bluewater
bluewater's JournalWarren proposes the largest expansion of worker rights 'since the New Deal'
For years, Democratic politicians have been accused of showing indifference toward the interests of the working class, slighting a sector that had been part of their base since the 1930s.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on Thursday put forth a labor platform that would go far to restore the relationship, in part by reversing the hostility to workers shown by the Trump administration.
Warren describes her labor package as “the most progressive and comprehensive agenda for workers since the New Deal.” That’s a fair assessment, though incomplete.
Her proposals would exceed the New Deal standard, in part because workers and organized labor have lost so much ground over the last eight decades, and because the modern labor landscape requires initiatives that weren’t contemplated in the ‘30s.
Among the more important structural features of the package are a pledge to remake the Supreme Court to declaw its emergent anti-labor majority. Warren pledges that as president she would nominate “a demonstrated advocate for workers” to fill any vacancy. Her proposals also take aim at major provisions of the egregiously anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act, which was passed in 1947 over President Truman’s veto.
Warren’s labor plan is sure to garner lots of discussion at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) presidential forum opening Friday in Los Angeles. In addition to Warren, Democratic candidates Joe Biden, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders have previously committed to attend, though Sanders has been sidelined by heart surgery.
By strengthening the enforcement of labor protection, Warren’s proposals would reverse what I called the transformation of the Department of Labor into the Department of Employer Rights under Trump. She would also invest the National Labor Relations Board with a pro-labor outlook, which is desperately needed.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-10-03/hiltzik-warren-labor-platform
Warren is polling better than Biden and starting to look like a 2020 Democratic frontrunner
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is closing the gap and maybe even surging past former Vice President Joe Biden in important early voting states and at the national level, according to multiple recent polls, all signs that she poses a significant challenge to the former vice president's frontrunner status.
Biden has held onto a solid lead atop a wide, diverse field of Democratic candidates for months, but Warren has been gaining on the former vice president in recent weeks and has now pulled past him in multiple polls.
A Monmouth University poll conducted last week in New Hampshire and released Tuesday put Warren 2 points above Biden with 27% support among those considered likely to vote in the Democratic primary. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who won a stunning victory in the 2016 presidential primary in New Hampshire, was in third with just 12% support.
And a poll taken in Iowa last week and released Sunday, sponsored by CNN and the Des Moines Register, also put Warren ahead of Biden by 2 points, 22% to 20% among those considered likely to attend the state's Democratic caucus. Sanders, who lost in Iowa in 2016, was also in third in this poll, with 11% support.
Both states' poll results were within the margin of error, showing the races remain tight.
https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-surges-ahead-of-biden-looking-like-2020-democratic-frontrunner-2019-9
Democrat Warren vows to boost worker protections, strengthen unions
Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren would make it easier for employees to join unions and make rideshare drivers and other gig economy workers eligible for overtime, the latest effort by a Democrat to court the country’s deep-pocketed labor unions.
Warren’s plan, released Thursday in advance of an appearance before a labor group in Los Angeles, comes as she is catching up to frontrunner Joe Biden in the crowded field of 19 Democrats seeking their party’s nomination to take on Republican Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency in November 2020.
Organized labor, though greatly diminished in membership and power after decades of manufacturing decline and Republican-backed changes to state and federal employment laws, remains a potent force in U.S. politics, providing millions in donations and an army of grassroots volunteers to knock on doors and get out the vote for candidates that unions have endorsed.
With many union members defecting to vote for Trump in 2016, it is particularly important to Democrats to field a candidate who will win the support of labor organizations.
In her plan, Warren pledged to increase protections for home healthcare workers, a growing segment of the workforce, as well as immigrant employees who are undocumented. She would roll back Trump-era restrictions on the power of unions representing federal workers and work to restore public employee bargaining rights that have been reduced in several states.
Warren would end exemptions limiting the rights of domestic and farm workers and make it harder for companies to classify people as independent contractors instead of employees.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-warren-labor-idUSKBN1WI18Z
Warren turns corporate criticism into bona fides in '20 race
Facebook’s CEO said his company is ready to “go to the mat” to stop Elizabeth Warren from breaking up tech giants. Amazon accused her of getting facts wrong. And some Democratic donors with ties to Wall Street have quietly said they’ll sit out the election or vote for President Donald Trump if Warren wins her party’s presidential nomination.
