Tag Archives for Congress

AARP poll: women over 50 to decide control of congress, state capitols

Published in RINewsToday on April 11, 2022

It’s just 214 days until the upcoming midterm elections scheduled for Nov. 8, 2022, (Rhode Island’s primary is 167 days away scheduled for Sept. 13, 2022). During the 117th Congress, with a slim majority of 222 Democrats to 212 Republicans, the Democrats control the House chamber. When the dust settles after the election we’ll see if the Democrats retain their grip on this chamber. Washington insiders say that Senate Democrats, holding the majority with a 50-50 split with vice president Kamala Harris’ having a tie-breaking vote, could lose control of the upper chamber if the Republican Party flips seats. Thirty-five Senators are up for reelection.

Twenty Republican and 16 Democrat gubernatorial seats (including Rhode Island) are also up for grabs this election cycle, too.

A new AARP study finds that women voters aged 50 and over who haven’t decided which candidate to support will decide who controls Congress and state capitols across the nation in the next election.

Taking a Look at Older Women Voters

AARP’s  new research findings released April 6th, in partnership with pollsters Celinda Lake, Christine Matthews, Kristen Soltis Anderson, and Margie Omero, found that only 17% of women in this key voting bloc have made up their mind about who they will support in the upcoming 2022 elections. Not quite two-thirds (65%) of these voters say they will not make their decisions until weeks or even days before Election Day.

“Contrary to conventional wisdom, women voters aged 50 and over do not solidly belong in either party’s camp — and the vast majority haven’t made up their minds about how they’ll vote in November,” said Nancy LeaMond, AARP Chief Advocacy and Engagement Officer. “The instability and uncertainty of the economy, the pandemic, and the political environment are leading these women to demand that candidates address quality of life and pocketbook issues like the cost of living, supply chain problems, and ways to end the discord permeating politics today,” she says.

The pollsters found that the most important issues for r women voters aged 50 and over are “kitchen table budgets” and the “day-to-day experience of rising prices.” Nearly half of those surveyed (46%) see rising cost of living as the most important issue facing the nation today. And 59% say rising prices are the most important issue to them, personally, when reflecting about the economy.

According to AARP, women aged 50 and over are one of the largest, most reliable group of voters. According to voter file and census bureau data, they make up a little more than one-quarter (27%) of registered voters and cast nearly a third (30%) of all ballots in both the 2020 and 2018 elections.  In 2020, 83% of registered women voters in this age group turned out and in 2018, the last midterm election, they were 15% more likely to vote than the population at large, says the nation’s largest advocacy group.  

Concerns About Rising Costs and the Nation’s Economy 

AARP’s national survey also found that 72% of the woman respondents are concerned about having enough income to cover rising costs, with 48% saying they are very concerned. Fifty two percent say the economy is not working well for them, a 15-point change from 2019, when just 37% of women said the economy was not working well for them.

The pollsters found that most are not optimistic about their own financial futures in the next 12 months – with 47% saying they think their personal financial situation will stay the same, while 39% think it will get worse and only 13% think it will improve. The survey findings also indicated that those respondents age 50-64 are intensely worried about saving for retirement and their financial future – with 51% saying they are very concerned about Social Security being there for their retirement and 30% saying they are most concerned about having saved enough for retirement.  

According to the AARP survey, women voters aged 50 and over also expressed concern about political division in the country, and they are unimpressed with the job elected officials are doing on a range of issues, including their dominant concern of rising prices.

By more than a two-to-one margin, the pollsters say that these voters want politicians who are willing to work together to get things done, even if the result is an occasional compromise that goes against voters’ values (67%), over politicians who consistently fight for their values but don’t often find solutions (30%). This finding remains consistent across party identifications, with 77% of Democratic women and 57% of Republican women preferring a politician compromise to get things done, while 21% of Democratic women and 40% of Republican women prefer a values-prioritizing politician.

