds. One study found that industrial hemp raised yields by improving soil ventilation and water balance.
The economic impact if Kentucky again becomes the main source for certified industrial hemp seed in the United States is estimated at 69 full-time equivalent jobs and $1,300,000 in worker earnings. The total economic impact in Kentucky, assuming one industrial hemp processing facility locating in Kentucky and selling certified seed to other growers, would be 303 full-time equivalent jobs and $6,700,000 in worker earnings. If two processing facilities were established in Kentucky, industrial hemp would have an economic impact of 537 fulltime equivalent jobs and $12,100,000 in worker earnings. If one processing facility and one industrial hemp paper-pulp plant were established in Kentucky, industrial hemp would have an economic impact of 771 full-time equivalent jobs and $17,600,000 in worker earnings.
If just a fraction of the agricultural counties in Kentucky went into the industrial hemp business, thousands of jobs and sizable earnings would be created. If just one-fourth of Kentucky’s 90 agricultural counties went into industrial hemp business, approximately 17,348 jobs would be created and $396 million in worker earnings generated yearly.
These economic impact estimates reflect possible outcomes for Kentucky given a national industrial hemp industry that is focused in specialty niche activities that have been demonstrated to work in Europe. It is important to remember, however, that technologies are under development that may allow industrial hemp products to compete in bulk commodity markets. The economic impacts that would occur if these technologies were found to be commercially feasible would be substantially greater than those identified in this report.