On the surface, none of this would seem encouraging for Warren. But the Massachusetts senator and her allies are relishing her growing number of high-profile corporate enemies, betting their disdain will reinforce her image as an anti-corruption crusader.
“Many of the people who will be voting for a president who will break up Amazon and Facebook are users of Amazon and Facebook (and) don’t like having their privacy abused or their prices jacked up,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and a top Warren backer. “Elizabeth Warren is able to really make that case.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/warren-turns-corporate-criticism-into-bona-fides-in-20-race/2019/10/03/e462fe1a-e597-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html
Biden's AVERAGE lead down to +7.6, lowest for the primary season
According to RCP POLLS tracker of AVERAGE major poll results, Joe Biden's is now down to a single digit lead of +7.6 over nearest rival Elizabeth Warren.
This is the smallest AVERAGE lead from the major polls to date in the primary contest.
Biden's AVERAGE support is currently at 29%, which is lower than the 29.3% he had on April 25th, the date he announced his campaign.
Over the last 2 months, Biden's support has been fluctuating in the 26-30% range.
Warren's AVERAGE support has broken the 20% level for the first time, and now stands at 21.4%.
Sanders' support stays relatively flat in the 16-17% range over the last 6-7 weeks.
See all the polls and the Trend line tracker for yourself at RCP POLLS:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html
As I always say, the polls are what the polls are. 
Elizabeth Warren on the bus after the NYC rally
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1174506433137782785My heart goes out to @WhipClyburn and his family after the loss of his wife, Emily.
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1174746533176233984Elizabeth Warren: Border Patrol agents are not asylum officers.
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1174767923807830016"I'm f****** moving to Iowa," Sen. Kamala Harris joked
https://twitter.com/MattLaslo/status/1174363966614773760https://twitter.com/chelsea_janes/status/1174668304583200769
Smart move! Iowa is the gateway for later success in the primaries, especially for lower polling candidates.
shocking result: Only 9% of Democratic primary voters say they've made up their minds
Joe Biden is still ahead. But Elizabeth Warren is closing in.
By Paul Waldman
A new poll out from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal contains a shocking result: Only 9 percent of Democratic primary voters say they’ve made up their minds about whom they’re going to vote for. Nine percent!
Nevertheless, this and other polls show a race that has a particular shape: Joe Biden is holding, Elizabeth Warren is rising, Bernie Sanders is stuck, and everyone else is struggling or fading.
Depending on which candidate you support, just describing this lay of the land may seem unfair. But so is the entire process. And if you think the horse-race distracts from the real issues, please read what I’ve recently written about climate change, health care, national security, immigration, homelessness, gun policy, or many other issues.
To repeat, the process is unfair. We don’t choose party nominees based on who’d make the best president. Kamala Harris, for instance, seems like a capable public servant with much to recommend her, but her campaign has been hampered by her inability to offer a guiding theme, a rationale for her candidacy that communicates to voters why she and only she ought to be the nominee. In most polls she’s mired in the single digits (in the NBC/WSJ poll she gets only 5 percent, down from 13 percent the last time they conducted their survey).
If you look at charts showing the progression of the race (see here or here), you see that the only candidate with a steady upward trajectory is Warren. While she trails Biden in most polls, she often matches him or even beats him on alternative measures, like which candidates voters are considering or how favorable they feel toward them (see here, for example). Some Iowa polls have shown her ahead there, such as this new Civiqs/Iowa State University poll, which has her at 24 percent and Biden and Sanders both at 16 percent.
And right now, Warren is in the heart of a cycle every candidate yearns for. Reporters on the campaign trail have said for some time that she is the one who generates the most enthusiastic response among voters on the ground. A rise in her poll standing inevitably produces stories about what she’s doing right, stories that get filled with the impressions those reporters have accumulated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/18/joe-biden-is-still-ahead-elizabeth-warren-is-closing/
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