The upcoming August recess, which begins on July 31st, is when Members of Congress go home to meet their constituents, listen to them, attend local community events, and brag about their legislative accomplishments like cocky roosters in the hopes that their constituents will vote them back into office. These lawmakers also work hard to hold fundraisers where lobbyists, likely from the murder-by-spreadsheet insurance industry, will attend to bribe these lawmakers into voting against the pending health care legislation in the House. 

As I’ve said before on this subject, the one reason why it was so important that Democrats NOT delay the passage of health care reform because of what’ll be waiting for these Members of Congress when they go home on recess. They’ll get hit by hundreds of TV ads from the murder-by-spreadsheet industry, organized conservative protests in front of their offices, and angry phone calls from votes scared about "socialized health care." Then they come back to Congress, scared to pass real health care reform, so they end up passing fake health care reform without a public option or a national insurance exchange–in short, the dream legislation of the "Baucus-Fauc-Us" health bill out of the Finance Committee. 

It’s why we at Firedoglake were working so hard to prevent this from happening by pressuring Members of Congress not to go on vacation before dealing with health care reform. Then the Blue Dog Democrats threw a revolt, demanded that Henry Waxman listen to their demands since they had seven of their members on the Energy and Commerce Committee ready to block the tri-committee health care bill from passing out of that committee. The Democratic leadership ended up giving in to the Blue Dog Democrats without consulting the rest of the Democratic caucus, such as the much-maligned congressional progressives on what they thought. 

And then the progressives in Congress threw a revolt for the first time ever, successfully delaying the mark-up of the tri-committee bill for another day. However, the White House and the Democratic leadership got worried, and started twisting arms to make sure these progressives acquiesced to the demands of the Blue Dog Democrats, which had weakened the public option, cut back subsidies for the middle class, and established state-based cooperatives as requirements for the passage of the bill out of the committee. 

The mark-up for the tri-committee bill was now back on, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus got together, circulated a letter for signatures, and ended up getting 57 signatures promising not to vote for the Blue Dog compromise on the House floor.  That’s 57 names now out in the public, and these names are now targets for the murder-by-spreadsheet industry to aim their campaign efforts at during recess. It’s why we at Firedoglake need you guys more than ever to make sure that these 57 progressives stand firm in their opposition to any legislation that comes out of the conference process that does not contain a strong, robust public option. 

It’s going to be a huge battle for these progressives in August to stick to that letter they signed, let alone the Pledge that we have some of them on. Our phone calls, in-district visits, and e-mails are going to be a main part of this effort to keep the spines of our progressives in Congress from collapsing under the huge PR onslaught.  Also, during the August recess is when deals will be struck to reconcile the three different versions of the House Tri-Committee bill, and we’ll be paying attention to make sure that the Blue Dog compromises aren’t in the final bill version slated for full floor passage. 

August’s going to be a hell of a month.