Big Day for No Labels; Big Day for America

A little over three years ago, I first joined a few handfuls of leading Democrats, Republicans and Independents to launch No Labels, a grassroots organization dedicated to promoting bi-partisan problem-solving instead of the hyper-partisan paralysis that is American politics.

I have to admit, while I was hopeful and passionate, I was still skeptical that we would be able to accomplish anything significant in the short term.

I have never been more proud to say: I was wrong.

Today, I joined with my fellow co-founders, and 81 Congressmen who have signed up to be No Labels’ problem solvers — YES THAT’S 81 DEMOCRATIC, REPUBLICAN, AND INDEPENDENT SENATORS AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS — at a lively rally involving 1000 supporters (on a cruelly hot Washington summer day) and announcing our new substantive policy plan to “Make Government Work.”

Read about “Make Government Work” here.

If you like what you read, follow this link to contact your Congressman and Senators to urge them to support our agenda and join our problem solvers group (or thank them if they already are part of the team.)

And check out this FRONT PAGE article from today’s The New York Times:

There do ap­pear to be new stir­rings of co­oper­a­tion — or at least the de­sire to co­oper­ate. On Thurs­day, the staunch­ly bi­par­ti­san group No La­bels and 81 House and Sen­ate law­mak­ers — some of the most lib­eral and con­serva­tive — will roll out a slate of spe­cific leg­is­la­tive pro­pos­als with broad and sur­pris­ing sup­port across the ideo­log­i­cal spec­trum.

Odd cou­ples like Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Cory Gard­ner, the Col­o­rado Re­pub­li­can who was swept to the House in the 2010 Tea Par­ty wave, and Pe­ter Welch, a lib­eral Dem­o­crat from Ver­mont, will team on ac­tual leg­is­la­tion, not state­ments of ideals, col­ored la­pel rib­bons or promis­es to sit to­gether at State of the Un­ion ad­dress­es.

Sen­a­tors who em­braced Tues­day’s agree­ment to call off fil­i­busters of ex­ec­u­tive-branch nom­i­nees promised this week to ex­tend the spirit of com­pro­mise to more whole-Sen­ate gath­er­ings, re­treats, budget ne­go­ti­a­tions and oth­er vex­ing leg­is­la­tive mat­ters. Seven sen­a­tors, four De­moc­rats and three Re­pub­li­cans, un­veiled leg­is­la­tion on Wednes­day to of­fer le­gal pro­tec­tion to jour­nal­ists en­snared in leak in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“As a pros­ecu­tor, I don’t like to use the word ‘gang,’ but it’s an­other big ‘gang’ we have here,” said Sen­a­tor Amy Klobuchar, Dem­o­crat of Min­neso­ta.

Sen­a­tor Lind­sey Gra­ham, Re­pub­li­can of South Car­o­lina, said a group was form­ing to try to re­verse the au­to­mat­ic across-the-board spend­ing cuts be­fore they do more dam­age next fis­cal year.

But be­yond those pledges of bon­homie, the in­sti­tu­tion­al im­ped­i­ments to progress re­main un­changed, es­pe­cial­ly in the Sen­ate.

In­deed, the deal to head off the fil­i­bus­ter-rule change near­ly de­railed 24 hours af­ter it was struck when Thomas E. Pe­rez, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s nomi­nee to be la­bor sec­re­tary, squeaked past a Sen­ate fil­i­bus­ter by a sin­gle vote on Wednes­day af­ter­noon, 60 to 40.

The Re­pub­li­can Sen­a­tors John Mc­Cain of Ar­i­zona, the ar­chi­tect of the fil­i­bus­ter deal; Lamar Al­ex­an­der and

Bob Cork­er of Ten­nessee; Mark Steven Kirk of Il­li­nois; and Lisa Murkows­ki of Alas­ka saved the nomi­nee — and the sup­pos­edly grow­ing spirit of bi­par­ti­san­ship.

“Right now the on­ly peo­ple who are em­pow­ered are the ob­struc­tion­ists,” said Sen­a­tor Mary L. Lan­drieu, Dem­o­crat of Lou­i­si­ana, who in 2005 joined 13 oth­er sen­a­tors to thwart an ef­fort to end fil­i­busters of ju­di­cial nom­i­nees but was ready to back the move to end fil­i­busters of ex­ec­u­tive nom­i­na­tions this round. “And for the rest of us, the pow­er we should be wield­ing on be­half of our con­stituents is vir­tu­al­ly nil,” she said. “Some­thing has to be done.”

Since De­moc­rats be­gan threat­en­ing ac­tion to neuter the fil­i­bus­ter, crit­ics have warned that sim­ple ma­jor­ity votes in the Sen­ate would make that cham­ber like the House, where the ma­jor­ity rules ab­solute­ly. But with a 60-vote thresh­old in the Sen­ate, the mi­nor­ity par­ty tends to rule ab­solute­ly on any is­sue lack­ing over­whelm­ing bi­par­ti­san sup­port.

That is be­cause on­ly the larg­est gang can muster 60 votes, and a pre­mium is placed on lead­er­ship loy­alty in the mi­nor­ity par­ty.

In a close­ly drawn Sen­ate, where nei­ther par­ty com­mands much of a ma­jor­ity, just two or three sen­a­tors from ei­ther par­ty can band to­gether to stop leg­is­la­tion from gar­ner­ing 51 votes, or to push com­pro­mise bills over the fin­ish line.

“It doesn’t take 51 votes to get some­thing done,” Mr. Lieber­man said. “It takes two or three peo­ple to get to­gether to form the 51.”

In the House, where loy­alty to lead­er­ship has been dom­i­nant, such bi­par­ti­san gangs are al­most un­heard of.

That is why Thurs­day’s No La­bels event could sig­ni­fy a re­al change.

The agen­da of these “Prob­lem Solver” law­mak­ers is mod­est: adopt­ing two-year bud­gets in­stead of the an­nual and bare­ly func­tion­ing one-year budget process; rid­ding the gov­ern­ment of du­pli­ca­tive pro­grams; merg­ing the elec­tron­ic health records of the De­part­ments of De­fense and Vet­er­ans Af­fairs; cut­ting fed­eral agency travel bud­gets in half; and com­mis­sion­ing pri­vate com­pa­nies to re­duce fed­eral en­ergy costs, then pay­ing them from the sav­ings they ex­tract.

But with 81 mem­bers, 73 from the House, 35 of those Re­pub­li­can, the group is ac­tu­al­ly reach­ing a crit­i­cal mass if it can stay to­gether.

“This is about find­ing nar­row sliv­ers where con­ser­v­a­tives and lib­er­als can get to­gether,” said Rep­re­sent­a­tive Mick Mul­vaney, a con­serva­tive Re­pub­li­can from South Car­o­lina and a mem­ber of the Prob­lem Solvers group. “You can’t run be­fore you walk. You have to build up trust.”

Those coali­tions could be a mark of the per­sonal frus­tra­tion that even mem­bers of Re­pub­li­can lead­er­ship say they feel.

“It’s im­por­tant the Amer­i­can peo­ple re­al­ize not ev­ery­one is up here to score po­lit­i­cal points,” said Rep­re­sent­a­tive Lynn Jenk­ins of Kansas, a mem­ber of the Re­pub­li­can lead­er­ship. “We’re try­ing to find com­mon ground.”

Law­mak­ers “are pret­ty de­pressed about it,” Mr. Welch said.

“Noth­ing can get done,” he went on. “You have to go to work know­ing you’re not go­ing to ac­com­plish any­thing through the leg­is­la­tive process, and that’s a pret­ty tough place to be for a leg­is­la­tive body.”