I’ve spent most of my adult life electing women to public office. I worked for Hillary, I worked for the first African-American Congresswoman in New Jersey history, the first Bosnian woman to serve in a state legislature, several female statewide judges, and many female state legislators. I don’t do so because of some deep desire to elect women- I do so because I generally do think women do a better job in public office for the values and issues that I care about. I think they bring a better life perspective and experiences to the table, and frankly I think they don’t worry about some of the idiotic political issues that men do as much (for example, having their gun to fight the government.). Women are way under represented in public office, and should at least be occupying enough offices to match their ration in society (women are a slight majority).
Yet, here I found myself yesterday arguing with many people I have called allies and friends- over Al Franken’s resignation. Despite the views of some, the argument isn’t over what Franken did, it is over what should have been done about it. Al Franken admitted wrong-doing, there is no argument there. Al Franken deserves to be punished for that, there is no argument there. I find myself incapable of supporting the actions of the twenty-some Democratic Senators who pushed Franken out though.
My chief issue with all of this was the rush to circumvent due process. Al Franken admitted some things, but not others. He was referred to the Senate Ethics Committee, the body that is supposed to deal with Senate behavioral issues. That body would be able to establish facts, and decide the appropriate punishment for what Franken actually did do. There are some who say this is a moral issue, and that due process should come secondary- those people obviously don’t believe in the U.S. Constitution. That line of thinking has been used in the past to justify all sorts of abuses of justice in this nation, particularly in the Jim Crow South. We’re better than this. We circumvented the Senate Ethics Committee here and had a trial by an angry lynch-mob. A year from now we’ll be disappointed in ourselves, I hope.
The secondary issue with this of course is the question of whether or not the punishment for Al Franken is appropriate- should he have been forced out of the Senate? No one is disputing whether or not he did wrong in the first place, but does he deserve essentially the same punishment as we are calling for on Roy Moore? How about Congressman Conyers, who sexually harassed an employee, creating a hostile work place setting for her, then settled using our tax dollars? How about Trent Franks, asking female staffers to have children with him, “the natural way?” Not all of these cases are the same, morally or legally. There is a real question whether Franken would even have been charged with a crime had his accusers went to the police, while I think any decent person agrees that Roy Moore belongs in jail. Again, Franken deserves punishment, and the Senate Ethics Committee would have many options for how to publicly admonish the Senator after reviewing the facts, everything from written rebuke up to expulsion. Democrats should have lived up to our values- that every offense deserves a fair hearing- and let the process play out.
What will Democrats get for this whole display? A cookie? A medal? Oh, no wait, the moral high ground. You know, “they go low, we go high,” as Michelle Obama told us in 2016. The problem with that is that there is no moral high ground in politics, the vast majority of America doesn’t really love any party. The other problem with that, of course, is that we followed Michelle’s advise in 2016, and we lost to Donald Trump. For their efforts, the Democratic Party will get to defend not one, but two Senate seats in Minnesota in 2018, a state that really isn’t all that blue. Hillary won the state by 44,000 votes in 2016. The state legislature is narrowly divided. Franken’s predecessor was Republican, and Franken won by a margin so narrow that he wasn’t seated for months because of litigation and re-counts. If this state is “safely blue,” I’m not sure how. Democrats will have to spend millions of dollars on this defense that they asked for themselves, millions of dollars that will not go to races in Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and Tennessee- three difficult states where we need three pick-ups to win the U.S. Senate back and stop Trump from appointing dozens more of Federal Judges, or passing horrible tax bills, or selling off our public land (just to name this week’s offenses). Strategy should not be the only factor in making a decision such as the Franken one, but it should not be a forgotten one. The chances of Democrats winning back the Senate may have just went from slim to none with this decision. Meanwhile, the GOP will seat Roy Moore after his victory on Tuesday, and not lose an hour’s sleep because of it. You might say “I don’t want to be like them,” but that’s cold comfort to the sick child who just lost his health insurance under CHIP, or the graduate student facing a tax increase, or the DREAMer who is going to be deported by Donald Trump. Democrats could benefit from being a bit more cut-throat, for the sake of their constituents.
I get it- Al Franken did bad stuff, he made himself politically inconvenient. Some certain Senators who I won’t name here gained national exposure and look like a real “warrior for the cause” by being out in front of the microphone burying Al Franken, kind of like they did in burying Bill Clinton recently. Capitol Hill runs on the “herd mentality,” and once the calls for Franken’s resignation began, there was no going back. It was easier to just get him off stage, so Democrats could avoid hypocrisy charges when they start attacking Senate Republicans for seating Roy Moore next week, which they think is a winning strategy for 2018 (I am not sold on that). So, of course Al Franken had to go.
I think many Democrats hope that pushing Franken out the door will force Republicans to take a long, hard look at Donald Trump, Clarence Thomas, and Roy Moore- but it won’t. Republicans will throw the politically expedient ones to the wolves too, the Trent Franks types, but that will be the end of it. Perhaps that’s good enough for you, and if it is, have a great day. I’m very uncomfortable with the precedent, the morality, and the politics here though, and for that reason, I have to say that throwing Al Franken out of the Senate was a very bad thing- for the Democrats.
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