On the 19th of January, the Bay State [Massachusetts] held a special election to fill the senate seat which was occupied by the late Edward Kennedy [a democrat] for almost half a century which was now filed on an interim basis by one of his former assistants. Massachusetts is the nearest thing to a totally Democratic state, it registers 3 Democrats to 1 Republican, currently all its high elected officials are Democrats.  The state has never elected a Republican for a U.S. senate seat for almost fifty years, this recent contest for the Kennedy seat was fought by one very well known Democrat.  Martha Coakley the current state attorney general, she was challenged by Scott Brown, a fifty years old state senator and a Republican, Scot Brown was much less known who had a fairly difficult  life in his early years but had finally settled in the state’s senate representing Wrentham the city from were he came.  The Democrats never doubted the chances of their candidate, her success was taken for granted, but when the ballots were finally counted they had a very nasty surprise.  The favorite lost and the outsider was the winner with a very comfortable margin, Scott Brown was now the 41 republican U.S. Senator

Coakley was expected to win easily to replace Senator Kennedy who was known as the liberal lion f the senate who has made health care reform the centerpiece of his 47 years senate career.  Kennedy died from brain cancer in august.  On the other hand Brown was under funded in a state which had never elected a U.S. senator since 1972 also the Democrats control the governorship and both houses of the state legislature which made a Coakley win a foregone conclusion.  A week before the election everything changed suddenly and very dramatically and when the ballots were counted at the end of the day the unthinkable has happened, the little known state senator has won the race and with fairly wide margin, Scott Brown had gained 54% of the votes against Ms Coackley’s 47%.
The success of Scott Brown delivered a stunning and a very painful blow to the Democratic leadership and to the President’s own domestic agenda and the first casualty seems to have been the Presidents’ effort to reform the health care system.  Scott Brown’s senate vote, the 41st  Republican voice will strip the Democrats of the 60 senate supermajority which has been their real weapon against a stubborn and a very solid Republican opposition and delaying tactics during the months the reform bill was debated in the Senate, this will also create immense difficulties in the future when they have to take action on a broad range of White House priories.

Health care reform was the President’s top domestic priority, and because of the great challenges reforming  it has presented he had to revert to the tactics he was using during his campaign for the presidency during the summer months of 2008, but the public debate on the issue and from vey early on was marred by a lot of bitterness which was encouraged by increasingly vocal and organized critics which was engendering intense opposition and skepticism over the plans the president and his allies were advocating.  One of the President’s favorite tools were the town hall meetings were he would roll up his sleeves, discards his tie and jacket and start his talks which were very always very nice and informing, but in other town halls similar meetings were going on all over the country which were attended by legislatures who are already home in their congressional districts for the august recess, but those meetings were almost always tense and electrified, harsh words were always exchanged  and sometimes threats were made against lawmakers who were supporting health care  reform.  They were generally uncivilized and in the end they served no useful purpose and discussed nothing of the basic problems which were responsible for the worrying an very sad state of the country’s health care system and a manifestation of the divisions which are gripping the country but with the end of the summer recess the legislators returned to Washington, there they awaited them two huge bills one in each house of congress for their evaluation and final approval.

The story of the passage of the draft bills through Congress, the one in the house and the one in the Senate especially the last one is a very long and not a very appealing one for that matter because the bill was dealt with by the Democratic majority as a Democratic party initiative and not as a national necessity which was a very good reason for the Republicans to oppose it from the start and remained adamantly against it during the long months it was under consideration in congress.  A solid wall of  40 Senators always in opposition except I think on very few occasions when of theirs voted with the Democrats on some non-vital issues, but the Democrats were very happy with their majority or rather what came to be known as the supermajority which was actually made up of 58 Democratic senators and 2 independents who were allied to them and allowed them to beat all the Republican’s attempts at filibuster and other delaying tactics, but it was a fragile majority which was made up of liberals moderates and conservative Democrats which necessitated a great deal of pressure and arm twisting and compromises and deals not always transparent and acceptable, like the one which was used to appease one of their members with very lucrative concessions to his own state allowing them to get his vote for one critical voting, the Senate majority pushed very hard and often with a very strong backing from the White House when finally and on the eve of Christmas they were able to pass it by their 60 votes majority against 40 Republicans a decision which was hailed by the President as a great victory to the American people but the Republicans were not convinced and said that the whole process was flawed.

The passage of the senate bill which was a huge 2074 pages document paved the way for its reconciliation with the slightly smaller house of representative’s draft which has been passed by the House few days earlier with a very small majority, there was a good deal of similarities between the two versions but also few differences which needed working out, the tradition in these circumstances is to convene a conference of the two chambers to iron out the differences.  The reconciliation process was conducted by the leaderships of the two houses with the rank and file informed of the progress when and if it did happen the idea was to hammer out the differences between the two bills and send the final version as quickly as possible to the White House for the President’s signature.  But before that could be accomplished Massachusetts voted in a special election to fill the late senator Edward Kennedy’s seat which was now filled on an interim basis and as we have already seen and against all expectations the voting ended against the favorite who was a Democrat and went to the lesser known Republican challenger Scott Brown.  The Republican’s capture of the Democrat’s safe seat was a stunning blow to the Democrats, it deprived them of their majority and left them confused as to what to do next and the first casualty was the health care reform bill and for sometime they were thinking of forcing approved Senate’s bill on the House and send it to the White House for the President’s signature, but they finally realized that would not be a popular move and certainly not when the county was going to have midterm elections in few months time.  So the health care overhaul which was on the President’s topmost domestic priority was put on hold at least for the foreseeable future.

The loss of the Democrat’s safe Massachusetts senate seat was a great blow and the its first casualty was the health care overhaul on which they were concentrating for the last year, it was also in the view of a lot of people a kind of confidence vote in the president himself and his ability to deliver on his campaign promises which has not been very good for his image or his job ratings.  Things has to change, things cannot go on this year like the last one. Let us pray.

Najeeb Hanoudi
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Southfield, Michigan
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