If the Democrats want to seriously cement a majority for the next twenty years, their next year in power in the House of Representatives will be crucial. Paul Waldman in The Plum Line outlines the importance of their oversight of the Executive Branch:
We don’t know exactly what that plan is, but the biggest challenge will be finding room on the calendar to conduct all the probes Democrats have lined up. There’s the strong documentary evidence that the president and his family undertook a years-long conspiracy to commit tax fraud on a massive scale, and the administration’s attempt to rig the census and its repeated lies about it, and the possibility that the president intervened in the decision on where to locate the new FBI headquarters to avoid competition for his hotel, to name just a few of the dozens of matters that cry out for investigation. There are things we can’t yet anticipate, like whatever will be revealed once we’re finally able to see President Trump’s tax returns. (If you think they won’t contain evidence of a pile of misdeeds, I’ve got a degree from Trump University to sell you.) And, oh yeah, that Russia thing.
And, of course, there are a raft of policy decisions ranging from the questionable to the horrific that administration officials need to answer questions about, whether it’s the sabotaging of the Affordable Care Act or the separation of children from their parents at the border.
But just as important will be the question of how they conduct themselves. Evidence should be publicized, along with information about why such evidence should be considered evidence of wrong-doing. After all, some folks don’t keep up with governmental ethics, so it doesn’t hurt to explain it again and again.
These investigations need to be models of how to run a governmental investigation – in a sense, it should be a model for the Republicans, a lesson in how to conduct investigations.
Sure, there’s going to be the core of Republicans who’ll refuse to take it as a serious investigation. They’ll call it just politics – but the proper answer is, Yes, it’s politics – but politics can be conducted in acceptable or unacceptable ways. The questions we’re examining here have to do with whether or not the politics were conducted properly – or improperly.
Has there been improper use of governmental offices for material gain? Have some United States citizens been treated unequally, such as the Puerto Ricans?
Was there collusion with the Russians in violation of American law?
These investigations must become the bridge from the Democrats to the American public, in particular the independents, through which they earn those independents’ trust. Every year, this trust must be re-earned by both parties, ideally – and this is the Democrat’s big opportunity to do so.
