Not all bad: 2019's redeeming moments -- Dec. 26, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The one big event in 2019 history will remember is the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

How future generations will judge impeachment is an open question. Much depends on what happens in 2020 in the Senate and in next year’s presidential election.

As this politically and culturally ugly year ends, Americans are in a sour mood. Only 37 percent of us approve of the current direction of the country while 57 percent disapprove, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls.

And yet, 2019 wasn’t all bad. There really were bright spots in the gloom.

In the spirit of the season of hope, I’ll share a few things that make me feel better about our cantankerous country. I’m sure you can think of others.

First, about 2.1 million federal employees will be in the vanguard for a benefit that’s been a long time coming and most American workers only dream of: paid parental leave.

Federal workers will have 12 weeks of guaranteed paid leave for the birth, adoption or foster care of a child starting next October. The measure was part of the National Defense Authorization Act Congress passed with true bipartisan support and Trump signed into law Dec. 20.

The House approved the defense bill 377 to 48, with almost the same number of Democrats and Republicans in support -- 188 Ds and 189 Rs. The Senate vote of approval was a lopsided 86 to 8. The idea that Democrats, Republicans and Trump can agree on anything is close to miraculous.

The measure is a needed change that sets a new benefit standard for states and private employers. But it doesn’t go far enough. It does not provide paid leave for workers caring for a chronically ill spouse, child or other close relative, as Democrats had sought.

Only four states – California, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island – have established paid family leave plans. The District of Columbia, Washington state and Massachusetts have plans on the books that are being phased in.

Only about one in five American workers have access to paid family leave, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The United States is the only industrialized country that does not require paid family leave. Expect a renewed effort in Congress to change that sorry state of affairs.

The progress of women in government was another shining facet of 2019.  

For the first time in history, more than two women are competing for a major party’s presidential nomination. At one point, six women were in the running for the Democratic nomination. Four remain.

Women are taking their places in state capitals too. A record number of women – 48 Democrats, 41 Republicans and two nonpartisans -- hold executive offices in the states, according to an analysis by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. That’s 29.3 percent of the executive positions.

Nevada in 2019 became the first state where women hold a majority of state legislative seats – 32 of 63 or 50.8 percent. Virginia set new records for women’s representation; 41 women will serve in the General Assembly in January.

With Democrats taking control of the Virginia legislature, the Democratic caucus selected Del. Eileen Filler-Corn as the first woman Speaker of the House of Delegates and Del. Charniele L. Herring as majority leader. Herring is the first woman and first African-American chosen for that role.  

Women also made history in the sports world, inspiring a new generation of girls.

The U.S. women’s national soccer team won the 2019 Women’s World Cup, four years after its 2015 triumph. Then the Washington Mystics won the Women’s National Basketball Association championship. Elena Della Donne led the team to victory while playing with not one but three herniated discs in her back.

“Congrats to the @WashMystics on a gutsy, first-ever championship!” tweeted former President Barack Obama. “A great team performance when it counted. If folks aren’t careful, this title thing might become a habit in DC.”

Amazingly it happened. The Washington Nationals surprised everyone when, after a lackluster start of the season, they roared back to win the World Series.

For once, everyone in Washington was on the same side -- hugging, cheering, weeping over our Nats. The unity was short lived, but it was lovely while it lasted.

If only we could see such team spirit again in 2020.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Play ball! Hoping for Coolidge luck -- Aug. 13, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Novelist Henry James said the two most beautiful words in the English language are summer afternoon. I’d say that on any summer afternoon, the two words that bring joy and hope are “Play ball!”  

What better escape from the bizarre 2016 presidential race and assorted national and international crises than an afternoon or evening outside at the ball park? In August, we may dream about October but we don’t fret. Much.

In the nation’s capital, baseball comes with a side of presidential history. At other major league ballparks, sausages or pierogies are racing mascots, but in Washington it’s the Racing Presidents who compete in a fourth-inning sprint down the warning track and foul line. They are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and, as of last month, Calvin Coolidge.

Silent Cal seemed an odd addition to the presidents, but he did attend 10 baseball games while he was in office from 1923 to 1929. He was the first president to attend a World Series opener and the first to throw out a first pitch at a World Series game.

Coolidge didn’t lose an election in 30 years in politics, so he was thought lucky. Fans credited the “Coolidge luck” with the Washington Senators’ winning two of their three pennants. They won the 1924 World Series and the American League championships in 1925, during his tenure. 

These days, a president who ventures into a stadium may get booed. That’s what happened when President Barack Obama threw out the first pitch of the season at Nationals Park in 2010. What did he expect when he put on a Chicago White Sox cap?

Coolidge wasn’t much of a baseball fan, but his wife, first lady Grace Coolidge, was.

Called the “first lady of baseball,” she kept a scorecard at games and when she couldn’t be there in person listened on the radio. The Coolidges were in the stands at the first game of the 1924 World Series, when the president decided it was time to go back to the White House. The score was 2-2 in the ninth inning.

“When he rose to leave, the first lady, resplendent in her `good luck’ necklace of seven ivory elephants, snapped, `Where do you think you’re going? You sit down,’ seizing his coattails to emphasize her point. Coolidge obeyed and stayed on to see the Giants win in extra innings,” William Bushong, chief historian of the White House Historical Association, writes in an essay. 

Grace Coolidge told a presidential historian that her husband never played baseball or any other sport, and “He did not share my enthusiasm for baseball,” John Sayle Watterson reports in his 2009 book, “The Games Presidents Play: Sports and the Presidency.”

Watterson knocks Coolidge as “athletically challenged,” the worst natural athlete in presidential history from 1901 to 2005.

The new focus on Coolidge and baseball is the result of an unusual partnership. For the first time, the historical association, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the White House and educating the public, has joined in a multi-year agreement with a sports team, the Nationals.   

The 30^th president is also the subject of the association’s 2015 official Christmas ornament, which celebrates Coolidge’s lighting in 1923 of the first national Christmas tree on the Ellipse. The ornament is itself a Christmas tree with 14 decorations that commemorate events in Coolidge’s life, including a baseball. An LED light is incorporated in the design, another first. 

Racing Presidents make personal appearances outside the ball park, and Coolidge likely will be in demand. While most historians rank him among our worst presidents, blaming his policies for the start of the Great Depression in 1929, Coolidge is the darling of Tea Partiers and right-wing talkers, who love his disaffection for big government and taxes.

Ronald Reagan put Coolidge’s portrait in the Oval Office and praised his policies, and several books recently have tried to put Coolidge’s policies in a better light.

Today’s Washington fans hope for a revival of the Coolidge luck when they hear those magic words: “Play ball!”

©2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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