General Discussion

What is effective is drawing up legislation, often with a member of the opposing party, and wording it so that is acceptable enough to both to give it a chance to survive committee scrutiny, and then the full Congress. McCain-Feingold, e.g. That involves a lot of jawboning, backroom meetings with no prying press eyes, then running it by members of Congress with differing/opposing views, and convincing them of the bill's merits. It's often dreary, exhausting, and, above all, unspectacular work. There are plenty in Congress today whose motto is "I don't do unspectacular." But it IS how legislative progress is made. My dad covered that stuff in DC for fifty years. It was often enough he had to gnash his teeth and keep a promise to keep something he was told in confidence "off the record," so as not to harm delicate backroom negotiations between legislators of both parties if they were seen to be getting somewhere. The headlines on the real accomplishments came after the work was finished, not to kickstart it. If an idea is given no chance by the very people who have the power to make it reality, then that's how much chance it will have. No one snapped their fingers to make the ACA law, and no one snapped their fingers in an unsuccessful attempt to make it go away. If you think that both procedures were simple, I envy your free time.