Republican Opposition

At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, in the speech that launched him to national political stardom, Barack Obama told the audience that “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America. There’s the United States of America.” Bipartisanship was central to Obama’s political vision, and throughout his campaign for the presidency in 2008 he committed to working with Republicans to enact policies that could improve the lives of all Americans. In his last state of the union address, however, Obama would reflect that “One of the few regrets of my presidency [is] that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better.” The Obama Presidency Oral History provides wide-ranging coverage of this trajectory, helping to shed light on the Republican opposition to the Obama presidency, and the transformation of the Republican Party during the Obama years.

President Barack Obama meets with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in the Oval Office, Feb. 4, 2009. Collins was one of three Republican Senators who voted for the stimulus bill.

The first test of Obama’s capacity to transcend Washington’s partisan gridlock began before he took office. Throughout the Bush-Obama transition period, as the country fell into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Obama’s incoming economic team began to design an economic stimulus package to shore up confidence in the financial system, boost growth, and reduce unemployment.

Working with key Democrats in Congress, the Obama team negotiated draft legislation, and began to line up votes to have a bill ready for Obama’s signature during his first weeks in office. Despite a series of bipartisan negotiations, all but three Republican Senators ultimately voted against the package, while not a single House Republican voted in its favor. When Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in early 2009, it had become clear that Republicans were committed to opposing Obama’s legislative agenda—or as Republican Senator George Voinovich later explained the strategy: “If [Obama] was for it, we had to be against it.”

Healthcare reform was the Obama administration’s marquee legislative effort in the 111th Congress, during which Democrats enjoyed a governing trifecta in Washington, and a near filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The legislation was, in many ways, based on Republican state and federal healthcare programs and proposals from the 1990s and 2000s, and Democrats, particularly on the Senate Finance Committee, spent months working to secure the support of Republican colleagues. When members of Congress returned to their constituencies during the August 2009 recess, however, they were met by protesters organized under the banner of the Tea Party, which fervently opposed federal intervention in healthcare markets, and threatened Republicans with the possibility of primary challenges from the right. This pressure contributed to blanket Republican opposition to reform, and the Affordable Care Act eventually passed on a party-line vote, and through budget reconciliation processes necessary to circumvent Republican attempts to filibuster the deal. In the project archive, congressional Democrats and Republicans, as well as White House officials, reflect on negotiations over the Recovery Act and ACA, and describe persistent Republican attempts to repeal the ACA after its passage, including through court challenges.

Max Baucus

Ambassador and US Senator from Montana

Challenges of bipartisan cooperation on the Affordable Care Act