My Blog Posts

• Barney Frank: We Miss You Already
  12/01/2011 10:35:25 AM EST
  Barney Frank, we miss you already. For Barney Frank you don't need any formal titles to know who is being referred to. The ultimate in praise from the great American short story writer, Ring Lardner, was to have a character called "an original."  Barney Frank  is an original. I have known and worked closely with Barney Frank for nearly 50 years on numerous causes. Each was an adventure with a focus on advancing an idea that merited support and initially had little political support. We worked to correct economic injustices, overcome denial of rights, correct abuses, take on politically sacred cows. We praised each other and occasionally I'd get scolded for advancing a "dumb" tactic. That was part of the adventure--and in the adventure I learned to toughen myself and not take it personally. Barney is unique because he is a multi-letter person in a legislative body that has talented people but not in so many different ways. Barney Frank can write laws, thrives in substance, can learn new matters, knows legislative and parliamentary procedures better than anyone I have worked with (and I have worked with parliamentary stars.). Barney Frank is a living Ecclesiastes. He knows when to fight,  he knows when to compromise, he knows when to jab verbally, he knows when to make a witty bon mot and when to verbalize a witty paragraph. More than that. Barney can work with people he disagrees with, be impatient with people he agrees with and has no trouble working with people he neither likes nor respects. That's what makes Barney the complete strategist in getting a result. Now how many House members have a biography written about them. Yes, there's Tip O'Neill and Phil Burton and Speaker Reed more than a century after he served. Stuart Weisberg's Barney Frank:The Story of America's Only Left Handed Gay Jewish Congressman deals with Barney in Bayonne and Barney facing serious personal challenges. Barney Frank took his reprimand from the House, never acting as a victim, accepting his responsibility and moving on to continuing his many contributions. Barney Frank welcomed the marketplace and combat of ideas, always with more than a touch of with. His book, Speaking Frankly, (note the wit in his title) deeply anchored in his life long liberalism, also argues vigorously for liberals to get past their orthodoxies and to recognize what America's promise and dreams can be. In that sense the book reflects Barney's passion for politics as part of democracy's vitality and his deep love for America.. Barney's contributions are legion: Dodd-Frank the most significant reform of financial regulation since the New Deal, his immediately exposing what was wrong with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and thereby advancing the rights of the GLBT community in all aspects, his battles for poor people's causes in jobs, income, housing and his focus on the excesses of the military budget. In each of these areas Barney recognized that knowing substance was part of gaining influence and power and so was knowing legislative procedures and norms. Yes, Barney did not suffer fools but he had the ability to do something some of his critics never understood: an ability to build legislative relationships across ideologies, party and competency. That's the aggregation of influence. Barney was no Don Quixote but he took on issues that had little chance at the beginning but showed a willingness to attack sacred cows. He fought for campaign finance reform, and public financing as part of elections as a Massachusetts state legislator. In Congress he made life miserable for the dairy interests which bough their unjustified subsidies with campaign contributions at the expense of American consumers. Barney began the effort to peel away those industry entitlements. Barney's taking on the Pentagon budget stands as an effort of importance and discipline. Barney understands where the hidden sources of waste are and where expenditures that bear no direct relation to any rational security need have to be abandoned. The Pentagon, and regrettably Secretary Panetta, are part and parcel of retaining expenditures that will, if the sequester is undone, come at the expense of human needs. I want Barney Frank in my Congressional corner. If he cannot be there then we want his wisdom, his sense of combat, his strategy, his judgment, his wit and humor to make a difference when he steps down. We need him and we want him as we wish him the best in the next phase of his public life. David Cohen,
  Washington DC
• Getting Past November 23, 2011; Keep the Cuts
  11/16/2011 01:47:51 PM EST
  We advocates of a rational nuclear arms and national security policy have to look beyond November 23rd, the deadline for the Supercommittee's report to Congress and the American people. The Pentagon (including Secretary Panetta), Senators McCain (R-Ariz) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and other legislators, are making an all out effort to undo any Pentagon cuts or undo sequestration if the Supercommittee cannot come to an agreement. The national security budget includes the Pentagon, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security and the Intelligence Agencies. It's big and the deficit deal last summer did not exempt national security cuts. It insisted on them because they are necessary and prudent. National security budgets are no mystery. The bi-partisan Bowles-Simpson Commission, Senator Coburn (R-Okla), who helps anchor down the Republican rightwing, Project on Government Oversight/Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Center for American Progress have each issued studies on national security spending. These represent four reports from ideological unalikes. Yet the reports overlap in many ways. Substantial cuts can be made without any risk to national security. With compelling evidence in hand, President Obama must be decisive and clear.To counteract the Pentagon/McCain/Graham thrust. Obama must go on the offensive against the irresponsible efforts to keep the status quo with Pentagon spending. The Republicans will argue that sequestration and/or significant cuts will threaten our national security. Quite the reverse: our security is threatened by following the "automatic pilot" line of the