Politicians are usually asked to keep church and state separate. Rep. Jared Huffman has written a book about what happens when they don’t.
His new No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism has taken him on a national tour and into conversations outside his usual work on climate, public lands and natural resources. As he put it during a recent “Civics 101” interview on The Drive 95.5 FM, “This takes me right into the separation of church and state.”
When I asked what was foremost on his mind, though, Huffman went straight to the Nov. 3 election. “This election is everything,” he said. And when it comes to the federal level, he calls it a chance “to restore some checks and balances.”
Meanwhile, locally, voters are encountering politics somewhere closer to home: the grocery store and the gas pump. Huffman brought up diesel prices and the effects he believes federal policies are having on household costs. “People feel it at the grocery store; they feel it at the pump; they feel it on their utility bills,” he said.
Asked what Democrats are doing for working people beyond talking about them, Huffman pointed to fights over health care, including Affordable Care Act premium tax credits and Medicaid. “Affordability is at the top of our list,” he said. Then I asked whether the party’s emphasis on costs meant it was moving away from social issues.
“It is immediate; it is urgent, but I’ll tell you, I think it’s also a social issue,” he replied.
Huffman’s reasoning was practical. “Part of affordability is the skyrocketing cost of healthcare that is making healthcare unavailable to millions and millions of people,” he said. He also cited child care and “these eternal waiting lists to get on Head Start childcare programs.”
“That adds up as a real affordability thing for many struggling families,” he continued. “So they really do go together.”
He has a point. The distinction between an economic issue and a social one gets fairly academic when a family cannot find child care or afford a visit to the doctor.
Our conversation also turned to U.S. military involvement in Iran. Huffman said Democrats had used war powers measures to force votes in Congress but questioned what those votes could accomplish without action from the president and Senate. “And so the question is, what can we do to stop it?” he said. “And we are using everything we’ve got.”
Would winning control of Congress change that equation? Huffman resisted promising more than an election could deliver. “If we get a Democratic Congress, even if we get both houses, it doesn’t mean you’re going to pass every bit of legislation that you wanna pass,” he said. “I mean, you’re still going to have Donald Trump in the White House.”
Still, he anticipated “a sea change when it comes to accountability and oversight and investigation.” He pointed to Congress’ power over spending as another way a new majority could check the administration.
Hearings and oversight won’t make groceries cheaper overnight, but Huffman argues they could change how much the White House can do without scrutiny.
He is plainly alarmed about the weeks before the election. Huffman described what he sees as attempts to interfere with voting and said his side was preparing to challenge them. “We’re totally lawyered up and ready for anything he can throw at us,” he said, “and we’re going to make this thing too big to rig.”
Editor Daedalus Howell hosts the politically-themed ‘Civics 101,’ at 5pm, Mondays, on ‘The Drive’ 95.5 FM.
