Two weeks after his 2014 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama sat down and signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 from $7.25. A month later he signed another executive order expanding overtime pay. The orders were small steps, but they back up the underlying message from the State of the Union; the president, along with the rest of his party, is abandoning trying to work with Republicans and has resolved to govern in spite of them.
Call it do-it-yourself-governance or bring-your-own-government, Democrats are giving up on bipartisan accomplishment. The party has been pushing in this direction since 2009, but Obama defeated primary opponent Hillary Clinton by running on a platform of bipartisanship, and thus had to make a go of it once in office. The president did indeed believe his own shtick. As explained in John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s Double Down, in his first term alone President Obama moved away from a single-payer healthcare law, instead enacting an individual mandate that originated at the conservative Heritage Foundation, with his underlying policy inspired by Republican Governor Mitt Romney. The bipartisan health care conceits were in addition to a cap-and-trade policy akin to George H. W. Bush’s and a market-friendly auto-industry bailout. “I didn’t nationalize the banks when everyone, even Alan Greenspan, said I should,” a disgruntled Obama would think to himself, according to Heilemann and Halperin.[1]
Meanwhile, as the president attempted compromise on health care, climate change, banks and the auto industry, GOP leadership vowed to deny passage of any of his legislation along with a second term. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was even quoted in 2010 saying that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”[2]
Now, with one term complete and the least legislatively productive congressional class in American history, the president has decided to join the rest of his party in stepping over the Republicans, who are busy fighting their own internal battle. The seeds which had been sown as early as 2009 are sprouting. Minimum wage and overtime pay are just the beginning.
Many of the President’s Democratic peers were quicker to catch on that no progress was to be made hand-in-hand with the modern Republican Party. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid triggered the “nuclear option” in November 2013, changing the Senate rules to prevent filibustering federal judiciall nominees and executive office appointments. Reid was hesitant to go forward with the rule change, but “It’s time to get the Senate moving again,” he said, referring to the most filibuster-happy Congress in American history.[3] A Republican minority in the Senate had filibustered, or more commonly, threatened to filibuster, enough nominees, including former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, enough to change Reid’s mind, and by extension, the Senate’s parliamentary rules.
One senator who voted along with Reid to trigger the “nuclear option” was Massachusetts’s Elizabeth Warren, a living testament to the Democrats’ new govern-in-spite-of attitude. Warren swept in to the Senate in 2012, ousting Republican Scott Brown who became a beloved underdog when he won a special election against the heavily-favored Martha Coakley in 2010. The Republican Party may have been able to keep Brown’s seat in the heavily blue if he had been up against a weaker candidate. Elizabeth Warren was no such weak candidate, but she only ended up running for Senate because of Republican obstructionism. Warren was put forth as a potential head of her brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but was later withdrawn from consideration when “administration officials became convinced that [she] could not overcome strong Republican opposition.”[4] Now Massachusetts has two Democratic senators again.
Congress has been reflecting upon the left’s new DIY attitude for years, but the executive branch has not lagged far behind. The Justice Department has stepped over Republicans both in drug policy and marriage equality, much to the ire of the political right. For example, Attorney General Eric Holder declared that the administration would no longer implement mandatory minimum sentences for certain non-violent drug offenders in 2013. This was a more legal step than the Justice Department ignoring federal marijuana laws, which began when Colorado and Washington both allowed recreational use of marijuana, a federally prohibited drug. The federal government’s apathy in this regard is highly reminiscent of the administration’s reluctance to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was in effect until 2013, but was de facto brushed aside by many states going forward with marriage equality on their own. A(n eventual) supporter of marriage equality, Obama allowed same-sex marriages while DOMA was still technically the law of the land.
Even the president himself was pulling away from bipartisanship as early as his flagship legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. As the health care debate raged on, spilling over from 2009 to 2010, the president and his fellow Democrats utilized the reconciliation process to pass Obamacare, which was otherwise most likely doomed. However, he still moved through Congress.
Fast-forward four years and the president has finally realized that if he is to get anything done, it will be done without Republican support. When Obama said in his State of the Union Address that “Wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation… that’s what I’m going to do,” and “I will act on my own,” he meant it. Republicans should expect more in the vein of the nuclear option, more Democrats like Elizabeth Warren who will not be content to live in the purgatory of Republican obstructionism. What began as Justice Department policies and reconciliation votes may turn into a torrent of executive actions. Senator McConnell failed in “the single most important thing [Republicans] want[ed] to achieve” — denying the President a second term– and it looks like he will regret it.
Kevin Briskin
International Affairs ’16
@kevin_briskin
References:
[1] John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Double Down: Game Change 2012 (New York, Penguin, 2013), 14.
[2] “When did McConnell say he wanted to make Obama a ‘one-term president’?” last modified September 25, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/when-did-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/2012/09/24/79fd5cd8-0696-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html
[3] “Reid, Democrats trigger ‘nuclear’ option; eliminate most filibusters on nominees,” last modified November 21, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limit-filibusters-in-party-line-vote-that-would-alter-centuries-of-precedent/2013/11/21/d065cfe8-52b6-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html
[4] “GOP stalls confirmation of consumer agency nominee,” last modified September 7, 2011, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/07/business/la-fi-consumer-bureau-cordray-20110907