Taking a deeper look, the pollsters found that women voters 50 and over are divided evenly by party (44% R – 45% D), in sharp contrast to their male counterparts who are solidly Republican (51% R – 38% D).  In a generic ballot, the Democratic candidate for Congress (48% will vote for) has a 7-point advantage over the Republican candidate (41% will vote for) among these women voters.

Similar Observations from the Pollsters 

“Addressing the rising cost of living is an issue that any smart candidate for office will put front and center this year,” said Kristen Soltis Anderson, founding partner, Echelon Insights. “Especially in midterm elections, women voters aged 50 and over will be a critical group that both parties must compete for, and cost of living is clearly the top issue on which they want leaders to be focused,” she said.

Celinda Lake, founder and president, Lake Research Partners, agrees with Anderson that women aged 50 and over can be the significant voting bloc in the 2022 elections. “They are sure to turn out in high numbers when many other voters are disengaging. These voters have yet to make up their minds and are dissatisfied with the jobs their elected leaders are doing, especially on the kitchen table economic issues they face every day,” she notes.

“Women over 50 may not only be the decision-makers in their households, but they may also be the decision-makers of the midterm elections,” said Margie Omero, Principal at GBAO.

Christine Matthews, President of Bellwether Research, says“Women over 50 are arguably the most important voting cohort for the 2022 midterm elections – and they are not happy,” “They are extremely worried about the impact rising prices – particularly groceries – are having on their budget and their ability to save for retirement,” she says.

Matthew adds,” A majority say the economy is not working for them – a significant uptick from two years ago. They want politicians to work together to find solutions to inflation and other key issues, but they are not pleased with what they see. Elected officials should be prepared to demonstrate to this key group that they are working productively on cost-of-living issues,” she says.

The AARP national survey was conducted by phone and online from Feb. 18 to March 3, 2022, using 1,836 voters aged 50 and over who are likely to vote in 2022, with samples of Black voters, Hispanic/Latino voters, Asian American/Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander voters, as well as American Indian/Alaska Native voters. 

A Final Note…

It’s just seven months before the upcoming midterm elections. The historical voting pattern of midterm elections is clear. “The sitting president’s party almost always loses House seats in the midterms. Going back to Harry Truman’s presidency, the president’s party has lost, on average, 29 House seats in each president’s first midterm election,” says James M. Lindsay, senior vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the Council on Foreign Relations, in a blog article, “The 2022 Midterm Congressional Elections by Number,” published on March 8, 2022.

Lindsay, senior vice president and director of studies and Maurice R. Greenberg chair, says, “The betting money is that the Republican Party will be the winner on election night, taking back control of one, if not both houses of Congress,” he says, noting that eight months can be a lifetime in politics. 

Republicans are optimistic in picking up seats because of Biden’s low job approval rating, inflation being at a 40-year high, 31 incumbent Democrats retiring (it’s more difficult to defeat an incumbent) and the COVID-19 pandemic still killing 1,500 American’s daily, says Lindsay. But Lindsay predicts Democrats may do better at the polls just because “the midterms are still eight months away,” and who knows where the country will be then. “The redistricting of House seats is going well for the Democrats with several states throwing out Republican redistricting plans and others enacting redistricting plans to benefit the Democrats, he says.

“The Senate math favors Democrats, the party just defending 14 seats while Republicans must keep 21 Senate seats,” adds Lindsay. “Ideologically extreme candidates” will push away moderate voters in House and Senate races, he says. 

But AARP’s national poll warning to Senators, House lawmakers, and Governors to not ignore the concerns of older women voters should be heeded. Not listening has a political cost. It may well determine the balance of power in the next election. 

