While you work within the constraints put on any Speaker, to implement the agenda of the president who’s in your own party, please let San Francisco have real representation again. San Francisco values really matter to America. The City needs a Congressperson again. Let San Franciscans elect someone who needn’t compromise on their every viewpoint for the sake of the Speakership. You can do this, Madame Speaker. Please make it so. Finally, as I always close my letters and emails to you, more and more futile though they seem because of your dual role nowadays: Thank you for your service to San Francisco, to California, and to the United States of America.

Kent Conrad’s talking point against the public option tied to Medicare rates is that it would destroy the health care system in his state of North Dakota. He’s said this before, in interviews with Ezra Klein among others. And he always makes this point, one of the silliest I’ve ever heard from a Senator, which [...]