When Arizona’s Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070 into law last week, she presented her signature as a legitimate response to a failure of policy at the federal level. No fan of racial profiling, she described what is now set to become the nation’s toughest  immigration enforcement law as simply “another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix.” The day before, when announcing the new Arizona Border Security Plan, the governor was more explicit still about that federal failure to fix. “Almost from the day I took office,” she told a gathering of local dignitaries and journalists,

I have been asking Washington to fulfill its primary obligation to the citizens of our state:  to secure our southern border; to enhance the rule of law’ … Make no mistake: The responsibility to ensure that we have an orderly, secure border – not just some imaginary line in the dirt or a rickety fence – belongs to the federal government. They have failed.
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Apparently the insurance commissioner of Georgia is currently refusing to comply with Kathleen Sebelius’ request to create a state pool for high-risk insurance plans as required under the health care reform bill signed into law in March. According to The New York Times (April 13, 2010) the commissioner told Sibelius that the legislation is likely to be declared unconstitutional, and that even if it is not, its requirements constitute both an unwarranted expansion of the federal government and a threat to the financial stability of the nation. Visibly, he doesn’t like the act, and is taking his bat home.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that the Obama administration has settled down to the technical business of implementing the legislation while its opponents are gearing up politically to tear it down. Technical conversations from the administration, political campaigning from the Republicans.

It also tells us that however imperfect the legislation may be, those of us who do not want to see a Republican-controlled Congress after November would do well to gear up in a similar fashion.  That is going to be really hard for many of us, because the legislation that passed was not the one that many of us would have chosen – no single-payer, no strong public option, no single national exchange, the Hyde Amendment and worse into law, no Medicare to people under 65. But this is baby and bath water time. Do we stand by and let the Republicans take down the first major extension in health care cover for more than four decades?  I don’t think we should. The trick will be to defend the legislation, however imperfect, in ways that enable us to win support later for its progressive reform. READ FULL POST