What the Antebellum Abolitionists Can Teach Us about AOC and Medicare for All
Should left-wing House members try to force action on Medicare for All by threatening to withhold their votes for Nancy Pelosi as House speaker? The idea has sparked controversy, but it's nothing new. In the decades before the Civil War, it was a key tactic for antislavery radicals as they struggled to keep the slavery issue on the national agenda.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York City, 2019. (Dimitri Rodriguez / Wikimedia Commons)
The debate on the left about Nancy Pelosi’s speakership candidacy — and whether Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and allies should threaten to vote against it in exchange for a floor vote on Medicare for All (or something else) — is acrimonious but not entirely new. There is in fact a quite striking historical precedent. (Which long predates the Tea Party.)
For earlier generations of radicals, speakership elections were key opportunities for political spectacle, dating back to the very first such election conducted by voice vote, in December 1839. Here I’m referring to third-party antislavery radicals — the Liberty and Free Soil Parties.
Because speakership elections are one of the few contests in which majority, not plurality, rules apply, a small but committed bloc can gain sway far beyond what is possible in most American elections.
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