The Progressive Bloc

Chris Bowers at Openleft describes an interesting emerging strategy among progressive Dems in the House and Senate:

Bowers suggests that, instead of 60 votes in the Senate or 218 in the House, what progressives really need are 12-13 Senators and 45 Reps who are prepared to walk away from legislation unless their demands are met- thus forcing the administration and the Congressional leadership to whip the others hard in order to bring them in line with the progressives.

This works best when there's an easily articulated demand- like the public option in healthcare reform- that the progressive bloc can get behind.

Bowers notes that the inspiration comes from the Senate "blue dogs" and Evan Bayh's conservative dems, who often threaten to side with the GOP and walk away from bills unless their demands for watering them down aren't met.

An additional benefit, that Bowers doesn't really get into, is that this opens up the possibility of tapping the energy many of the most progressive constituents in steeling the spines of their Reps and Senators. For instance, in Manhattan, where I live, most people are represented by Jerry Nadler, Charlie Rangel and Carolyn Maloney, as well as Schumer and Gillibrand- all solid, liberal Dems. I periodically get emails from Moveon and other progressive organizations generally asking me to call my member of congress to support this or that, but it's pointless to do so, because my folks are already on board, and it's equally useless to write/call elected officials who don't represent me.

If, however, the progressive bloc strategy got moving, people like me (and active constituents in deep blue districts and states all over the country, who are likely to be the most progressive) can contact our reps and demand that they walk away from mediocre bills if progressive improvements aren't included. That's a pretty serious font of untapped elected-badgering energy that could be put into play in an organized manner to make sure that Bayh and Baucus aren't running the show in DC.