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8 | conclusion Digging in and Running out the Clock A year before President Obama’s reelection, progressives were nervous. The stakes in any presidential election are high, but it was clear that the winner in 2012 would gain control of the federal bureaucracy and determine the direction of domestic policies discussed in the preceding chapters. The Washington, DC-based Center for Progressive Reform sounded this alarm in the title of its report Twelve Crucial Health, Safety, and Environmental Regulations: Will the Obama Administration Finish in Time? The reported faulted industry lobbying, congressional interference, and OIRA reviews for delaying regulations ranging in scope from mine safety and workplace accident prevention to addressing pollution from stormwater runoff and coal ash.1 A Republican victory, the report warned, meant that rules stuck in the pipeline were in danger of being rescinded by the new president or reversed through the Congressional Review Act. Mindful of the clock, President Obama rolled out a series of unilateral policy initiatives known as the “We Can’t Wait” campaign.2 From an executive order to prevent prescription drug shortages to the recess appointment of Richard Cordray to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, each of his actions was calculated to bypass Congress and leave a lasting mark on public policy. Legislative accomplishments such as the Affordable Care Act notwithstanding, the first two years of Obama’s presidency were filled with frustration. A unified Republican opposition and skittish Democrats thwarted many of his other legislative priorities. The congressional midterm elections of 2010 proved the final nail in the coffin for his legislative agenda, as no fewer than sixty-six seats in the House of Representatives flipped from Democrat to Republican control. The party’s gains from the 2006 and 2008 elections were washed away by an anti-incumbent wave, which also managed to take out powerful veteran committee chairs such as John Spratt, Ike Skelton, and James Oberstar in the process. Even though the president’s party held onto conclusion • 155 a majority in the Senate, the House vote was a rebuke at least as severe as his two predecessors experienced in the midterm elections of 1994 and 2006. There was little hope for Obama’s agenda in the 112th Congress. Since most of the defeated Democrats were moderates—unlike the freshman Republican class—the House of Representatives was expected to be the most conservative and ideologically polarized of the modern era.3 The midterm election put the brakes on other initiatives, such as comprehensive immigration reform and climate change legislation, which were deferred when Obama essentially “bet his domestic presidency on health care.”4 Just as his predecessors had done, he would have to be content governing without Congress. Democrats were still counting the casualties a week after the election, as an executive-centered policy agenda began to take shape. The Center for American Progress, a think tank led by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, released a report and a series of recommendations that the president use administrative tools to enact a progressive agenda rather than waste his energy courting an obstructionist Congress.5 Rulemaking, executive orders, and agency management led the list of policy instruments that Podesta singled out: “The U.S. Constitution and the laws of our nation grant the president significant authority to make and implement policy.”6 The Center for American Progress report identified several urgent issue areas as well as administrative actions that could be implemented by the end of 2012. Some of the thirty-four recommendations involved using executive authority under recent statutes to overcome compromises made in Congress. For example, Obama could ensure that the new consumer financial protection agency had a strong and independent regulatory authority. He was urged to promote preventative health care by actively guiding rules to implement the Affordable Care Act. Other more modest goals might be accomplished in such policy areas as education, simply by advocating rules that would make college financial aid more transparent. In addition, the president was urged to stop jailing undocumented immigrants and to direct Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize immigrants with criminal records. Another of Podesta’s recommendations, to “conserve federal lands for future generations” by executive action, seemed as if it were lifted from Clinton’s playbook.7 The menu of unilateral actions proposed in the aftermath of the disastrous midterm election was the foundation for the “We Can’tWait” campaign. Obama arrived at the slogan in a White House strategy meeting in the fall of...

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