Mid-Term Elections: 2010
Barack Obama came was elected President in 2008 with all the aura of a rockstar. He had won a decisive victory over the well-respected former Vietnam POW and "Maverick" Arizona Senator John McCain, winning 52.9% of the popular vote and 365 of the 538 electoral votes. In the Congressional elections, Democrats added to their majorities in both houses of Congress. Voters opted for change over experience and it looked as if major changes were coming.
In his first week in office, Obama signed Executive Order 13492 suspending all ongoing proceedings of the Guantanamo military commissions and ordering the Guantanamo detention facility to be shut down within the year. Executive Order 13491 banned torture and other coercive techniques, such as waterboarding. But probably the most significant action of President Obama's first 100 days was the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to address the Great Recession that had hit the country in the past year. After considerable debate, ARRA was passed by both the House and Senate on February 13, 2009.
It was a time when political polarization was growing. For example, passage of the recovery bill relied largely on Democratic votes, and only three Republican Senators voted for it. The lack of Republican support for the bill, and the inability of Democrats to win that support, were a sign of the gridlock that was to come. The bill came with a price tag of $787 billion and it combined tax breaks with spending on infrastructure projects, extension of welfare benefits, and education spending.
But the most contentious legislation was yet to come. Once the stimulus bill was enacted in February 2009, health care reform became President Obama's top priority. The 111th Congress would soon pass a major bill that the country would come to know as "Obamacare." Health care reform had been a major plank in President Obama's campaign platform and even before that, Democrats had talked about a national health care plan since the days of Harry Truman. Bill Clinton's had tried and failed to reform health care in 1993. Obama thought that he would learn from Clinton's mistake by letting the House and Senate write their own bills.
In the Senate, a bipartisan group of Senators on the Finance Committee known as the Gang of Six began meeting with the goal of writing a bipartisan healthcare reform bill. In November 2009, the House passed their bill, known as the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The bill passed on a 220-215 vote, with only one Republican voting in favor the bill. In December 2009, the Senate passed its own health care reform bill, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, on strictly a party-line vote of 60 to 39. Both bills expanded Medicaid and provided health care subsidies. Each of he bills also established an individual mandate and a ban on denying coverage on account of on pre-existing conditions. One major difference was that the House bill included a tax increase on families making more than $1 million per year and a public health insurance option. The Senate plan included an excise tax on high-cost health plans.
In 2010 a special Senate election in Massachusetts shocked Democrats when Republican Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's former senate seat. As a result, Democrats lost their 60-seat Senate super-majority. This meant that any alteration to the Senate bill would face delays. The White House sought help from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to convince both centrists and liberals in the House to pass the Senate's health care bill. As a trade-off to get some conservative votes, President Obama announced an executive order reinforcing the existing law against spending federal funds for elective abortion services. In March of 2010 the House passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the same bill, which had passed in the Senate in December 2009. The bill did not receive a single Republican vote in either house.
The Affordable Care Act faced considerable challenges and opposition even after its passage. Republicans continually tried to repeal the law. The law also survived two major challenges that went to the Supreme Court.
As the mid-term elections approached, voters were also motivated for and against the reforms to the health care system enacted in 2010. They were also concerned over the record deficits that the federal government was running. The economy had not yet recovered from the 2008 recession and at the time of the election, unemployment was over 9%. The unemployment rate had not declined significantly President Obama's election. Democrats were also hurt by a series of scandals that saw Democratic Representatives Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters, as well as Republican Senator John Ensign, all accused of wrongdoing in the months leading up to the 2010 election.
A movement known as the Tea Party became a force in the election, especially in selecting Republican candidates with libertarian and strong fiscally conservative values. They received widespread exposure in the media, which in turn focused the election coverage on economic issues, rather than social ones.
Another issue driven by conservatives in the campaign was Immigration reform. In Arizona, where illegal entry into the state from Mexico had become a significant problem, the state legislature had passed Senate Bill 1070 in 2010, officially known as the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. The Act greatly enhanced the power of Arizona's law enforcement agencies to investigate the immigration status of suspected illegal immigrants and to enforce state and national immigration laws. The Act also required immigrants to carry their immigration documentation on their person at all times. The bill was the subject of a very public signing by Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, and it was followed by protests across the Southwest by both both pro-immigration Latino groups and Tea Party activists.
The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act seemed to cause a voter backlash against Democrats, in the months leading up to the election. Many Republicans ran on a promise to repeal the law, and defeat those incumbent Democratic opponents who had voted in favor of the Bill.
The 34 seats in the United States Senate Class III were up for election and three other senate seats in which appointments had been made to fill vacancies were contested on the same day. Republicans won four seats held by retiring Democrats and also defeated two incumbent Democrats, for a net gain of six seats. This was the first time since 1994 that Republicans successfully defended all of their own seats. Despite the Republican gains, the Democrats retained a slim majority of the Senate with 51 seats plus the two independents who caucused with them. Republican held 47 seats.
Republicans won the nationwide popular vote for the House of Representatives by a margin of 6.8% and picked up 63 seats in the House, taking control of the chamber for the first time since the 2006 elections. This represented the largest single-election shift in House seats since the 1948 mid-term elections. Republicans now held a majority of 242 to 193 in the House.
After the election, John Boehner of Ohio replaced Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, and Pelosi became the new House Minority Leader. Boehner pledged to repeal Obamacare and to cut federal spending. To date, neither has occurred. President Obama called the elections "humbling" and referred to them as a "shellacking." He attributed the defeat to the fact that not enough Americans had felt the effects of the economic recovery. A confrontation between the newly empowered House Republicans and the President soon followed on the issue of the debt ceiling. Governing was to become significantly more difficult for the new President.
