Some "tough love" from Rick Wilson
Last edited Thu Jul 11, 2019, 02:09 PM - Edit history (1)
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1/ Tough love:
You know who benefits from the House civil war being waged by AOC?
Donald Trump, that's who.
The new class of Democrats has more Katie Porters and Conor Lambs than AOCs, but hey, it's just the majority of the only body you control at stake, and the Presidency.
2/ You don't want to hear it. You don't want the understand it. I promise you, my TL is about to turn into a tu quoque nightmare.
And yet, I persist.
You control *one* house of *one* branch and that one house needs to be absolutely unified and focused.
3/ So choose one:
A) a grinding legislative and strategic program where no one gets everything they want but that holds together a caucus full of new members from swing districts and serves as a counterweight to Trump.
B) Burn down Pelosi, feed Trump, and lose.
4/ The choice isn't "AOC or Nancy"...the choice is "Nancy or Trump."
But by all means, y'all do you.
5/ And before you accuse (which you will, no matter what I say, but here's to it):
This isn't me being critical of a progressive or a woman or a woman of color or blah blah blah. This isn't a conservative or GOP critique. This is *just* politics.
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Solvers Group (who, remember, also tried to oust her as Speaker, ffs) instead turns around and goes after AOC and other three.
There is s much post-game spin going on trying to make it look like it is just the 4 freshwomen against all the rest of the Party. That is rot. Almost 100 Democrats voted NO on the Seante version of the border bill (it might have been over 100 as 11 did not vote for various reasons, and at least 5 or 6 of them would have probably voted NO as well.
Pelosi took the first swipe at AOC and the other 3, then kept ramping it up, as did they (surely Pelosi knew that they would not take a public slap-down, using really chippy language, lightly.) Leadership could demand all 4 be primaried, hell they might pull it off, boot them all out. If that happens, watch the voter enthusiasm and turnout nationally plummet amongst the under 40 crowd and the more leftish parts of our voter make-up. The centrists make up around half of our caucus, they already dominate it (look at power Problem Solvers had here), but we simply cannot hope to have majority control (let alone win the POTUS in a non Rump election) if we go scorched earth on the left and try and drive them out of the party and utterly smack them down. We simply cannot be a party composed of 85% or 90% of Blue Dog/Problem Solvers/New Democrat Coalition types. If we try and ramrod that down the voters throats, it will end up splitting the Party.
Wait until we (for this purpose I will assume a lot of not sure things) take back (in 2020) the POTUS, the Senate, and maintain the House. People are going to go bonkers when a small group of the most extreme centrists block even mild, taken-for-granted (by some) centre-left things (think Biden's platform atm) like the public option, or free 2 years public community college tuition (forget 4 years), or expanded debt forgiveness, or trying to claw back regulation on banks, etc (many Dems voted with the Rethugs to partially gut Dodd-Frank already) or even expanding the age for Medicare down to 55. I am sure some actually hope that blocking happens. IMHO, that will be an electoral disaster, as we will, if that happens, show we truly are powerless to enact even milquetoast, bog standard centre-left reforms and programmes.
Here again is what happened on the border bill, that led up to all this feuding:
House Passes Senate Border Bill in Striking Defeat for Pelosi
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/politics/border-funding-immigration.html
WASHINGTON — Congress sent President Trump a $4.6 billion humanitarian aid package on Thursday after Speaker Nancy Pelosi capitulated to Republicans and Democratic moderates and dropped her insistence on stronger protections for migrant children in overcrowded border shelters.
The vote came after a striking display of Democratic disunity and was a setback for Ms. Pelosi. Until Thursday, she had proved adept at navigating the complexities of a caucus rived by powerful progressive and moderate factions that often work at cross purposes. But their priorities clashed, the liberal flank was vanquished and the speaker — who had put her reputation on the line, calling herself a “lioness” out to protect children as she held out for stronger protections in the migrant facilities that house them — grudgingly had to accept defeat.
The final vote, 305 to 102, included far more Republicans in favor, 176, than Democrats, 129. It left House liberals furious.
“In order to get resources to the children fastest, we will reluctantly pass the Senate bill,” Ms. Pelosi said in a letter to Democratic lawmakers. “As we pass the Senate bill, we will do so with a battle cry as to how we go forward to protect children in a way that truly honors their dignity and worth.”
