I’ve been wondering for a bit why during the time the Democrats controlled the legislature, executive, and judicial branches during Obama’s first term in 2008 more wasn’t accomplished. Shouldn’t that have been the opportunity to make Row V Way law and fix the electoral college? I understand the recession was going on but outside of Obamacare getting passed which didnt go far enough it seems like they didn’t really do much with all that power. Are there other important accomplishments from this time that didn’t get the news they deserved? It seems like the voters have done their job in the past to elect people to fix things and yet we are still here begging people to vote to fix issues like abortion rights.

  • GodlessCommie@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Between the time that Obama was sworn in and the ACA getting passed Congress had passed 161 other substantial bills. The major one that was shelved being the freedom of choice act which had already been written and waiting in a vote since 2003.

    • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Congress had passed 161 other substantial bills

      [citation required] (bolded part)

      Also, it was all over the news and online and in papers that the ACA and trying to get it passed over the finish line was a lot of hard work, that took a lot of time and effort, that it ‘sucked up all the oxygen in the room’ for other stuff.

      Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)