Guest Blog: Senator Bingaman, You Work for Us Summer Tour

This is a guest blog by Barbara Grothus, sending along a report from a small group of grassroots activists who requested a meeting with Senator Jeff Bingaman, and who had an opportunity to sit down with him this past Monday in Albuquerque for a productive discussion. It's cross-posted at Firedoglake as an excellent example of using their You Work for Us Summer Tour idea.

Our small group met with Senator Bingaman at a chain restaurant near the airport where he was between flights to small NM towns.  He arrived with a fact sheet designed to dispel the Republican Main-Stream-Media Talking Point that we have a "Do-Nothing Congress."  The list of legislation passed and signed, passed and waiting to be signed, and passed in both houses but awaiting completion of conference reports is impressive.  Unfortunately, the list of legislation passed AND SIGNED was quite short, making it clear that we need more than a marginal Democratic majority if we hope to see significant change.

Senator Bingaman was very clear that the agenda has certainly been changed by the Democratic Congress.  Under bare-bones Democratic control, there have been significant legislative accomplishments on behalf of students and children (higher education, head start, student loans, health insurance), workers (raise in minimum wage), small businesses (tax relief), the environment and energy (renewables, efficiency, biofuels), implementation of 9-11 Commission Recommendations, more benefits for war vets, significant ethics reform, and support for research and development (from the National Labs to schools) to increase America's competitive edge. 

Our group is aware that the 110th Congress has been productive with some very good legislation, including ethics reform, however, we were more interested in discussing our disappointment that the message sent by the voters last November has failed to penetrate the Washington bubble.

Our representative from Voter Action had prepared his own handout for the Senator on the disaster of Senator Feinstein's pathetic attempt at voting protection.  In contrast, the superior bill HB 811 (Holt) needs sponsors in the Senate.  Paul emphasized the strong (paper, verifiable) and weak (audit needs improvement) elements of New Mexico's voting reforms, and he encouraged Senator Bingaman to become a Senate sponsor of S.559, the Senate version of the Holt bill.

We had a great opportunity to press Senator Bingaman over issues like FISA.  What happened?  Was it leadership failure?  How did this get the support of 16 Democratic Senators?

In brief, it appears that being called "unpatriotic" and "soft on terror" is more terrifying to some elected officials than the loss of habeas corpus.  Further, the 6 month limit and legislative weariness (August break) compelled many to vote for the FISA bill. 

We discussed the criminal activity throughout the executive branch, subpoenas, and especially the failure of Democrats to create and always use effective talking points to counter the prevailing message of the Republican-controlled corporate media. We suggested that the Democrats adopt the strategy of attacking perceived Republican strengths: for example when the Republicans accuse the Democrats of being weak on national defense, instead of denying the charge, the Democrats should strike back by pointing out that the US spends more on national defense than all the rest of the world combined. This does contribute to national security, but it is national lunacy, because it results in wrong-headed budgets that leave us fatally vulnerable to collapsed bridges, not to mention lost cities from breached levees, an unimaginable horror from which there remains no recovery.

Raul Torrez, an Assistant Attorney General noted that along with our failing infrastructure, all the resources--time, energy, money--that are being consumed by Iraq and necessary investigations of the Executive Branch results in practically no resources available to deal effectively with other pressing domestic problems such as a growing methamphetamine epidemic. 

What the people want most is to end the war and to have universal single-payer health care.  With regard to the war, we emphasized that Democrats want to see some strong indications of push-back against the Republican policy of continuing the war indefinitely.  The Democratic base would be energized, even though the votes aren't there yet.  As one of our group said, "We have your back".

The bottom line on the war (as with all legislation) is that we need 60 votes in the Senate.  A campaign to influence some Senators who have been unwilling to cross the President is the only hope.  Senator Domenici, you work for us. We need to talk.

Editor's Note: This is a guest blog by Barbara Grothus. Guest blogs provide our readers with an opportunity to express their views on relevant political topics and may or may not represent our views. If you'd like to submit a post for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of the page.