Her retreat came after Vice President Mike Pence gave Ms. Pelosi private assurances that the administration would abide by some of the restrictions she had sought. They included a requirement to notify lawmakers within 24 hours after the death of a migrant child in government custody, and a 90-day time limit on children spending time in temporary intake facilities, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
A last-minute revolt by centrist lawmakers ensured the demise of Ms. Pelosi’s efforts to toughen the conditions in the Senate’s $4.6 billion bill. The moderate Democrats had begun to worry about the possibility of leaving Washington on Friday for a weeklong July 4 recess without having cleared the humanitarian aid, and some were balking at a funding reduction for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That left the House floor in chaos, with emotions running high. Ms. Pelosi was left with little choice but to accept the less restrictive Senate bill, which had passed on a lopsided bipartisan vote this week and would do far less to rein in Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown.
snip
here are the numbers, including leadership who voted NO, plus almost all the Hispanic Caucus and a majority of the CBC voted NO.
this was the FINAL VOTE
https://projects.propublica.org/represent/votes/116/house/1/429
this shows it was the final vote taken on it by the House
https://projects.propublica.org/represent/bills/116/hr3401
these are the Dem NO votes
Member Party Dist.
Alma Adams D NC-12
Pete Aguilar D CA-31
Nanette Barragán D CA-44
Karen Bass D CA-37
Donald Beyer D VA-8
Earl Blumenauer D OR-3
Suzanne Bonamici D OR-1
Brendan Boyle D PA-2
Anthony Brown D MD-4
G. K. Butterfield D NC-1
Tony Cárdenas D CA-29
André Carson D IN-7
Judy Chu D CA-27
David Cicilline D RI-1
Gilbert Cisneros D CA-39
Katherine Clark D MA-5
Yvette D. Clarke D NY-9
William Lacy Clay D MO-1
Gerald E. Connolly D VA-11
J. Luis Correa D CA-46
Danny K. Davis D IL-7
Peter A. DeFazio D OR-4
Diana DeGette D CO-1
Rosa DeLauro D CT-3
Mark DeSaulnier D CA-11
Debbie Dingell D MI-12
Lloyd Doggett D TX-35
Eliot L. Engel D NY-16
Veronica Escobar D TX-16
Adriano Espaillat D NY-13
Dwight Evans D PA-3
Ruben Gallego D AZ-7
Jesús García D IL-4
Sylvia Garcia D TX-29
Jimmy Gomez D CA-34
Raúl M. Grijalva D AZ-3
Debra Haaland D NM-1
Brian Higgins D NY-26
Katie Hill D CA-25
Steven Horsford D NV-4
Jared Huffman D CA-2
Sheila Jackson Lee D TX-18
Pramila Jayapal D WA-7
Hakeem Jeffries D NY-8
Joseph P. Kennedy III D MA-4
Ro Khanna D CA-17
Brenda Lawrence D MI-14
Barbara Lee D CA-13
Andy Levin D MI-9
John Lewis D GA-5
Ted Lieu D CA-33
Zoe Lofgren D CA-19
Alan Lowenthal D CA-47
Nita M. Lowey D NY-17
Ben Ray Luján D NM-3
Carolyn B. Maloney D NY-12
Betty McCollum D MN-4
A. Donald McEachin D VA-4
Jim McGovern D MA-2
Gregory W. Meeks D NY-5
Grace Meng D NY-6
Gwen Moore D WI-4
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell D FL-26
Jerrold Nadler D NY-10
Grace F. Napolitano D CA-32
Joe Neguse D CO-2
Donald W. Norcross D NJ-1
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez D NY-14
Ilhan Omar D MN-5
Frank Pallone D NJ-6
Bill Pascrell Jr. D NJ-9
Mark Pocan D WI-2
Ayanna Pressley D MA-7
David E. Price D NC-4
Mike Quigley D IL-5
Jamie Raskin D MD-8
Lucille Roybal-Allard D CA-40
Linda T. Sánchez D CA-38
Mary Gay Scanlon D PA-5
Jan Schakowsky D IL-9
Brad Sherman D CA-30
Adam Smith D WA-9
Darren Soto D FL-9
Jackie Speier D CA-14
Mark Takano D CA-41
Dina Titus D NV-1
Rashida Tlaib D MI-13
Paul Tonko D NY-20
Norma Torres D CA-35
Lori Trahan D MA-3
Juan Vargas D CA-51
Marc Veasey D TX-33
Filemon Vela D TX-34
Nydia M. Velázquez D NY-7
Peter Welch D VT-1
and the DNV (for whatever reason, in some cases (5 are candidates) they were out campaigning)
Did Not Vote (D)
Joaquín Castro D TX-20
Tulsi Gabbard D HI-2
Alcee L. Hastings D FL-20
Marcy Kaptur D OH-9
Seth Moulton D MA-6
Nancy Pelosi D CA-12
Cedric Richmond D LA-2
Tim Ryan D OH-13
Kurt Schrader D OR-5
Eric Swalwell D CA-15 would have voted NO https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2019/06/28/extensions-of-remarks-section/article/E867-2