Nursing Home Care in the Spotlight

Published in the Woonsocket Call on August 4, 2019

Following on the heels of its March 6 hearing, “Not Forgotten: Protecting Americans from Abuse and Neglect in Nursing Homes,” the Senate Finance Committee held its second nursing home hearing this year, “Promoting Elder Justice: A Call for Reform,” on July 23, in 215 Dirksen, to study proposed reforms to reduce neglect and abuse in the nation’s nursing homes and to put a spotlight on the need to reauthorize key provisions of the Elder Justice Act.

During the two hour and twenty-minute morning hearing, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) along 11 members of the Senate committee listened to the testimony of five panel witnesses.

In his opening statement, Grassley acknowledged that the work isn’t done yet to improving the care in the nation’s nursing homes and Congress must protect nursing home and assisted living residents and those in group living arrangements from harm. The Iowa Senator noted in the recently released U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report the federal agency that provides auditing, evaluation, and investigative services for Congress, noted that while one-third of nursing home residents may experience harm while under the care of these facilities, in more than half of these cases, the harm was preventable.

Calls for Bipartisan Efforts to Improve Nursing Home Care

Grassley called on Congress to reauthorize programs, such as the Elder Justice Act, to put the brakes on the growing trend of elder an abuse fueled by social media.

Adds, Wyden, in his opening statement, there is now an opportunity for Congress to come together to hammer out bipartisan legislative reforms to fix the nation’s nursing home oversight efforts. He urged his fellow Senate committee members to work to reduce the instances of physical, sexual, mental and emotion abuse in nursing homes, that appears to be increasing. He also called for a redo to the federal nursing home rating system because it does not reflect the increased prevalence of abuse.

During the first panel, Megan H. Tucker, Senior Advisor for Legal Review, of the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), stated that abuse and neglect oftentimes are not properly identified, reported or even addressed. While most providers are delivering good care, Tucker warned that Health and Human Service safeguards are lacking.

Tucker testified that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should use data more effectively and close the gaps in their reporting process to ensure that abuse and neglect are identified and the deficiencies corrected.

Concluding the first panel, John E. Dicken, Director, Health Care, of the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO), discussed a newly released GAO report, released at the hearing, that detailed a growing trend of abuse and neglect of residents. According to one GAO report findings, abuse deficiencies more than doubled between 2013 (430) and 2017 (875), with the greatest increase in actual harm and immediate jeopardy deficiencies, and that abuse is still under-reported, he said. The GAO report also expressed concern over “significant gaps” with CMS’s oversight.

Leading the second panel, Robert Blancato, Coordinator of the Elder Justice Coalition, called on Congress to reauthorize, the Elder Justice Act. With elder abuse becoming a “national emergency,” he urged lawmakers to dedicate funding for Adult Protective Services at the local and state levels. Blancato also stressed the importance of strengthening the long-term care ombudsman program, continuing the Elder Justice Coordinating Council, authorizing an Advisory Board on Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation, and finally funding for elder abuse forensic centers.

President and CEO, Mark Parkinson, of the Washington, DC-based American Health Care Association (AHCA), representing nearly 10,000 of the 15,000 plus nursing homes in the country who provide care to nearly four million individuals each year, stated he was not at the hearing to defend poor care but to provide solutions to Congress to prevent such incidents from happening again.

Fixing the Problem

Parkinson testified that over the past seven years, facilities participating in AHCA’s quality initiative, have shown improvement in 18 of 24 quality measures. Specifically, there are less hospital readmissions, fewer antipsychotic medications being prescribed, staff are spending more time than ever before with residents and today’s nursing homes are more person-centered care today than ever before.

Parkinson called on lawmakers to improve employee background check systems, add patient satisfaction data to CMS’s nursing home rating system, address the severe staffing shortage and to adequate fund Medicaid.

Finally, Lori Smetanka, Executive Director of the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, ended the second panel discussions, by warning that more must be done to protect nursing home residents from abuse.

Smetanka urged Congress to take steps to enforce minimum requirements for sufficient staffing, establish standards and oversight for nursing home ownership and operations, prevent rollback of nursing home regulatory standards, increase the transparency of information and to strengthen and adequately fund elder justice provisions.

