Color me still a bit amazed that in thirteen days we're really going to seat a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. Going on the hope that this really isn't just a dream we're all going to wake up from on Jan. 5, this new congress presents us with both challenge and a ripe opportunity. Here's what I mean by that. One thing very wrong with the Democratic side of Washington DC today is a one of architecture -- Dem office holders and their staff exist in a silo, outside of which exists the network of progressive think tanks, writers, advocacy groups, and the like. There's not much overlap, and the think tanks can't get their wisdom into play on the Hill, staffers don't read progressive writers, advocacy groups orbit in a different universe than Dem members.
But the opportunity before us is that we're getting 41 new reps
and 9 new senators, most of them new to the strange ways of the
Hill. More importantly, each of those new members will have an office
full of new staff. If tradition holds, they'll soon be operating
in a vacuum, neglecting to tap into the support and smarts of the
progressive infrastructure. But if they don't know that's how it's
supposed to be, I propose that we don't tell them. Instead, in the
first weeks and months, we convince them that the way we've always
done business is that everybody with a progressive interest sits
around a table and figures things out.
On the the Republican side, there's a robust relationship between
staffers and think tanks and outside groups. It's not unusual to
see Heritage Foundation reports end up reworked as talking points
on the Senate floor. There's also the American Enterprise Institute,
and the Mercatus Institute runs an
annual retreat for chiefs of staff (an event billed as bipartisan,
even Mercatus gets their funding from, among others, Richard Mellon
Scaife, whom you might remember from his decades-long pursuit of
Bill Clinton). Beyond just think tanks, they have a stable of writers
republished in major newspapers and magazines, even book imprints.
Part of the problem is that the we just don't yet have the diverse and mature intellectual infrastructure that they do on the right, but that's not to say that the left doesn't already have its superstars. One of the best is a small public-policy think tank based in New York City called the Drum Major Institute. They've just recently released a report called Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class, the gist of which is that immigration policy should expand and strengthen America's middle class while meeting a two-pronged test: (1) it should bolster contribution that immigrants make to the economy as workers and (2) it must strengthen the workplace rights of workers.
Getting exactly that sort of thing into the hands of new Democratic staffers is important, first because it'll lead to better public policy. Hill staffers are both overworked and isolated. A simple two-pronged test like that is a tool that actually helps them to do their jobs better. But beyond that, cultivating ties between outside groups and insiders builds a stronger progressive movement. Too many Democratic professionals are just that -- professional Democrats. Getting Dem staffers working with think tanks, seeing that there is a infrastructure out there, persuades them to see that there is life as a professional progressive. There are job opportunities out there that don't require hitching your wagon to this candidate or that one, fulfilling things that you can do in progressive politics that are lucrative enough to build a life on.
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