Frederica Wilson D FL-24
* By tradition, the Speaker of the House votes at his or her discretion. In cases where the Speaker does not vote, that absence is not counted in the "Not Voting" totals displayed here, but Represent adds the Speaker's name to the list of people who did not vote.
This entire thing was 100% on the No Labels/Problem Solvers/Blue Dog clique. (get used to this happening a lot)
They sprung a last minute refusal to support unless ICE was given more money.
Josh Gottheimer (Problem Solvers co-Chair,the other is a Rethug) ran point for them.
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Gottheimer got a lot of pushback when he had a townhall back in his home district
Link to tweet
1) @RepJoshG led the fight pass Trump and McConnell's border bill.
2) At a town hall today, his constituents blasted him for it.
3) He told them he had nothing to do with it!
4) The patron of the caucus he leads bragged that they totally did it.
Also Josh’s group No Labels bragged that Josh did the thing he’s now pretending he didn’t do.
https://www.insidernj.com/watch-animated-gottheimer-town-hall-weekend-activist-engage-congressman-ice-funding/
Dem leadership was split over this
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, and DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos voted in favour of the bill, while other members of leadership, including Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries, and Assistant Democratic Leader Ben Ray Luján, who is running for Senate in New Mexico, voted against it.The Congressional Hispanic Caucus also recommended the House vote against the Senate border spending bill.
House Progressives Cry ‘Betrayal’ and Say Moderate Democrats Sold Out Detained Children
https://www.thedailybeast.com/house-progressives-cry-betrayal-and-say-moderate-democrats-sold-out-detained-children
Five Takeaways From the Border Aid Vote
The vote on Thursday exposed a number of realities about the House majority and its relationship with the Senate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/politics/border-aid-vote-takeaways.html
snip
The power of the Democrats’ moderate wing far outweighed that of the liberal wing.
In the past, Ms. Pelosi and her leadership team have bowed to the party’s moderate wing, which was a critical force behind decisions to punt on releasing a budget resolution and to pull legislation that would have effectively given members a pay bump.
But top leaders spent days negotiating additions to the House bill that the party’s liberal flank had requested, even as some moderate members quietly expressed discomfort with the prospect of cutting funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and producing a bill that the Republican majority in the Senate could not stomach.
Ultimately, under pressure to get a bill to the president’s desk before recess, Ms. Pelosi ceded to threats from moderate members and agreed to put the Senate bill on the floor.
The vote on Thursday — which almost had more Republican votes of support than Democratic — underscored how powerful the moderate members of the Democratic caucus can be when united with Republicans.
A break appeared in the Democratic leadership.
Ms. Pelosi’s closest lieutenants, Representatives Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, and James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the majority whip, voted in favor of the Senate bill. (Ms. Pelosi, as is customary for the speaker, did not vote.)
But the second tier of leadership — widely seen as next in line to ascend to the top of the House Democratic leadership — did not. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the caucus chairman; Representative Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the assistant speaker; and Representative Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, the caucus vice chairwoman, voted “no.”
The two representatives for the freshman class, Representatives Joe Neguse of Colorado and Katie Hill of California, also voted against the bill.
snip
