Special Interest Groups Demand Post Election Promises From Dems

Liberal groups expect post election results.
Activists who helped Democrats secure Congress make clear they intend to get their reward.

WASHINGTON — After toppling the long-dominant Republicans in a hard-fought election, the Democratic Party's incoming congressional leaders have immediately found themselves in another difficult struggle — with their own supporters.

Some of the very activists who helped propel the Democrats to a majority in the House and Senate last week are claiming credit for the victories and demanding what they consider their due: a set of ambitious — and politically provocative — actions on gun control, abortion, national security and other issues that party leaders fear could alienate moderate voters and leave Democrats vulnerable to GOP attacks as big spenders or soft on terrorism.

The conflict underscores the challenge facing the Democrats in line to lead Congress — Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco in the House and Harry Reid of Nevada in the Senate. Each has pledged in recent days to "govern from the center," after a campaign in which anger over the Iraq war and GOP scandals helped their party attract some unusually conservative candidates and a large share of independent voters.

Turning off those new voters could undermine Democrats' hopes of solidifying their new majorities and taking the White House in 2008. But to the leaders of interest groups who are core supporters of the Democratic Party, and who had been barred under Republican rule from the inner sanctums of power, the new Congress means a time for action, not compromise.

Lobbyists for the American Civil Liberties Union, for example, are all but counting on Democrats to repeal the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorist law pushed by the White House that some critics call unconstitutional. They also want to end President Bush's domestic wiretapping program.

"We are not going to let them off the hook," said Caroline Fredrickson, the ACLU's legislative director, of the newly empowered Democratic leaders in Congress.

"We will hold their feet to the fire and use all the tools we can to mobilize our members."

Similar vows are coming from lobbyists for abortion rights, who want to expand family-planning options for poor women and scale back Bush's focus on abstinence education, and from gun-control advocates, who hope to revive a lapsed ban on assault weapons. Labor unions, a core Democratic constituency, are demanding universal healthcare and laws discouraging corporations from seeking inexpensive labor overseas.

"It's been kind of a drought for 12 years, and there is some pent-up energy," said Bill Samuel, legislative director for the AFL-CIO, the labor federation that has long been a Democratic Party stalwart and spent millions of dollars on get-out-the-vote activities.

Several of the labor movement's less-controversial goals, such as raising the minimum wage and allowing Medicare to seek discounts on drug prices, are found both in the AFL-CIO's brochures and on a Democratic leadership wish list designed to appeal across ideological lines.

But labor officials said they expected Pelosi, Reid and others to go further.

The day after the election, labor leaders declared a mandate for their causes and called on the new Congress to immediately reverse anti-union policies enacted by the Bush administration and promote affordable healthcare "for all."

"We're realistic about the congressional timetable, but we have our own view about why people went to the polls," said Samuel. "We think it had to do with their unhappiness with Republican inaction on the economy…. They're expecting Congress to tackle these issues, not play short ball."

Eli Pariser, executive director of the political action committee associated with the liberal activist group MoveOn.org, warned that Democratic leaders would be ill-advised to ignore the party's base.

"A huge number of people were involved in putting them over the top," Pariser said. "There's a huge group of people engaged and energized and ready to support Pelosi and company when they boldly lead — and to hold them to account if they stray."

Pressure on Democrats is especially acute to redirect U.S. policy in Iraq. Many Democrats say the issue was the most important one driving the party's victory.

Democratic lawmakers have not unified behind a single Iraq policy. If they could find common ground with Bush on a continued troop presence, they might fend off GOP efforts to label them as weak on national security — but they would probably infuriate a growing antiwar movement that helped propel the party back into power.

"American voters have done their job; now it's time for Congress to do theirs," said former Rep. Tom Andrews (D-Maine), national director of the antiwar group Win Without War. "The message couldn't be clearer. It's time to start the orderly withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Our eyes are on the new Congress."

Other interest groups are pointing to Tuesday's results as vindication of their particular causes, and as proof that Democrats should embrace their issues rather than shun them as too liberal.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which advocates abortion rights, pointed to victories by like-minded candidates in conservative states and a rejection by South Dakota voters of an abortion ban. The result, the group says, should be that Democrats view their causes as mainstream, rather than part of a liberal agenda, and should devote more money to contraception and other family-planning options opposed by religious conservatives and scaled back by the administration.

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Boy are you Liberals in a pickle! You have ALL these Special Interest Groups that have been claiming "They own you" and they will be pretty ticked off if you dont deliver on thier far left radical agendas, then on the other hand you have the Moderates who probably wont let you guys run amuck and completely out of control, then you have the Republicans that voted for you who are really going to be ticked off when you start taking away Security Measures that have kept us Safe for the last 5 Years, and start Raising Taxes.

Because you ran on Repealing ALL Bush's Tax cuts, Withdrawing the Troops IMEDIATELY!, Impeaching The President, etc..etc.. and so far you have backed away from alot of that. My oh My, what is going to happen the minute you turn in either direction? See that's what happens when you're NOT the same person that you were when you went to bed Wednesday night as you are on Thursday Morning! Why werent you guys just truthfull, and said "We Are Going To Totally Screw Up The Country Because The Special Intrest Groups Paid Us To Do So"?