An open letter to the Pacific Northwest members of the House Republican caucus

Edi­tor’s note: The fol­low­ing let­ter was trans­mit­ted by fac­sim­i­le to the offices of Dave Reichert, Greg Walden, and Mike Simp­son this morn­ing. A slight­ly dif­fer­ent let­ter was sent to Raul Labrador, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, and Doc Hast­ings, who are known for being hard­lin­ers. All of the afore­men­tioned indi­vid­u­als rep­re­sent (or pur­port to rep­re­sent) por­tions of Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon, and Ida­ho in the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as Republicans. 

Dear Rep­re­sen­ta­tive:

As of tomor­row, Octo­ber 17th, 2013, we will have reached the point at which the Depart­ment of the Trea­sury says it will no longer have the abil­i­ty to use “extra­or­di­nary mea­sures” to con­tin­ue pay­ing bills on behalf of the Unit­ed States. Fur­ther­more, it will have been two and a half weeks since much of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment had to shut down due to you and your Repub­li­can col­leagues’ inde­fen­si­ble refusal to pass a con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion to keep pub­lic ser­vices that depend on con­gres­sion­al appro­pri­a­tions open and functioning.

I am writ­ing to ask you to join House Democ­rats in vot­ing for the leg­is­la­tion that Sen­ate lead­ers from both par­ties are draw­ing up that would reopen the gov­ern­ment and autho­rize Trea­sury to pay our nation’s bills. An agree­ment has been reached and the Sen­ate is expect­ed to cod­i­fy it with­in the next few hours.

I ful­ly appre­ci­ate that in cast­ing such a vote, you’ll be risk­ing the wrath of some in your par­ty who see Demo­c­ra­t­ic capit­u­la­tion as the only accept­able out­come of this man­u­fac­tured fis­cal cri­sis. But I’m ask­ing you to take that vote anyway.

I’m ask­ing you to put your coun­try first and restore some sem­blance of calm and con­fi­dence in our sys­tem of gov­ern­ment, which appears to be mal­func­tion­ing hor­ri­bly because your cau­cus is in the grip of extremists.

Yes­ter­day, your col­league, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Her­rera-Beut­ler, released a state­ment in which she pledged to vote to end the shut­down and pre­vent us from default­ing. Here is an excerpt from her news release:

Despite my skep­ti­cism, until now I have refrained from pub­lic com­ment on the House bud­get nego­ti­at­ing strat­e­gy. I want­ed to give House Repub­li­can lead­ers lee­way to craft the best deal they could. But it’s time to reopen the gov­ern­ment and ensure we don’t default on our debt. I will not vote for poi­son pills that have no chance of pass­ing the Sen­ate or being signed into law. […] Noth­ing pos­i­tive will be achieved by pro­long­ing this shut­down any longer, or cross­ing the debt lim­it thresh­old. It’s time for my col­leagues to face reality.

Though I wish Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Her­rera-Beut­ler had said this weeks ago, I’m very glad she has final­ly cho­sen to go on the record and clear­ly state that she is pre­pared to vote to reopen our gov­ern­ment and pay our bills.

I ask that you now make the same pub­lic com­mit­ment that she has.

Even the peo­ple who run the orga­ni­za­tions who have been demand­ing that House Repub­li­cans take a hard line appear to under­stand what the real­i­ty is.

Just this morn­ing, the chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of Her­itage Action, Michael Need­ham, was on Fox’s Amer­i­ca’s News­room, and he admit­ted that what House Repub­li­cans have been try­ing to accom­plish is not realistic:

Well, every­body knows that we’re not going to be able to repeal this law until 2017, and that we have to win the Sen­ate and win the White House.

So what’s with the hostage-tak­ing, then? It has not led to any pos­i­tive out­come of any kind. As your col­league Peter King told The Wash­ing­ton Post: “We didn’t get any­thing. This has been a total waste of time.”

Sen­a­tor John McCain, your par­ty’s nom­i­nee for pres­i­dent in 2008, said much the same thing ear­li­er this week. I quote: “Repub­li­cans have to under­stand we have lost this bat­tle, as I pre­dict­ed weeks ago, that we would not be able to win because we were demand­ing some­thing that was not achievable.”

I get that you don’t like the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act. You don’t have to like it. I’ve yet to meet a fel­low cit­i­zen or activist, pro­gres­sive or con­ser­v­a­tive, who thought that it was per­fect. My team and I don’t think the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act is enough. We believe Amer­i­ca needs and deserves Medicare For All.

But the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act is the law of this coun­try, and it has the poten­tial to do a tremen­dous amount of good once it is imple­ment­ed. It was passed by a major­i­ty of the House, approved by the Sen­ate after over­com­ing a fil­i­buster, signed by the Pres­i­dent, upheld by the Supreme Court of the Unit­ed States, and sanc­tioned by the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States in the last election.

The Repub­li­can Par­ty had an oppor­tu­ni­ty last year to per­suade vot­ers to elect some­one who cam­paigned for more than a year on a plat­form that includ­ed repeal of the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act as a cen­tral tenet. A great deal of time and mon­ey was cer­tain­ly spent in the attempt. But it was not suc­cess­ful. Barack Oba­ma was reelect­ed, Mitt Rom­ney was defeat­ed, and my par­ty, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, picked up seats in both hous­es of Con­gress. That was the out­come of the 2012 elections.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it seems your cau­cus has for­got­ten what the will of the vot­ers was less than one year ago. You were elect­ed to help gov­ern this coun­try too, but so far this month, you and your col­leagues have refused to do your jobs.