Now, with the Congress putting poor nursing home care on its policy radar screen, both Democratic and Republic congressional leadership must work closely together to come up with bipartisan solutions. Fix this problem once and for all.

Senate Finance Committee members — Senators Lankford, Stabenow, Daines, Menendez, Carper, Cardin, Warner, Casey, Brown, Cortez Masto, and Hassan – attended the July 23 hearing

To listen to this Senate Finance Committee hearing, go to http://www.c-span.org/video/?462733-1/finance.

For a copy of the GAO report, http://www.gao.gov/assets/710/700418.pdf.

Can nation survive Trump and GOP’s control of Capitol Hill?

Published in the Pawtucket TImes on January 9, 2017

Almost two months ago when GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump trounced his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton and his party took control of both chamber of Congress. Trump’s surprising victory stunned both voters and political commentators and pundits covering the heated presidential race. According to a Nov. 16, 2016 Gallup Poll, 80 percent of Trump’s voters are “excited,” while 76 percent of Clinton’s voters say they are “afraid.” A large majority of the respondents (75 percent) shared one reaction: “surprise.”

Days after the tumultuous election, Darrell M. West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Washington, D.C.-based the Brookings Institution, penned his thoughts about how president-elect Trump might govern the divided nation. His posting, “Four Scenarios for a Trump Presidency,” can be found on the Brooking’s FixGov blog, written on Nov. 14, 2016.

Speculating on Trump’s White House Governance

In his 1,286-word blog, West, an American author, political scientist, pollical commentator who formerly taught Political Science at Brown University for 26 years, says that Trump might choose to govern as a traditional Republican endorsing tax cuts, deregulation and repealing Obamacare. Like other GOP politicians he would call for reinstituting law and order, fighting ISIS and other extremist militant groups and controlling illegal immigration from coming into this country. “These typical GOP positions might resolve his philosophical differences on “entitlement reform and free trade,” says West, an author or co-author of 22 books.

Trump just might even turn over the reins of the presidency to Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, says West, these individuals “becoming the de facto prime minister.”

According to West, like president-elect Trump did during the presidential campaign, he might take on the role of a “popular rogue.” A “populist Trump could break conventional political rules and “attack the political establishment to represent the little guy,” notes West’s blog posting.

West also suggests that Trump might ultimately fail as president. After all, he lost the popular vote by 2 percentage points — or nearly three million votes — and alienated women, millennials, minorities and immigrants with his insulting comments. Scandals and disclosures about his personal behavior and continuing concerns about serious financial conflicts of interest could derail his “honeymoon” phase at the beginning of his presidential term and negatively impact his popularity ratings, he says.

West also speculates in his blog that policy backlashes due to millions losing health care coverage by his push to repeal Obamacare, privatizing Medicare or gutting Social Security, a slow-down in the economy or even Trump’s continued liking of Russian President Vladimir Putin, might make him a one-term president, like President Jimmy Carter.

Finally, public outcry and violent protest may turn Trump into an authoritarian leader. If this happens West expresses concerns smear campaigns(waged by White House Strategist Steve Bannon), the use of federal agencies to “attack adversaries” and the use of local police to “crack down” on protestors. “Firing top intelligence officials would suggest that Trump wants compliant people who will do his bidding against foreign and domestic adversaries,” he says.

Big Changes with the GOP in Charge

“It is a scary time in American politics,” says West, who expects to see big changes on Capitol Hill in 2017. The Brookings political pundit predicts that a Trump White House with a GOP controlled Congress will tackle large tax cuts, corporate tax reform, repealing Obamacare (but not having anything to replace it with), and reversing the Dodd Frank financial regulation bill. With the Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress he does not expect gridlock during the first six months of the 115th Congress.

West predicts that, in the long-run, many of the GOP president and Republican Congressional leadership policy initiatives will be problematic. “They are governing as if they have a clear mandate even though they lost the popular vote, he says.

