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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 2018)
4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2018 editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher JIM VAN NOSTRAND Editor Founded in 1873 JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager DEBRA BLOOM Business Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager PRO-CON Should the Democrats retain Pelosi as speaker of the House? AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California is cheered by a crowd of Democratic supporters during an election night event. CON: Rep. Pelosi bad for Democrats but worse for America PRO: House Democrats don’t need to replace Pelosi with a stronger progressive S ANTA CLARA, Calif. — The modern lead in helping their parties win and maintain speaker of the House is not solely the majorities. While detractors may point to the ideological leader of the majority party; Democrats’ eight-year stretch in the minority, nor is he or she simply a presiding officer guid- Pelosi did preside over the party’s initial return ing floor proceedings. to power in 2006, before Barack Obama Rather, the position requires leadership in became the face of the party. and across the institutional, legislative, and In her time as party leader, Pelosi has electoral arenas. Nancy Pelosi remains the excelled as a fundraiser, raking in millions in Democrat best suited to fulfill that role. campaign contributions, without which many First, the speaker leads the House of of her would-be challengers would have never Representatives as an institution within a sys- made it to Washington. tem of separated powers. The Nov. 6 elections also made it apparent Nancy Pelosi has 30 years of House that the progressive wing of the party may not experience, including service on the powerful be the key to majority status in the House. appropriations and intelligence com- While outspoken progressives mittees and as whip to her predecessor grabbed the headlines, the Democrats as leader, Dick Gephardt. owe much of their actual seat gain to Her time in Congress has spanned moderate victories in purple suburbs. six presidents and all manner of unified Achieving and maintaining and divided government. Pelosi has the the House majority requires party institutional knowledge and experience leadership that is willing to forego MATTHEW T. ideological litmus tests and provide that a challenger would almost cer- HARRIGAN some latitude to moderate members, as tainly lack, along with an appreciation of the sharing of power that defines our Pelosi did with the red-state Democrats fragmented national government. who rode Obama’s coattails to Washington in This is especially vital in a House that must 2008. work with and be a check against a president A “big tent” may not excite liberals who who has little regard for history and norms. want to see significant change, but that Second, the speaker possesses the respon- approach is often necessary for a congressional sibility of shepherding important bills through party seeking majority status. Congress and into law. Pelosi is widely lauded Thus, Nancy Pelosi’s experience and as a proficient legislative tactician and wrangler savvy make her the right choice for speaker in of votes. 2018, and such a pick would not preclude the In her first term as speaker, with Republican possibility of fresh Democratic leadership in President George W. Bush from 2007 to 2009, the future. Congress passed significant lobbying reform, As Pelosi herself has indicated, she can a major farm and energy bill, and several mea- navigate the troublesome waters of divided sures to address the financial crisis. government now, while the party grooms a new In the first two years of the Obama pres- class of leaders. idency, Pelosi played a significant role in As of this writing, those members who getting the president’s signature legislative expressed a willingness to vote against Pelosi achievements over the finish line, including the as speaker have not backed an actual chal- lenger. The 2020 elections have the potential Affordable Care Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the 2009 fiscal stimulus, Dodd-Frank, to deliver Democrats unified government and the opportunity to enact a more progressive and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal. Many of Pelosi’s progressive challengers agenda, but the party does not yet live in such cite the issues addressed by these bills as a world. cornerstones of their new agenda, yet Pelosi Matthew T. Harrigan is adjunct lecturer in herself achieved tangible results. the Department of Political Science at Santa Clara University. Third, modern speakers have taken the A RLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. — Rep. chief advocates of the Affordable Care Act, Nancy Pelosi has been dreaming of perhaps the single worst piece of health care returning to her role as the speaker of legislation in American history. the House of Representatives for more than Not only did the ACA force millions of seven years. It appears she’s finally going Americans out of health insurance policies they liked — after being promised repeatedly to get her second chance — and Americans that wouldn’t happen — it also subjected everywhere should be nervous. tens of millions of families to skyrocketing As speaker, Pelosi presided over some of health insurance premiums and deductibles. the worst years in modern American history. Premiums doubled from 2013 to 2017, While President George W. Bush often and HealthPocket reports the average deduct- gets most of the blame, and unfairly so, for ible for an Obamacare Bronze family plan the 2008 economic crash, few remember is a whopping $12,186 — well beyond what Democrats had been running Congress for most people can afford to spend in the midst nearly two years leading up to the recession, of a health care crisis. when Pelosi was the party’s most Even after all of these failures, it prominent and vocal leader. appears Nancy Pelosi hasn’t learned It was Pelosi, along with other her lesson. She’s still saying the best Democratic leaders like former Rep. way to solve America’s health care Barney Frank, who routinely called challenges is to repair Obamacare for reducing home lending standards — an impossibility, since it’s funda- to achieve political goals — directly JUSTIN mentally and hopelessly flawed. And contributing to the eventual collapse HASKINS she wants to impose costly renew- of the financial market. able-energy mandates in a ridiculous And according to former attempt to control the weather and battle Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission mem- ber Peter Wallison, Pelosi orchestrated what climate change. essentially amounts to a cover-up to hide the Pelosi has mocked and ridiculed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, ignorantly referring to the government’s role in the crash. thousands of dollars in extra cash delivered Even worse, Pelosi and her Democratic by the tax reform package to millions of colleagues attempted to fix the disaster they American families as “crumbs.” were partially responsible for by wasting And she’s called for raising taxes on job billions of taxpayer dollars on a horrible creators to fund her numerous proposals to stimulus package. expand the size and power of government — The Pelosi-backed American Recovery a strategy that would stunt economic growth and Reinvestment Act cost more than $800 and increase unemployment. billion, and according to analysts at the Pelosi’s policies have failed over and American Enterprise Institute, George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, Congressional over again, which is why House Democrats took one of the biggest political beatings Budget Office and many more, it produced in U.S. history during the 2010 elections, few meaningful results, as evidenced by the when Democrats, in a single year, went from fact unemployment rose dramatically in the enjoying a 79-seat advantage to being stuck wake of its passage. with a 49-seat deficit. Economist Peter Ferrara, my colleague at Pelosi’s policies offer Americans abso- The Heartland Institute, analyzed every eco- lutely nothing they haven’t already seen and nomic crash and recovery over the past cen- tury, and found the Obama-Pelosi policies of rejected before: more regulations, higher 2009 and 2010 created the slowest economic taxes, less freedom, and fewer health care recovery since the Great Depression. options. It’s time for something better. Justin Haskins is executive editor and Pelosi’s failures aren’t limited to eco- nomics, either. She was also one of the research fellow at The Heartland Institute.
