... A SENATOR FOR
THE WORKING CLASS
(From Page 1)
he had to file a petition to close debate.
In the first six years that Harry Reid
was majority leader, there were 281 fil-
ibusters.
Have things gotten better since you
began campaigning for filibuster re-
form?
Only in one sense. I was able to
champion the first major rule change
in 39 years, which passed last Novem-
ber, which lowered the number needed
to close debate on nominations (except
for Supreme Court) from a 60-member
supermajority to a simple majority of
51. This is why we have a National La-
bor Relations Board that’s been con-
firmed. It’s why we have Tom Perez as
Labor secretary. It’s also why the pres-
ident was able to get Gina McCarthy
in as head of EPA, and Richard Cor-
dray as head of the Consumer Finan-
cial Protection Bureau.
When you want to change some-
thing, you need an inside-outside coali-
tion to bring pressure to bear. I teamed
up with a group called Fix Our Senate
Now. My own [Senate Democratic]
leadership was quite upset with me in
January 2013 for having made their life
more difficult with the pressure from
outside. They ignored that pressure.
They did some little tweaks based on a
promise from the Republican leader to
restore the norms and traditions of the
Senate regarding nominations. How-
ever, in short order, the Republican
leader did not honor that, and pro-
ceeded to allow Senator McCain to en-
gage in the first-ever filibuster of a De-
fense Secretary — ironically his own
former Republican colleague Chuck
Hagel. Then, a letter from 43 senators
said that they would filibuster anyone
nominated to head the Consumer Fi-
nancial Protection Bureau — they
weren’t going to let that agency do its
job protecting Americans from preda-
tory practices. That led then to my
leadership saying, “We’ll work with
you and try to take forward some re-
forms.”
We’ve got a lot more to do. We cer-
tainly need to take on the legislative
side.
There’s growing consensus that
the Senate is broken. It’s not passing
legislation. It’s not appropriating
money. Until this year it wasn’t con-
firming presidential appointees at any
level, judicial or executive. That part
is fixed for now …
Not fixed. We’ve doubled the pace
at which judges are confirmed. How-
ever, executive branch nominees are
still being slow-walked. We have a
huge number of missing ambassadors,
a huge number of second- and third-
tier appointees. We can close debate on
the most important and visible folks —
PAGE 4
the head of the agency, or cabinet sec-
retaries. But tons of executive branch
positions are still unfilled, and it’s re-
ally unacceptable.
Before any Democratic agenda is
passed, the filibuster has to be re-
formed. So why haven’t you found
more support to change it?
We must change it, in order to take
on the big issues facing America. As
long as the filibuster is allowed in its
current form, it gives veto power to the
wealthiest special interests to block
every pro-worker possibility. Majority
leader [Harry] Reid has become a big
fan of fixing these things. That’s ter-
rific to have him as a partner. The
change I’m proposing would take a
rules change. The target date would be
January of next year. I’m hoping we’ll
have enough senators to be able to do
that in January.
It could have been done at the be-
ginning of this Congress.
It could have been, and I proposed
an extensive change in January 2013.
But at that point the leadership was still
trying to work it out on a cooperative
basis. I’d already held enough meet-
ings with my Republican colleagues to
realize they weren’t going to help
make the place work.
If the Senate becomes functional
again, what’s some legislation that
would be near and dear to your
heart?
Living wage jobs. In this last reces-
sion, 60 percent of jobs lost were living
wage jobs, and only 40 percent of the
jobs we’re getting back are living wage
jobs. That means millions of Ameri-
cans have lost their financial founda-
tion, and they’re chasing part-time,
near-to-minimum-wage, low-to-no-
benefit positions that are completely
insufficient for raising a family.
So are you talking about raising
the minimum wage?
Well that’s a piece. The Harkin pro-
posal would raise it to $10.10.
What are the prospects for passing
that?
We lost it on a filibuster. But you
have to put things forward even when
you don’t think at that moment you can
pass them, because you’ve got to build
the national conversation and the coali-
tion to make it happen.
Apart from living wage jobs, I have
a whole list of things I’m advocating
for. A huge factor in the American
Dream is education. And the thing that
has gone up fastest, faster than the rate
of standard inflation, is college tuition.
