View this email in your browser

**OCTOBER 26, 2020**

Kuttner on TAP

Green Shoots of Bipartisanship?

****

As the prospect of a pre-election COVID relief measure fades into dust,
you may have noticed something anomalous in the U.S. House called the
Problem Solvers Caucus
.
This is made up of 25 Democrats and 25 Republicans who are willing to
work in a bipartisan way.

Their most recent and audacious endeavor was a $2 trillion COVID relief
package
-not
enough, but far more than Mitch McConnell was willing to entertain. It
never got a vote. Had this measure passed both the House and Senate,
Nancy Pelosi would probably have taken it.

What gives here? Does this bipartisan caucus represent a hopeful
harbinger of post-Trump common ground?

Yes and no. Substantively, their proposals are center-leftish-gun
safety, criminal justice reform, price relief for prescription drugs,
immigration reform, a modest infrastructure package. These and other
measures represent the kind of legislation that would easily pass
Congress were it not for ultra-partisanship on the Republican side.

At the same time, many of the Democrats in the caucus are the kind of
Wall Street-oriented centrist legislators who give progressives hives,
and who tend to be challenged in primaries. And some of them are in
districts more liberal than their voting records.

Post-Trump, the trick is to find our way to a new bipartisanship on
popular measures like COVID relief without giving away the store on
reining in the excesses of capitalism.

One other notable detail: The 25 Republican members get a free pass from
Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy from the usual RINO-baiting of
Republican moderates because they are in swing districts, and they need
some bills on which they can vote with Democrats. They tend to be
transactional rather than principled moderates.

That's good news of a different kind. Public opinion on key issues
tends to be more with the Democrats than the Republicans. It will be up
to President Biden to activate that latent support.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

[link removed]

Google's Guardians

An ecosystem of Google-funded academics, think tankers and hangers-on
will fan out to defend the search giant from the Justice Department's
antitrust case. BY DAVID DAYEN

J.D. Scholten Is Still Pitching Populism

The congressional candidate who nearly beat Steve King in a far-right
district in 2018 faces two new challengers this year: an establishment
Republican and a global pandemic. BY TONY HO TRAN

Nancy Pelosi's One-Woman Congress

Pelosi has unilaterally run pandemic relief negotiations with virtually
no input from the rank and file. For how long will disenfranchised
members of Congress take that? BY ALEXANDER SAMMON

Caregiving in Crisis, and How to Fix It

A virtual event about our Universal Family Care issue BY PROSPECT STAFF

Unsanitized, Election Edition: Early Turnout Gives No Indication of the
Likely Result

You're going to have to rely on the polls to make sense of the race.
Sorry! This is The Election 2020 Daily Report for October 26, 2020.
BY DAVID DAYEN

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Copyright (C) 2020 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States