Roll Call noted today that Senate Democrats have some legislative priorities on the calendar, which the paper described as “red meat.”
The rallying cry Wednesday was, “Equal pay for women.” Next week, it likely will be “Insurance companies play fair.” And in the next month it will probably be “Gay rights.”
By design or happenstance, Senate Democrats have been rolling out a passel of “red meat” legislation that appeals to the Democratic base in this pivotal election year.
With Republicans in the majority, they signaled to their base by issues favored by religious conservatives. Democrats, now in control, are pushing bills favored by gay groups, women’s organizations and labor unions while denouncing insurance companies.
Hmn, this is what constitutes “red meat” nowadays? Equal pay for equal work sounds pretty mainstream to me. So, for that matter, do measure ensuring that insurance companies not discriminate on the basis of mental health or genetics. Adding sexual orientation to a hate-crimes bill is considerably more contentious, but taking a stand on a civil rights issue isn’t especially striking.
“I wouldn’t confuse red meat with issues Republicans simply hate,” said one Senate Democratic leadership aide of the legislation scheduled to hit the Senate floor. “We find ourselves in a period where we’re waiting for a supplemental [war spending bill], and there are issues that have been on our agenda for years that we haven’t been able to pass, and now we’re trying to.”
It does offer, though, an opportunity to compare one party’s “red meat” issues with the other.
Two years ago, Roll Call ran a similar article about then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist bringing his own “red meat” issues to the floor.
As part of that strategy, Frist has identified three measures he will bring to the floor in June. He has placed a doomed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on deck for the first week of June, with a flag-burning amendment, with a similarly small chance of enactment, penciled in second. An earmark-laden tax package that has generated wide bipartisan opposition is set for third. […]
Although Congress is not expected to pass either constitutional amendment this year, both gay marriage and flag burning are extremely popular issues within the GOP’s base.
So, for Dems, throwing red meat to the base is taking on wage discrimination and insurance companies denying coverage. For Republicans, it’s constitutional amendments on gays and the flag.
For those who think there are no differences between the parties, I respectfully disagree.