The following editorial was published in The Duluth News-Tribune on December 16, 2019:
There’s an old military adage that the best defense is a good offense.
As President Donald Trump’s administration continues to sink deeper into scandal, the White House spin machine seems to have all but abandoned defending the president’s conduct. Instead, it is accusing Democrats of “doing nothing” of substance while focusing exclusively on oversight. Even setting aside that the U.S. Constitution tasks Congress with overseeing the executive branch, the “do-nothing Democrats” label is completely false. Democrats in the U.S. House have passed deeply significant legislation to improve the lives of Americans everywhere.
Right now the issues that most concern the American people are the high costs of health care and prescription drugs, concerns that have only been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s perpetual war on the Affordable Care Act. A big reason for people’s concern is the fact that drug companies are keeping prices artificially high by blocking cheaper generic medications from reaching market. One particularly odious method Big Pharma uses to accomplish this is paying off other companies to delay introducing cheaper medications. This contemptible behavior takes advantage of sick Americans to line the pockets of pharmaceutical executives.
This is why House Democrats passed a bill to ban it, stop other delaying tactics, and lower prescription drug prices. Additionally, Democrats have passed bills to both protect Americans with pre-existing conditions and to lower health care costs by strengthening the Affordable Care Act.
Many Americans are also concerned with the outright corruption they see in our political system. Faith in institutions like Congress is at a historic low, and that’s deeply troubling. To restore the American people’s trust in our government, House Democrats passed the largest piece of pro-democracy legislation in generations, the For the People Act. The bill would end gerrymandering at the federal level, make voter registration automatic, publicly finance elections to combat the influence of big money, improve transparency in political advertising and funding, and implement numerous other changes to revitalize our democracy.
In addition to these important bills, House Democrats have passed legislation to tackle the climate crisis, raise the federal minimum wage, protect workers from discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation, establish universal background checks for gun sales, and accomplish plenty more meaningful reform measures.
While these bills are broadly popular with the American people and should be bipartisan, they have died on the desk of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Unfortunately for the American people, and contrary to the White House’s bogus spin, Senate Republicans are the ones blocking the change that our country needs and deserves.
Even as House Democrats pass bill after bill to help the American people, they also have been fulfilling their constitutional obligation to oversee the Executive Branch. This is good news for the American people because the corruption we’ve seen from President Trump and his administration is truly unprecedented in both scope and scale.
The president stands accused of bribing a foreign government to attack political rivals. In addition, numerous individuals connected to Trump’s campaign are currently serving time in prison, recently leaked emails show a Trump ambassador appointee appeared to attempt to bribe his way to Senate confirmation, the president’s businesses open him up daily to massive conflicts of interest and violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, and the president appears to be an unindicted co-conspirator in felony campaign finance crimes. This extensive list barely scratches the surface of Trump’s and his cronies’ crooked behavior.
The idea that oversight cannot be accompanied by a strong legislative push to make life better for the American people is completely false. We deserve leaders who get things done for us and fight for transparency and accountability. In congressional Democrats, we have both.