West, like some political observers, expects many of the GOP’s conservative policy proposals to hurt the people who voted for Trump. The tax cuts go disproportionately to the top one percent and proposed changes in Medicare and Medicaid will limit medical care, he said.

“In a couple of years, the economy probably will be much weaker than it is today, which will undermine the very rationale of Trump’s candidacy,” says West, noting that if this happens the newly-elected president could have a 30 percent job approval rating by 2018. “Of course, that is when he really will become dangerous! The risk is he may try things to improve his poll numbers, such as identifying scapegoats or confronting adversaries,” warns West.

“GOP Congressional leaders have plans to privatize Medicare and block grant Medicaid to the states. This will impose limitations on medical care and make it more difficulty for needy people to get the help they need,” adds West, who also sees Republicans moving to reduce home care and medical assistance to America’s elderly.

West sees the “GOP legislative initiatives as being very contentious politically, and will reinforce perceptions of the GOP as cold and heartless [to Americans].”

“Democrats will not be able to pass legislation. Their main power will be trying to block things they don’t like or stop nominations at confirmation hearings that they find problematic,” says West, noting that they will be put in a defensive posture. “They will seek to protect certain gains made during the Obama administration.

West believes that Trump’s fix for the economy will not work. “In the longer-run, there is a risk that inflation will go up. Interest rates already have risen in anticipation of this,” he says.

“The market is expecting Trump to spend a lot of money and not be able to corral spending by the same amount. That will increase deficits and drive up inflation. It will be hard to blame this on Democrats since there has been low inflation for years now. It will be pretty obvious that GOP policies are responsible for the rate increases,” West adds.

Democrats Mobilize, Video Sends Message to Congress

As president-elect Trump’s inauguration approaches, President Obama traveled to Capitol Hill last week to urge Congressional Democrats to block the GOP president and the Republican Congressional leadership’s efforts to dismantle Obamacare, the outgoing president’s signature healthcare reform law and to fight their legislative policy initiatives. Behind closed doors Obama urged Democratic lawmakers to not “rescue” the Republicans by passing replacement measures. He suggested calling the GOP’s new plan, “Trumpcare,” to ensure that they are held responsible for any disruptions in health coverage. At press time there seems to be no GOP health care plan to consider.

After Obama’s meeting Democrats lawmakers have begun using the phrase, “Make America Sick Again,” tying into Trump’s wildly recognized campaign slogan, “Make American Great Again.”

Hollywood is moving to block Trump’s policy initiatives. Almost a week ago documentarian Liz Garbus unveiled her one minute and 49 second video (#StandUpForUS), released by Humanity for Progress, to urge Congress to block any legislative initiatives pushed by Trump and his GOP allies that attack groups he marginalized during last year’s presidential campaign. Celebrities and activists lined up to participate in this video. They included Rosie Perez, Keegan-Michael Key, Tavi Gevinson, Lea Delaria, Sally Field, Steve Buscemi, Zoe Kazan, Jeffrey Wright and Janet Mock, among others.

“The majority of Americans, regardless of who they voted for, did not vote for racism, for sexism, or for xenophobia … and yet Donald Trump won,” notes the video. At the end of the video, viewers are asked to email the video to members of Congress, as well as to sign a petition on http://www.MoveOn.org, to resist Trump and the GOP agenda,

Stay Tuned

The aftermath of the 2017 presidential election has politically split our nation. Although Trump won the Electoral College, Clinton, the former secretary of state, pulled in over 64 million votes. Even without a clear legislative mandate President-elect Trump and Republican Congressional leadership are moving at a quick pace to make major policy and systemic changes during the first 100 days of the 115th Congress. Democrats are now forced to play the loyal opposition for the next four years and fight against GOP policies rammed through the legislative process. Will GOP legislative fixes push American in the right direction? Or will the nation survive these changes? Stay tuned.