by emptypockets
Last month I argued the path to stem cells lies through Missouri. The election results there would decide whether we would be able to override Bush's veto on stem cell research.
We won both the important votes there. Missourians are sending Claire McCaskill to the Senate armed with a strongly pro-research agenda and they amended their Constitution to guarantee protection of stem cell research. Not only does McCaskill's victory bring us one vote closer to an override in the Senate -- it sends a signal to Republicans that if they don't support stem cell research, they will be replaced by Democrats who do.
2007 is the year when Republicans in Congress will have to choose between joining the bipartisan majority that wants to fund stem cell research as the American public demands, or abandoning bipartisanship and joining Bush in blocking key medical cures and keeping on playing politics with science.
Our fight is still uphill. In the Senate, we needed four more votes. We picked up pro-research seats in Missouri, Montana, Ohio, and Virginia, but we lost one in Tennessee (where pro-research Frist is replaced by anti-research Corker). That leaves us one vote shy of an override.
We're going to have to ask Senator-elect Bob Casey to reconsider whether he thinks embryos that are going to die anyway are equal to grandparents with Alzheimer's and children with diabetes. Democrats and his fellow Pennsylvanian Arlen Specter ought to talk with him honestly and frequently about this issue.
Similar conversations should be held with John Sununu, who faces re-election in 2008 and is one of the vanishing New England Republicans. (Norm Coleman and John Cornyn are also up for re-election in 2008 and come from states where the other Senator is pro-research.)
In the House, by my most recent count about 16 anti-research Republicans have been replaced with Democrats (the arithmetic is fuzzy: the anti-research Bonilla in TX-23 may yet lose his seat, also I'm presuming most of the 16 new Democrats will be pro-research). In any case we still need about 30 more House votes for an override.
Flipping 30 anti-research votes in the House is possible. Going from democraticavenger's excellent 2008 House targeting list, I see 23 anti-research Representatives who received less than 55% of their vote, 12 more anti-research Representatives from districts where Kerry got at least 45% of the vote, and another 4 Representatives who may be in trouble for other reasons.
That gives us 39 "targeted for '08" Representatives whose anti-research votes we may flip. They can see that blocking stem cell research is a lost cause politically -- Americans support it, the votes have been there in Congress for years, and Bush will not be in office forever (although it may seem that way). They can join the bipartisan majority and support research or they can further risk their seats and stall research just 2 more years.
For too long "being bipartisan" has meant "Democrats enabling Bush." It is time to make clear that embracing Bush, on either side of the aisle, means giving the finger to bipartisanship -- embracing Bush just means more blocked votes, more failures by the extreme right, and more ignoring of the popular desires of the American mainstream.
What being bipartisan really means is rejecting Bush and joining the bipartisan majority that supports stem cell research. Former red-state Missouri has shown that support for research transcends political boundaries. Nancy Pelosi intends to bring a stem cell research bill in the first 100 hours of her term as Speaker. It is time to ask Republicans in Congress to stop playing politics with science, to reject Bush and to embrace bipartisanship, and to support stem cell research by overriding the President's veto.
Here is the list of anti-research Republicans to target in 2008, pulling from democraticavenger's list
Chabot
Davis (KY)
Doolittle
Drake
English (PA)
Feeney
Ferguson
Garrett (NJ)
Hastert
Roskam #
Bachmann #
King (NY)
Knollenberg
Kuhl (NY)
Latham
Lewis (KY)
LoBiondo
McCotter
McHugh
Murphy
Musgrave
Smith (NE) #
Sali
Rehberg
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (MI)
Ros-Lehtinen
Ryan (WI)
Saxton
Souder
Tancredo
Terry
Tiberi
Turner
Walsh
Weller
Wolf
Young (FL)
# New Republican Congresspeople filling previously anti-research seats that had become open. Depending on their views, some of these seats may have already flipped pro-research.
Posted by: emptypockets | November 20, 2006 at 10:45
My dad actually pointed out that the stem-cell amendment was supported only where there is a large medical research facility in Missouri--St. Louis, Kansas City, and Boone County of the U of MO medical school. These votes were enough to put it over the top. Of course McCaskill absolutely, positively had to carry every one of these places by a large margin.
