20
This Is What Third Parties Do Best
I received a press release from the office of U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia) about the launch of a new Congressional coalition dedicated to shifting America's health policies away from a disease care system towards prevention. The wording sounded familiar, and it was. It echoes the Natural Law Party platform and the efforts of two leaders of the Natural Law Party in the Washington area, who have worked closely with Congressman Moran and other members of Congress during the past 18 months to promote change in America's health care system.
I look at the date for the launch, it's in one week, on February 3. Too bad.
Right now, the Washington press corps is choked by stories of scandals and consumed
with the brinkmanship between the U.S. and Iraq. I doubt there will be much
press coverage of the news conference. Prevention lacks the glitz and glamor
of scandal and the urgency of the spectre of war. But in this case press coverage
doesn't matter. There is substance in this story, and it doesn't require the
media to give it life. But there is something else significant about this story.
It showcases democracy at its best-it demonstrates the power of a good third-party
idea when it is allowed entry into the national political arena.
February 3, 1998, 10:00 a.m. The room looks like a cross between a health fair and a birthday party. There are balloons everywhere and long rectangular tables are lined up throughout the room. Each table is piled high with flyers, handouts, and brochures on how to reduce high blood pressure, how to stop smoking, how to lose weight. There's a station for testing your cholesterol, a station for testing your blood for diabetes, and a booth with a special camera that will project a "morphed" image of what you would look like if you weighed 20 pounds more or 10 pounds less. Bright, colorful banners hang from the walls and across the edges of tables revealing the presence of a veritable "Who's Who" of public health associations-organizations that have worked tirelessly for years to see this day: the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, Partnership for Prevention, and Shape Up America! People wander from booth to booth, sampling, looking, reading.
But this isn't a typical health fair. Actually, it's a press conference at the Dirksen Senate Office Building of the U.S. Capitol. It's a festive event that signals-celebrates, actually-a long overdue shift in America's health care policies. Today, for the first time in our history, a bipartisan, bicameral (both the House and the Senate) coalition will be launched to promote disease prevention and health promotion in America. This is the "Congressional Prevention Coalition." It's being chaired by two Republican lawmakers and two Democratic lawmakers, and endorsed by a long list of Senators and Representatives from both sides of the aisle.
Congressman Moran is a driving force on Capitol Hill behind the Coalition. He is sitting at the center of a long conference table, and is joined by the three other founding co-chairs of the Congressional Prevention Coalition: U.S. Senator John Chafee (R-Rhode Island), U.S. Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), and U.S. Rep. Jim Leach (R- Iowa). C. Everett Koop, the former U.S. Surgeon General, and Denise Austin, a fitness expert, are also here to speak.
The goals of the Coalition are three-fold
Rep. Moran tells the press that members of the Coalition believe it's time to adopt "a more forward-looking approach to problems in the health system.
"Without micromanaging, government can do much to encourage private-sector innovation, support community initiatives and public health activities, foster important research to ensure that the latest information is available to patients and practitioners, and modernize federal programs to reflect what we know about the advantages of prevention strategies," he says.
Dr. Sarina Grosswald and Elizabeth Rice Arnold are sitting in the front row, "listening intently to every word," as Grosswald says later. Grosswald is a nationally respected medical education consultant who ran as the Natural Law Party's candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Virginia's 8th District in 1996. One of her opponents was Rep. Moran. Rice Arnold is the director of Natural Law Party activities in the Washington area, and a longtime activist for educational reforms and international peace initiatives.
Since the campaign, Grosswald and Rice Arnold have worked with Rep. Moran and his staff-as well as with other members of Congress-to bring prevention to the forefront of the nation's legislative agenda. Rep. Moran credits Grosswald and Rice Arnold for the idea. The two women acknowledge the efforts of other nonprofit organizations which have worked to push the idea of prevention forward. But in my mind, a lion's share of the credit has to go not to an individual or a group but to the people who are politically active in Virginia's 8th Congressional District. Because this district, which includes Alexandria, Arlington, Falls Church, and much of Fairfax County, remains a rare bastion of real democracy in America. It is here, unlike most other districts in the country, that third-party and independent candidates are welcome to participate in candidate debates and other forums with Republicans and Democrats. Without such an open door, no new ideas-and no new coalition.
Specifically, Rep. Moran participated in over 30 candidate debates and forums with four other candidates running for office. That meant he was exposed to ideas other than those of his Republican opponent, John Otey. And that meant that he heard Grosswald, an intelligent and articulate woman, speak in-depth about the importance of prevention-not just in health care, but in crime, education, and environmental issues as well. Rep. Moran must have appreciated the ideas because in those rare instances when Grosswald was not allowed to participate, he would make a point to introduce her as she sat in the audience.
