The Heroines of Governing

CB
CB
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

John McCain (R-Arizona) does indeed deserve a lot of credit. After making an impassioned speech about returning the Senate to order, McCain seemingly proved himself to be the typical party-line Republican as he voted in the affirmative to advance debate on a nothing health care bill, only to shockingly torpedo the Republican Party’s seven-year old quixotic quest to destroy the signature legislation of his 2008 election opponent in former President Barack Obama.

But as much of a stand up job McCain did — valuing governing over allowing the Senate to delve even further into partisan policymaking dystopia — the real heroes, or heroines, if you will, were the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Alaska.

Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, respectively, both previously voted in support of the 2015 bills that would have repealed the landmark Affordable Care Act. While we can all acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act is not a perfect law by any means — it gives insurance companies and individual states far too much clout in terms of making the law work the way it should, even though the law has been more of a success than a failure — it can be improved. Moreover, the idea of government intervention in the health care system can work; that is, if all sides are committed to developing a solution to make it work.

However, in the era where even they realize that the Republican Party has sold it soul, these legislators aimed to actually vote openly instead of just sticking with whining in private and off the record like most of their colleagues. These two, like McCain, still believe in that the job of the Senate is to actually govern, and pass bills with process, debate, and most of all, transparency. Moreover, Collins and Murkowski are still levelheaded enough not to partake in what would have amounted into being nothing more than a screwjob on Americans that actually have benefited from the ACA in the name of politics and politics alone.

As Alexia Fernandez Campbell wrote in Vox:

Murkowski and Collins were the only Republicans to vote against a motion to proceed with the health care bill debate. Both women cast votes against the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which could have led to 22 million more uninsured Americans. They both also voted against the Obamacare Reconciliation Act — repeal and delay — which could have led to 32 million more uninsured Americans.

Both senators said they could not support bills that would leave millions of people without health insurance. When skinny repeal — seemingly the last shot for the GOP — came down, they stood their ground and voted no again.

Are Collins and Murkowski perfect? Not by any stretch of the imagination. After all, Collins is co-sponsoring a bill that would make boycotting Israel a federal crime, which is an affront to free speech.

But, dare I say, they persisted. Even when threatened by House colleagues. Even when threatened by a Cabinet member.

I called their party trash. And I stand by that assertion. Only a political party that becomes diseased by the avarice of partisan extremists would allow themselves to attempt to actually govern a nation like this.

But we should indeed be grateful that there are at least some politicians that are aware of the extremism and the irrationality of their own party and are willing to act as a bulwark against it, even to the chagrin of their party-line colleagues.

CB

Written by

Somewhere between a classical liberal and a modern liberal.

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