That, combined with the fact that Pell
grants cover less, has resulted in a mas-
sive increase in student loans. And stu-
dent loans are not just weighing heav-
ily on students who have borrowed the
U.S Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), pictured right, visits a Southeast Portland auto shop March 22, 2012, for a
discussion with small business owners about the Affordable Care Act.
money and now don’t have a job that
pays enough to pay the money back. It
also weighs heavily on our high school
students who are thinking about
whether or not they’re going to pursue
their dreams. I live in a working class
community, the same one I’ve lived in
since third grade, the David Douglas
area out in far east Portland. And I hear
the parents talking about how they’re
not sure if they should encourage kids
to get an education because they might
end up with a debt the size of a mill-
stone around their neck. So there’s a
crushing of aspirations.
Pell grants need to keep pace. Gal-
loping tuition inflation has to be
stopped. We need to have low-interest
loans for students. Those loans should
never be viewed as a source of profit to
the federal government. We should be
investing in our students, not profiting
off them. And we should enable those
who have student loans — and
500,000 Oregonians have student loans
— to refinance them, to take advantage
of today’s low interest rates. That’s op-
posed by my colleagues. We had a bill
on this, and the Republicans stopped a
motion to proceed. We couldn’t get the
60 votes to go forward.
On trade policy, you’re regarded as
a fair-trader, someone labor looks
upon as an ally. What’s your position
on fast track [a provision that requires
a sped-up vote in Congress on a trade
agreement, with limited debate and no
possibility of amendment]? Would you
give the president fast track negotiat-
ing authority?
I’m extremely skeptical about fast
track. We haven’t even seen what is in
the TPP [Trans Pacific Partnership, a
trade agreement the White House is se-
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
cretly negotiating with 11 Pacific Rim
nations.] We’re talking essentially
about a trade treaty, right?
In theory.
Well, in practice, it’s not a trade
treaty. It’s an agreement. Why? So you
can bypass the supermajority require-
ment of the U.S. Constitution for a
treaty. Our forefathers said when we
make an agreement with another coun-
try that has semi-judicial properties, it
should be subject to a supermajority.
Here, with fast track, we’re trying to
grease the passage so that it’s easier
than a normal bill to get passed. And
yet it has these profound conse-
quences, including what bills we can
pass at a state level across this country.
My test for any trade treaty is: Does
this create a level playing field that en-
hances our ability to have more good-
paying jobs? Most trade agreements
have not met that test. So I’m certainly
not going to fast track something the
details of which have not even been
shared with the public.
Where are you on immigration re-
form?
The Senate did a pretty good job of
getting a bipartisan agreement on a
very complicated set of issues, and
while it’s not perfect, it’s a lot better
than the broken system we have. I hope
the House can see its way free to vote
on it. They probably won’t. It certainly
doesn’t look like it’s possible this cy-
cle. That’s deeply damaging to Amer-
ica that they won’t even debate an im-
migration bill. If they could even get
part of one passed, we could get to a
conference committee and fix some of
the problems of our current system.
What are some key differences be-
tween you and your opponent, Mon-
ica Wehby?
My opponent is pushing for the
Romney tax plan, which would give
massive tax breaks to the richest Amer-
icans. She’s pushing for a territorial tax
system, which would incentivize ship-
ping jobs overseas. She’s for eliminat-
ing the estate tax, which only applies
to people who have more than $5 mil-
lion. How many working families have
$5 million to pass on to their kids?
These are often funds that were never
taxed by capital gains, so if they don’t
have an estate tax, then they escape
taxation completely. So she is working
the agenda of the super-rich. And I’m
working for working families.
What gives you hope for 2015 and
beyond, assuming you’re sent back to
Washington by the voters of Oregon?
You know, my wife Mary and I
wrestled with whether I should run
again, given the enormous obstacles to
having an ordinary legislative debate.
And the thing that we felt was, number
one: I’ve been able to get a bunch of
things passed that have helped people,
despite the dysfunction of the current
system. And two: I’m helping to lead a
fight to restore the functionality. To give
up on that could have a profoundly neg-
ative impact on workers across this land.
So I want to win that fight to restore the
Senate to being a functioning body. It’s
not just that it can’t address significant
issues, though that is terrible. It’s also
driving enormous cynicism among our
youth to see this dysfunctional body,
and it’s deeply damaging America’s
reputation in the world, which has its
own set of costs. So I want to go back,
to continue this fight.
SEPTEMBER 19, 2014