"Rep. Moran could see during the debates that my message of prevention was receiving a very good response from the audience," says Grosswald, who was associate director of education at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists for 11 years, and is now president of her own consulting company. "After a few weeks he would nod and say during the debates, 'Yes, I agree with that.'"
Grosswald recalls a big debate held at the Jewish Community Center in Fairfax County, with about 500 people in the audience and several television cameras covering the event.
When Grosswald spoke on the issue of prevention, Rep. Moran publicly agreed with her. She recalls:
"After that debate, the chairperson of the Northern Virginia Republican Committee came up to congratulate me, and said, 'You did an excellent job, Sarina-I wish you were running for us.' But then she said, 'The amazing thing was that Moran agreed with you. He has never agreed in public with an opponent. This was historic.'"
Immediately after the election, Rep. Moran met with Grosswald and Rice Arnold and said that he planned to establish a prevention coalition in Congress and asked for their help. The two women canvassed the House, meeting with Congressmen and Senators, senior legislative assistants, and health specialists-and found strong support from both Republicans and Democrats.
"The idea seemed so obvious," Grosswald says. "The staff would say, 'Why haven't we done this before?'"
Grosswald and Rice Arnold also found that many lawmakers were already familiar with the Natural Law Party and its prevention-oriented approach.
"There were 400 Natural Law Party candidates running against Democratic and Republican candidates in 1996," says Rice Arnold. "If those candidates were allowed to participate in debates then Republicans and Democrats heard our message-and they saw the positive response from the public."
Now, as the two women listen to the lawmakers speak at the press conference, they hear many of their own words come back to them.
Senator Chafee describes the Coalition as "an idea whose time has come. As lawmakers from both parties join forces to tackle the challenges of health care this year, we must focus on the ways in which we can prevent Americans from getting sick, rather than just rely on the tried-and-true methods of treating illness once it occurs."
Dr. Koop calls on Congress not to lose sight of those issues that will most directly affect death and disease rates in the U.S. "While proposals to reform the health care system are clearly important, what is equally necessary is a clear set of legislative policies that will reduce preventable death and disease. This is not a problem requiring additional fact-finding before action is taken. Developing a national prevention agenda clearly deserves the attention of policy makers and the medical community alike."
The launch is a success and the news conference, while not drawing a huge press
turnout, nevertheless is also a success. Rep. Moran joins Grosswald and Rice
Arnold as the news conference breaks up and people mill around and walk through
the booths. He tells the two women that their work has been key to the start
of the Coalition. "You put the idea in our heads and you pushed our office to
follow through with it,'" he says.
If you work for a third party you know the history of third parties in America. You know, as I said earlier, that they have brought into national debate-often against considerable resistance-new ideas that have transformed the face of the nation, including abolition of slavery, a woman's right to vote, and child labor laws, to name just a few. And if you work for a third party-or one of the two major parties for that matter-perhaps you can point to foundational ideas, policies, programs, and solutions that have made their way, through your party's efforts, into public policy and reshaped society for the betterment of all. The Natural Law Party, although just a youngster in years compared to America's other political parties, has already made a sizeable impact on the nation. It's a long list that includes court challenges to overturn unfair ballot access laws, break down barriers to the public debates, and remove obstacles to equal access to the airwaves. It also includes bringing the dangers of genetic engineering into national awareness and mobilizing scientists and consumers to demand labeling of such foods; working to shift America's fuel supply from polluting fossil fuels to clean renewables; lobbying to maintain the integrity of the organic food market; and highlighting for the first time in the political arena the effectiveness of scientifically documented programs for developing human potential that rehabilitate offenders, boost test scores, reduce high blood pressure, and lower stress, crime, and violence throughout society.
Look closely at this list. Some ideas you may agree with, some you may not-but that's okay. That's the value of spirited political debate; that's the basis of healthy democracy. Now consider for a moment how much better off the whole country would be if people didn't have to work so hard to get those ideas out there-if new parties were not largely outlawed from the democratic process.
America is on a roll. Business is booming, interest rates are down, and crime is on the decline. But there are a lot of very troubling trends that lie just beneath the surface, trends that bode ill for the future. Much needs to be done to change all this. But none of it will happen unless we change the laws that keep new ideas out of the political mainstream. As I reflect back on the launch of the Congressional Prevention Coalition I think that the American people were fortunate that the light of democracy still burns in Virginia's 8th Congressional District. Consider how many other good ideas are out there that never see the light of day.