John Adler's Awful Vote against Health Care Reform
When I lived in New Jersey, I volunteered for an idealistic progressive congressional candidate from my hometown, Haddonfield, who went on narrowly to win his race. John Adler was someone who fought for health reform while in the state senate, who had a near-perfect environmental rating, and who fought for substantial ethics and school-funding reforms. I'm honestly not quite sure, then, who the person is now voting against Democratic-bills in congress and who makes really poor justifications for doing so, such as
this explanatory letter in the
Philadelphia Inquirer. In his defense, Adler does raise the specter of the rising cost of health care, but he voted against a health care reform bill that would shave hundreds of billions of the federal deficit, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The new health care reform bill would extend health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans, extending coverage to nearly 94% of all Americans. At the core of such reform is a necessary public option that would finally provide real competition to the private insurance company monopoly over health care services. Representative Adler voted against these core issues when he voted "no" on health care reform.
I held my nose when Representative Adler voted earlier in the year to allow firearms into state parks, a clear misinterpretation of the Second Amendment and a vote that was blatant pandering to the conservative right. It is little wonder that political analysts are calling Adler's vote a
"serious political miscalculation" and a "vote against Obama." But Adler's vote against health care reform, along with supposed Republican "moderates" such as LoBiondo and Lance, is nothing short of heresy and a betrayal of his progressive principles. If I were still living in New Jersey, I would not volunteer for Adler's reelection campaign and would encourage others who supported his 2008 campaign to hold him accountable for his weak-kneed pandering to the right-wing at a moment of truth, real health care reform. Perhaps, had Adler been serving in congress in 1935, he would have voted against establishing Social Security for seniors because of a few concerns over the bill. He did what was the same thing when he was on the wrong side of history and voted against health care reform in 2009.
Labels: health care reform, John Adler, New Jersey, progressives
Connecticut Opens the Door for Marriage Equality for Gays -- New Jersey Should Follow Suit
Some rather incredible news today: Connecticut, via a landmark Supreme Court decision, has now
legalized gay marriage. For those of us who envision a future American culture where homophobia is a thing of the past, and equal rights are afforded to all, this action represents a huge step in the right direction. Supreme Court Justice Richard Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that "Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice." The state constitution is cited here, but legal protection for gay and lesbian couples, while not explicitly state as such, are part of the equal rights ethos of the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution, too.
New Jersey shouldn't wait to legalize gay marriage, as now Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut (Bravo, Connecticut) have all legalized gay marriage. What will make New Jersey's marriage equality law different, if it is indeed passed, is that it will legalize gay marriage through actual legislative vote. That vote should come sooner rather than later.
Labels: Connecticut, marriage equality, New Jersey
Short Post: Bipartisanship Dead?
For some reason, I've lately been thinking of bipartisan legislation (the original No Child Left Behind on the national level, for example, or environmental legislation here in New Jersey on the state level) and whether the country has become too polarized to make bipartisan legislation a reality. I'm thinking of this partly because the tenor and tone of the presidential contest is not at the high level I think it should be -- and I do, fairly or unfairly, blame conservatives for much of that negative tone.
Surely, the media's "frame narrative" that is told about bipartisanship (more ideological partisanship than ever before) needs unpacking, however accurate such a narrative may partly be. But have the dual poles of progressivism and conservatism become too distinct, too completely different to result in legislation in Washington that is, collectively speaking, for the good of the country? If, for example, comprehensive energy legislation that invested in alternative and renewable energy was also couple with something I vehemently oppose, new oil drilling in environmentally-safe (as safe as possible) sites, came up, I would support it. One reason that one commentator applauded Joe Biden as Obama's vp pick was because of bipartisanship purposes; Biden originally arrived in the senate at the time of less partisanship rankling and polarization.
Legislation must move forward when it meets certain qualitative and quantitative criteria of approval, and I would hope that the new administration and congress, come 2009, invoke a genuine spirit of bipartisanship, though I imagine that's an ideal that may not come to fruition.
Labels: bipartisanship, Congress, Joe Biden, New Jersey