In his first week in office, Obama signed Executive Order 13492 suspending all ongoing proceedings of the Guantanamo military commissions and ordering the Guantanamo detention facility to be shut down within the year. Executive Order 13491 banned torture and other coercive techniques, such as waterboarding. But probably the most significant action of President Obama's first 100 days was the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to address the Great Recession that had hit the country in the past year. After considerable debate, ARRA was passed by both the House and Senate on February 13, 2009.
It was a time when political polarization was growing. For example, passage of the recovery bill relied largely on Democratic votes, and only three Republican Senators voted for it. The lack of Republican support for the bill, and the inability of Democrats to win that support, were a sign of the gridlock that was to come. The bill came with a price tag of $787 billion and it combined tax breaks with spending on infrastructure projects, extension of welfare benefits, and education spending.
But the most contentious legislation was yet to come. Once the stimulus bill was enacted in February 2009, health care reform became President Obama's top priority. The 111th Congress would soon pass a major bill that the country would come to know as "Obamacare." Health care reform had been a major plank in President Obama's campaign platform and even before that, Democrats had talked about a national health care plan since the days of Harry Truman. Bill Clinton's had tried and failed to reform health care in 1993. Obama thought that he would learn from Clinton's mistake by letting the House and Senate write their own bills.
In the Senate, a bipartisan group of Senators on the Finance Committee known as the Gang of Six began meeting with the goal of writing a bipartisan healthcare reform bill. In November 2009, the House passed their bill, known as the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The bill passed on a 220-215 vote, with only one Republican voting in favor the bill. In December 2009, the Senate passed its own health care reform bill, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, on strictly a party-line vote of 60 to 39. Both bills expanded Medicaid and provided health care subsidies. Each of he bills also established an individual mandate and a ban on denying coverage on account of on pre-existing conditions. One major difference was that the House bill included a tax increase on families making more than $1 million per year and a public health insurance option. The Senate plan included an excise tax on high-cost health plans.
In 2010 a special Senate election in Massachusetts shocked Democrats when Republican Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's former senate seat. As a result, Democrats lost their 60-seat Senate super-majority. This meant that any alteration to the Senate bill would face delays. The White House sought help from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to convince both centrists and liberals in the House to pass the Senate's health care bill. As a trade-off to get some conservative votes, President Obama announced an executive order reinforcing the existing law against spending federal funds for elective abortion services. In March of 2010 the House passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the same bill, which had passed in the Senate in December 2009. The bill did not receive a single Republican vote in either house.
The Affordable Care Act faced considerable challenges and opposition even after its passage. Republicans continually tried to repeal the law. The law also survived two major challenges that went to the Supreme Court.
As the mid-term elections approached, voters were also motivated for and against the reforms to the health care system enacted in 2010. They were also concerned over the record deficits that the federal government was running. The economy had not yet recovered from the 2008 recession and at the time of the election, unemployment was over 9%. The unemployment rate had not declined significantly President Obama's election. Democrats were also hurt by a series of scandals that saw Democratic Representatives Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters, as well as Republican Senator John Ensign, all accused of wrongdoing in the months leading up to the 2010 election.
A movement known as the Tea Party became a force in the election, especially in selecting Republican candidates with libertarian and strong fiscally conservative values. They received widespread exposure in the media, which in turn focused the election coverage on economic issues, rather than social ones.
Another issue driven by conservatives in the campaign was Immigration reform. In Arizona, where illegal entry into the state from Mexico had become a significant problem, the state legislature had passed Senate Bill 1070 in 2010, officially known as the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. The Act greatly enhanced the power of Arizona's law enforcement agencies to investigate the immigration status of suspected illegal immigrants and to enforce state and national immigration laws. The Act also required immigrants to carry their immigration documentation on their person at all times. The bill was the subject of a very public signing by Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, and it was followed by protests across the Southwest by both both pro-immigration Latino groups and Tea Party activists.
The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act seemed to cause a voter backlash against Democrats, in the months leading up to the election. Many Republicans ran on a promise to repeal the law, and defeat those incumbent Democratic opponents who had voted in favor of the Bill.
The 34 seats in the United States Senate Class III were up for election and three other senate seats in which appointments had been made to fill vacancies were contested on the same day. Republicans won four seats held by retiring Democrats and also defeated two incumbent Democrats, for a net gain of six seats. This was the first time since 1994 that Republicans successfully defended all of their own seats. Despite the Republican gains, the Democrats retained a slim majority of the Senate with 51 seats plus the two independents who caucused with them. Republican held 47 seats.
Republicans won the nationwide popular vote for the House of Representatives by a margin of 6.8% and picked up 63 seats in the House, taking control of the chamber for the first time since the 2006 elections. This represented the largest single-election shift in House seats since the 1948 mid-term elections. Republicans now held a majority of 242 to 193 in the House.
After the election, John Boehner of Ohio replaced Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, and Pelosi became the new House Minority Leader. Boehner pledged to repeal Obamacare and to cut federal spending. To date, neither has occurred. President Obama called the elections "humbling" and referred to them as a "shellacking." He attributed the defeat to the fact that not enough Americans had felt the effects of the economic recovery. A confrontation between the newly empowered House Republicans and the President soon followed on the issue of the debt ceiling. Governing was to become significantly more difficult for the new President.