Landrieu’s loss on Keystone raises re-election difficulty with white voters
24th November 2014 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
A bit of chicanery occurred in the U.S. Senate when it began the debate on the Keystone XL Pipelines last Tuesday, when incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for approval of the “Cassidy Keystone Bill.”
California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer immediately asked if the Senate was considering on the “Hoeven-Landrieu Bill”. The Chair responded that it was.
North Dakota GOP Senator John Hoeven then insulted Landrieu by referencing the bill “sponsored by Senator Cassidy” until quickly correcting himself and stating “Representative Cassidy.”
Adding salt to the wound, Boxer began her speech of opposition to Landrieu’s bill, by praising Landrieu “without whose efforts we would not be talking about this”, before disparaging the bill, with an implication that XL stood for “Extra Lethal”.
Mary Landrieu began her authorship speech on a hopeful note, “As the American people have figured out, Democrats and Republicans cannot do anything alone without the other,” and noting that her caucus and the GOP caucus often each had meetings to decide what was best for their caucus, Landrieu pondered, “It’s kind of interesting to me, because the family that I grew up in asked what was good for the people we represent…”
In the end, her party chose politics as surely as the Republicans who insisted on renaming her pipeline bill for her La. Senate opponent. (Who had only filed his U.S. House version on November 12, after emerging into a runoff with Landrieu for the Senate.)
Despite Landrieu’s bipartisan appeal, Senate Democrats filibustered her Keystone XL pipeline bill by one vote. Boxer’s vote.
Or if one prefers, Sen. Mark Udall, who was defeated on Tuesday, November 4 by Cory Gardner in Colorado. Udall had nothing to lose by voting for cloture, but nonetheless cast his ballot against Landrieu advancing her bill to a vote, and to the President’s desk.
His choice will prove important in the coming months, as the Democrats based their filibuster on members that, in many cases, will not return next year.
The final tally also indicates that Republicans will have the votes to send Keystone XL to Barack Obama’s desk in January.
Despite the fact they would likely lose come 2015, the Senate Democratic caucus decided not to enrage the rising environmental lobby, which had invested so much in stopping the Keystone pipeline, by playing a major role in advancing the legislation in the lame duck session.
Long-term, not offending a major contributors and activists at the base of your party, might serve as descent strategy, yet the decision provides major political fallout short term.
First the filibuster sends a negative message to the Democratic Party’s historic base, Big Labor. The ‘nay’ votes demonstrate that construction and oil labor unions, originally amongst the strongest base of the Democratic Party, no longer hold sway against the wishes of the environmentalists. The 4000 Davis-Bacon wage union construction jobs that would have been created could not convince even Senators going home in defeat in a lame duck session. And, the decision to vote against Keystone brought swift condemnation from a loyal Democrat and early Obama backer.
“The majority of Democrats in the Senate and the White House just don’t get it, even though the recent election results surely should have sunk in by now. They have lost their way, their purpose and their base,” said Laborers’ International Union of North America President Terry O’Sullivan.
He echoed the comments of many of the leaders of the traditional blue-collar labor unions, who ardently sought the pipeline’s approval. Private sector labor leaders had noted, like Landrieu did in her defense of the bill, that literally millions of miles of oil and natural gas pipelines existed in the US. Keystone XL was merely a thousand miles to link Canada and North Dakota Tar Sands shale with refineries in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.
O’Sullivan went so far as to say Keystone XL was a test of whether the Democratic Party could be trusted on jobs. However, the Democrats larger challenges with Labor pale in comparison to Landrieu’s challenges with the White vote in Louisiana. In order to win the runoff election, the incumbent Senator needs 30% of the Caucasian electorate. On Nov. 4th, she earned 18%.
Her pathway to victory has always been for African-Americans to vote at or above their registration in the electorate. In primary, Black voters did just that—barely—by emerging at 31.4 percent of the vote. In past races, Mary Landrieu also could count on strong results in Jefferson Parish and the oil-refining River Parishes amongst Caucasian voters, making up the remaining third of the white vote she needs.
In the primary, the incumbent US Senator won 45 percent of Jefferson Parish, not the majority she usually earned. And, she did worse the further up the river one traveled towards Baton Rouge. To convince oil workers and their families, as well as the construction trades in suburban New Orleans to “come home” and vote for the local girl, Landrieu had to show that her influence on Capitol Hill could deliver her own party. These mostly White Blue Collar works, many of them in labor unions, continued to remain voting for Landrieu, despite the GOP trends in Louisiana, because of the Senator’s perceived ability to carry her caucus at a critical time.
In the end, her inability to do so, might prove difficult. Current polls put Landrieu behind Cassidy by nine or more points. And that was prior to the Keystone vote.
Perhaps the final indignity for the incumbent Louisiana Senator came upon Chair Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts gaveled Keystone to defeat. A Native American war chant immediately came ringing out from the Senate Galeries. Greg Grey Cloud of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe had previously said that the U.S. House’s approval of Keystone was “an act of war,” and he chanted victory in Lakota.
Ultimately, Grey Cloud, who wore a headdress, continued singing as he was knocked to the floor and pulled to the wall of the hallway with five other protestors, Deirdra Shelly, 22, of Harrisburg, Pa.; Kayla Lang, 20, of Lynwood, Pa.; Maria Langholz, 22, of St. Paul, Minn.; and Anthony Torres, 20, East Islip, N.Y.
This article originally published in the November 24, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