Posted by: 4jkb4ia | November 20, 2006 at 12:44
4jkb4ia
How extensive are those facilities? I'm thinking of MI, which has to be one of the least stem cell friendly states (3+1 Republicans voting against, plus 2 Dems voting against). And I'm wondering how to play those politics.
Posted by: emptywheel | November 20, 2006 at 15:12
EW--
The stem cell amendment in MO was largely bankrolled and pushed by Jim Stowers of the mutual fund fame. He has funded his own cutting-edge private biomedical research facility in the Kansas City area, and very much wants to get into ES research as well as nuclear transfer. Unfortunately, the MO legislature was making a lot of noise about criminalizing such research, so he assembled a coalition of all the large biomedical research U's (WashU, Mizzou, UM in Kansas City, and yes, even Saint Louis U behind the scenes), to help him fund and push the ballot initiative.
A lot of docs and profs at Wash U med school actually appeared in the ads for amendment 2, as well as did a lot of speaking tours and church meetings. Interestingly enough, there actually were some WashU profs who spoke out publically against the amendment as well.
The most organized opposition group was actually the Catholic Church and some other evangelical protestant churches. There were some strange bedfellows in this fight. The Catholic church, I think, set up some kind of 527 like organization to run a few ads (which were very controversial, as they seemingly implied if amendment 2 passed, women would be forced to donate their eggs).
The other major oppo groups, Missourians against Human Cloning and the MO Roundtable for life, appeared to be legit grassroots issue groups; I can't seem to find a common-denominator "astroturf" PR firm behind them. My (somewhat limited) observation is that they focused nearly all their money on the St. Louis (and possibly KC) metro areas to try and persuade church-going Catholics that would otherwise vote D (and probably voted for McCaskill) into voting against amendment 2 through preying on some of the ambiguous wording of the amendment and the (mostly) older voters' ignorance of what ES research and nuclear transfer were all about.
Clearly they had focus-grouped this to death, and decided to frame the issue by using the loaded words "cloning" and "cloners" early and often. I'm sure it had some impact, but given that the oppo groups were outspent by Stowers nearly 10:1, I guess it's not too surprising that the initiative passed.
So my advice is to find some rich Michigan alum or someone with ties to the medical school there who'd like to bankroll a stem cell initiative. :)
Posted by: viget | November 20, 2006 at 15:52
Got the rich Medical school connection all set, I think, right here in the local party (though he's not the most pleasant person...).
It's MI's Catholic-ness that makes it so stem cell unfriendly. I'm thinking of bringing my Parkinsons afflicted and theologian-but-not-dependant-on-the-Church-for-retirement mom to come to MI and do a speaking tour.
Posted by: emptywheel | November 20, 2006 at 16:24
what would have as a Michigan ballot measure?
A funding initiative as in California would be extremely ambitious. A protection for stem cell research as in Missouri is great as a political gesture -- but it might fail to get UMich on board because they would be unlikely to benefit (unless they have access to substantial private funding).
On the other hand, raising the spectre of state restrictions on federally-funded research and then passing a bill to pre-empt those imagined restrictions (a lot like what MO did, actually) is very difficult for anyone to vote against -- since it just cements the status quo and puts up barricades to future restrictions, but doesn't actually make anything allowed that wasn't already allowed.
I hesitate to link to an anti-research site, but http://www.2tricky.org/ which was part of the MO anti-research campaign was a site I found extremely helpful. Their message is that Amendment 2 is designed to be very clever and sneaky and pass, and they go through a full analysis of what is clever about it that makes it soung so appealing (for example, it appears on the ballot as a measure "to ban human cloning," which it is). I think it is worth a read, just to see what kinds of tactics really frustrate the other side.
oh, and I agree with everything viget said -- absolutely spot on.
Posted by: emptypockets | November 20, 2006 at 17:52
it's a good idea EP
and damn fine political strategy
kudos
we need to recruit all the candidates we can find to announce their intent to run against the repuglicans on the menu in 2008, just to put pressure on these luddites to do the right thing
but compared to Iraq, stemcells is gonna be a secondary issue in 2008
still, good thinking, and good writing
Posted by: freepatriot | November 20, 2006 at 19:39
Everything is polytics damn !
Yes for adult stem cell research;
No for embryonic stem cell harvesting or cloning for "research and therapy" !
"Truth has a quiet breast". W.Shakespeare
Posted by: Joe | May 01, 2008 at 20:33