If Democrats want to know why health care reform has yet to pass into law, they should look in the mirror.  Generally speaking, there are two ways to lose a piece of legislation.  The first is that it’s just a bad idea and the bill dies of its own volition.  The second way is the easiest: you lose on process.  Democrats have been losing on process for months.

Losing on process occurs when you violate protocol and basic common sense, it’s also completely avoidable.  When legislators start hiding behind closed doors to negotiate public policy, they’re losing on process.  When votes are scheduled to pass health care reform in the dark of the night so no one notices, Democrats are losing on process.  When Democratic Congressmen stop visiting their districts and stop talking with constituents who have real concerns, they’re losing on process.   Who would have thought that C-SPAN would be the ones to call them on it?

This week C-SPAN called on President Obama to make good on his campaign promise that the debate over health care reform would be televised,  The move came soon after Democrats side-stepped the public conference committee process in favor of closed door strong-arming in the West Wing.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the decision, saying “there has never been a more open process.”  Maybe, but there also has never been a proposal to gut 17% of the nation’s gross domestic product… at least not all at once.  While there’s no empirical measurement of transparency, I’m pretty sure the voting public applies their definition of “pornography”: they know it when they see it.

The problem with losing on process is that even supporters of your policy will abandon you while those who can be convinced want no part of it.  Democrats will probably win the battle over health care reform at the end of the day but lose the political war.  The public will walk away from the debate believing it to be a perfunctory process that leaves them with no clear idea about the future of health care, just a load of rumors and the oversold benefits of bigger government.

Constituents were not only ignored, they never had the opportunity to be heard.  That might not matter if health care reform did more than raise $400 billion in new taxes while barely moving the needle on the uninsured problem over the next five years.  Had this process been open and transparent with public buy-in from the beginning, Democrats might have won by now.  Instead, they’ll pay the political price in 2010.