stand patters, the resisters to change. It is the very change that draws support across the ideological spectrum. It is change that strengtens national security and prevents our security from being weakened. The initiative lies with the President. On policy he should be crystal clear: any legislation that undoes the military cuts or sequestration will be vetoed--no ands, if, buts or complicated conditionality. On politics the President should point out that the Republican politicians who want to protect the status quo and privlege in the Pentagon, and other favored self-styled national security privleges, are the same people resisting any semblance of sacrifice from millionaires who want to retain their tax privleges and are looking to lower their tax rates from 35% to 28%. The issue begs for clear articulation by the President. We have to begin now to recognize the engame is after November 23rd, no matter what the Supercommittee does or doesn't do. After November 23rd the President's resolve and leadership will be tested. We have to help him pass the test with flying colors.. David Cohen
  Washington, DC
• Howard Wolpe: A Good Public Servant Remembered
  10/28/2011 04:28:42 PM EST
  Howard Wolpe died at the too young age of 71. Howard Wolpe represented a moderate and conservative Michigan disrict for 14 years in the US House of Representatives as a liberal Democrat. Howard was an Africa expert who made continuing contributions as a legislator by fighting for economic and political sanctions against South Africa. To do so, he had to overcome the rigid Cold War perspective of the Reagan Administration and persuade enough colleagues to override a Reagan veto. He continued as a legislative initiator by leading the efforts to provide famine relief and development assitance to Africa. Howard could pay attention to these larger issues because he understood and applied the Tip O'Neill philosophy  that "all politics is local." Maybe not all politics, but a substantial part. So he repeatedly was reelected. Wolpe was so effective politically that the Republican legislature gerrymandered him out of his seat when Michigan lost representation after the 1990 census. After his Congressional service, Wolpe served as President Clinton's representative to the Africa Great Lakes Region. There he worked overtime, in an uphill effort, to draw US attention, and that of other countries, to conflicts and harm to the people in Burundi, Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Wolpe challenged himself to become well informed on areas outside of his specialty such as nuclear non-proliferation, adverse environmental consequences that cause famine and the harm from small arms sales. Howard Wolpe was so substantively respected, and he had a great ability work with people who were not liberals, that Lee Hamilton, the respected head of the Wilson International Center for Scholars, asked him to head its Africa program. As with all other matters of his public life, Howard Wolpe performed excellently. Howard faced tragedy as his wife drowned in a surprise undertow. He continued and moved forward. His warm heart was overcome by illness.  Howard Wolpe's contributions as a public servant will stand as a lasting part of his contributions to the public weal and are part of a proud legacy of public service. David Cohen,
  Senior Congressional Fellow,
  Council for a Livable World
   
• Hatfield Remembered
  08/13/2011 09:09:25 PM EST
  attached to A Tribute to Senator Mark Hatfield by John Isaacs
• House Vote on McGovern-Jones Amendment, President Needs to Change Afghanistan Policy
  05/27/2011 02:52:23 PM EST
  President Obama, and his national security Cabinet and staff, had better pay attention to the  incredibly close vote on the McGovern (D-Mass)-Jones (R-NC)Amendment. The Amendment to the Defense Department authorization (DOD) bill was a vote about changing our severely flawed Afghanistan policy. The McGovern-Jones Amendment called for an accelerated withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan by requiring a fixed timetable to turn military operations over to the Kabul government. The Amendment, co-sponsored by Representatives Amash (R-Mi), Cicilline (D-RI), Lewis (D-Ga), Paul (R-Tx), Loretta Sanchez (D-Ca) and Welch (D-Vt), reflects bi-partisan doubts and dissatisfaction with the President's Afghanistan policy.The Amendment drew total support from liberals and near unanimous support from Democratic moderates. My sources tell me that the Amendment's measurable support from conservatives reportedly surprised the White House and the Defense Department.
  Twenty-six Republicans voted for the Amendment. Three Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee approved the Amendment.Only 8 Democrats in toto voted against it. Given the House's polarized history of recent years this vote represents a major breakthrough. A policy placing fixed timetables is how the House  works to redirect policy when it finds the current policy wanting. Historically the DOD bill is the way to express wider beliefs on major foreign policy questions. That occurred during the Vietnam War and on major arms control questions all through the 1980s. The House Republican leadership also works to exercise Congressional powers but in ways that harm national security. For example one provision in the DOD bill limits the President's authority to cut nuclear weapons that have been deployed or retired from the stockpile. Past history of DOD bills merits examination.The House calling for a time limited plan to retain troops in Afghanistan is its way to get accustomed to taking on the President and his Team. By voting on these issues in their varied policy stages is how Congress finally asserted its power to legislatively end the Vietnam War. It is also how Congress used its legislative power to limit nuclear testing in the Reagan years-- policies that led to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that is now waiting to have the Senate give its advice and consent to. The House action should give the Senate encouragement to move off of its muted doubts about the current policy. Stay tuned.  Other bills, apart from  the DOD authorization, will give Congress an added  vehicle to legislatively challenge our Afghanistan policies. David Cohen
  Senior Congressional Fellow,
  Washington, DC