You’ve shut down much of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for no good rea­son and brought us to the brink of default. Is it any won­der that Con­gress’ approval rat­ing is at an all-time low? Peo­ple are absolute­ly disgusted.

I have to won­der: Is win­ning more impor­tant than gov­ern­ing to you? Because your actions (or lack there­of) have left me with that impression.

I don’t make this obser­va­tion as a proud Demo­c­rat, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive… I make it as a dis­mayed Amer­i­can. The world is watch­ing and won­der­ing why the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca can’t get its act togeth­er. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and Sen­ate Democ­rats have offered to nego­ti­ate a bud­get if the House would only vote to reopen our gov­ern­ment and pay the bills. The House has, so far, refused.

My par­ty did not win back the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last year, even though most Amer­i­cans who vot­ed cast a vote for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date for U.S. House.

I could go on a long rant about the role that ger­ry­man­der­ing and Cit­i­zens Unit­ed played in help­ing Repub­li­cans win, but I won’t.

Instead, I’ll say this: I accept that, for the time being, your par­ty has a major­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. I don’t like it, but I accept it.

How­ev­er, it isn’t clear to me that every­one in your cau­cus accepts that Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma is the legit­i­mate­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. You and your col­leagues talk a lot about coop­er­a­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion, but the Ted Cruz fan club in your cau­cus insists on capit­u­la­tion. That’s not a rea­son­able posi­tion. And black­mail is not an accept­able leg­isla­tive strategy.

Had the elec­tion turned out dif­fer­ent­ly, I feel con­fi­dent Con­gress would be work­ing on pri­or­i­ties like immi­gra­tion reform and tax reform under Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi, instead of star­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of default while hun­dreds of thou­sands of pub­lic work­ers are at home or idle due to the unnec­es­sary shutdown.

You and your col­leagues con­trol the U.S. House. As Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, you swore or affirmed an oath to defend the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States.

The Con­sti­tu­tion charges you with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of gov­ern­ing, and more specif­i­cal­ly, bud­get­ing. Arti­cle II, Sec­tion 8 explic­it­ly states, “The Con­gress shall have Pow­er To lay and col­lect Tax­es, Duties, Imposts and Excis­es, to pay the Debts and pro­vide for the com­mon Defence and gen­er­al Wel­fare of the Unit­ed States.”

Sec­tion 8 also pro­vides that Con­gress shall have pow­er “To bor­row Mon­ey on the cred­it of the Unit­ed States.”

I think you’re well aware that through­out our his­to­ry, Con­gress has used its pow­er to bor­row mon­ey to finance the gov­ern­men­t’s oper­a­tions. Decades ago we bor­rowed huge sums of mon­ey to fight the Depres­sion and win World War II.

More recent­ly, the inva­sions of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as George W. Bush’s Medicare Pre­scrip­tion Drug, Improve­ment, and Mod­ern­iza­tion Act, were financed on Amer­i­ca’s cred­it card by Repub­li­cans. At the same time, Repub­li­cans gave the wealthy huge tax breaks that they did­n’t need.

We are still liv­ing with the con­se­quences of those decisions.

I do not have a prob­lem with you express­ing oppo­si­tion to the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, or to the bud­get pro­posed by Sen­ate Democ­rats. I do not view par­ti­san­ship or ide­ol­o­gy as evils. I view par­ti­san­ship and ide­ol­o­gy as healthy and nec­es­sary in a democ­ra­cy. Any­one with a posi­tion on any issue can be called a par­ti­san, whether they are affil­i­at­ed with a polit­i­cal par­ty or not.

Fur­ther­more, any­one who uses the pro­gres­sive or con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues sys­tem (or a mix­ture of both) in their polit­i­cal think­ing is an ide­o­logue. There is no tak­ing par­ti­san­ship or ide­ol­o­gy out of demo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­tics, because if peo­ple do not have the free­dom to dis­agree, they are not free. Par­ti­san­ship does­n’t equal extremism.

But when par­ti­san­ship is com­bined with mil­i­tant means and a demand for a lot of change in a short peri­od of time, the result is extrem­ism. Sad­ly, your cau­cus, the House Repub­li­can cau­cus, is in the grip of extrem­ism. The extrem­ists are in con­trol and the rest of us are their hostages.

I have a prob­lem with that.… as do most of my fel­low Americans.

If the House were tru­ly a demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tion, it would have already vot­ed to reopen the gov­ern­ment, because enough Repub­li­cans have indi­vid­u­al­ly issued state­ments like Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Her­rera-Beut­ler’s, say­ing they’d vote for a clean con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion. I’d wager there are even more Repub­li­cans will­ing to sup­port just autho­riz­ing Trea­sury to con­tin­ue pay­ing our nation’s bills.

But because of the so-called Hastert rule, there has been no such vote. There have only been votes on piece­meal bills to fund a few dif­fer­ent agen­cies that have become the poster chil­dren of the shut­down, like the Nation­al Park Service.

The time for games and gim­micks is over. This shut­down needs to end, and the Amer­i­can peo­ple and the world need to know that the Unit­ed States will pay its bills. Please com­mit today to vot­ing in favor of the leg­is­la­tion the Sen­ate is putting togeth­er to resolve this man­u­fac­tured cri­sis… and to cross­ing the aisle to do so, if nec­es­sary. Show us that you’re an Amer­i­can first and a Repub­li­can second.

Sin­cere­ly,

Andrew Vil­leneuve
Founder and exec­u­tive director
North­west Pro­gres­sive Institute