TO COMMENT CLICK HERE
Sellouts
the enemy within
repugnants,Neo-liberals, Dinos, and Boot-lickers
november 13, 2018
Sellouts
*Chuck Schumer Caved to Facebook and Donald Trump. He Shouldn’t Lead Senate Democrats.
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The DC Centrist Democrat Spin Cycle
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*DEMOCRATS WHO VOTED TO DEREGULATE WALL STREET GOT WIPED OUT IN A SETBACK FOR BANK LOBBYISTS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MICHIGAN’S DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR-ELECT PUTS BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD EXECUTIVE ON TRANSITION TEAM — AFTER THE COMPANY FUNDED HER CAMPAIGN(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Banks to target moderate Democrats, regulators if US House flips
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Red-State Senate Democrats Are Top Recipients of Wall Street Donations
(excerpt BELOW)
cartoons(at the end)
Chuck Schumer Caved to Facebook and Donald Trump. He Shouldn’t Lead Senate Democrats.
Mehdi Hasan - the intercept
November 16 2018, 9:38 a.m.
IT WASN’T Donald Trump who said he opposed the nuclear deal with Iran because “we will be worse off with this agreement than without it,” while lying about the contents of that deal.
It wasn’t Mike Pence who said that “since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas … to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go makes sense.”
It wasn’t John Bolton who voted for the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2002, saying that Saddam Hussein was engaged in a “vigorous pursuit of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.”
It wasn’t Mike Pompeo who said, “It’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you’re in the foxhole, it’s a very different deal.”
It wasn’t Stephen Miller who responded to the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris by suggesting “a pause may be necessary” in the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States.
It wasn’t Betsy DeVos who joined a group of finance industry executives for breakfast only a few weeks after the 2008 financial crash and told them, “We are not going to be a bunch of crazy, anti-business liberals.”
Forget the hawks, blowhards, and kakistocrats of the Trump administration. You know who made all these statements? It was Chuck Schumer.
Yes, the fourth-term Democratic senator from New York has a long history of making really right-wing and rancid remarks. Yet on Wednesday morning, Schumer was re-elected as minority leader by acclamation in a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats. They didn’t even bother to vote on it.
By Wednesday evening, though, the New York Times had published a blockbuster investigation into Facebook, which reminded us how Schumer, in the words of my colleague Glenn Greenwald, “has long been the embodiment of everything sleazy, legally corrupt, corporatist and craven in Washington.”
What did the Times say about the newly re-elected Senate minority leader?
In at least one instance, the company also relied on Mr. Schumer, the New York senator and Senate Democratic leader. He has long worked to advance Silicon Valley’s interests on issues such as commercial drone regulations and patent reform. During the 2016 election cycle, he raised more money from Facebook employees than any other member of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Mr. Schumer also has a personal connection to Facebook: His daughter Alison joined the firm out of college and is now a marketing manager in Facebook’s New York office, according to her LinkedIn profile.
In July, as Facebook’s troubles threatened to cost the company billions of dollars in market value, Mr. Schumer confronted [Sen. Mark] Warner, by then Facebook’s most insistent inquisitor in Congress.
Back off, he told Mr. Warner, according to a Facebook employee briefed on Mr. Schumer’s intervention. Mr. Warner should be looking for ways to work with Facebook, Mr. Schumer advised, not harm it. Facebook lobbyists were kept abreast of Mr. Schumer’s efforts to protect the company, according to the employee.
To be clear: The leader of the Senate Democrats tried to bully a fellow Democratic senator to “back off” from investigating a company where his daughter works and which gives him more money than any other member of Congress. Why isn’t this a bigger story? How is this not a resigning issue?
Remember, there are, as of right now, 47 elected Senate Democrats. Almost any of them — with the glaring exception of the pretend-Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia — would do a better job of leading the party than Schumer.
As I argued earlier this week, the next two years in U.S. politics will be a 24/7 battle for the future of American democracy; a relentless fight against fascism, racism, and white nationalism. Are we really expected to believe that Schumer will be the leader of the #Resistance in the Senate ? Don’t make me laugh.
In January 2017, Trump nominated the hawkish Mike Pompeo, who has ties to a far-right network of Islamophobes, to serve as director of the CIA. Schumer’s response? He voted in favor of Pompeo.
In April 2017 and then again in April 2018, Trump launched airstrikes against the Assad regime in Syria. Schumer’s response? He backed both sets of strikes, calling the first “the right thing to do” and the second “appropriate.”
In February 2018, Trump signed off “on the biggest budget the Pentagon has ever seen: $700 billion.” Schumer’s response? “We fully support President Trump’s Defense Department’s request,” his office announced.
In May 2018, Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, in defiance of the international community. Schumer’s response? “In a long overdue move, we have moved our embassy to Jerusalem,” he declared, adding: “I applaud President Trump for doing it.”
In August 2018, prior to the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Trump nominated a bunch of new judges to fill vacancies in a number of federal district courts. Schumer’s response? As Vox reported, the Senate minority leader “reached an agreement late Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to fast-track the confirmations of 15 Trump-nominated judicial picks.”
In October 2018, a Trump supporter sent a pipe bomb in the mail to George Soros, a billionaire donor to liberal causes. The California office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was vandalized a couple of days earlier. Schumer’s response to these incidents?
He tweeted:
Make no mistake: Despicable acts of violence and harassment are being carried out by radicals across the political spectrum—not just by one side. Regardless of who is responsible, these acts are wrong and must be condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike. Period.
To be clear, property damage is not the moral equivalent of an assassination attempt. Trump supporters have carried out a long list of terrorist attacks — incited or inspired, on multiple occasions, by the president himself.
Schumer’s craven response? Both sides!
This isn’t resistance; this is collaboration. The Senate minority leader is a cautious and conservative politician who prefers to make deals, not noise. He avoids confrontation and likes to schmooze Republican friends while in the Senate gym. He is, to quote from the headline of a New York Times profile published a few months after the financial crash, a “champion of Wall Street.”
For the corrupt and lawless Trump, having his old friend Schumer — to whom he has donated thousands of dollars — in charge of the Senate Democrats is a blessing. Schumer is bent on negotiating with this president, whether over immigration reform or infrastructure. That Trump can’t be trusted, or that Trump is leading a white nationalist movement from the White House, doesn’t seem to bother him. As one of the young organizers of a November 2016 protest at the Senate office of the minority leader told the Village Voice: “What’s really dangerous about Chuck Schumer and the Democratic leadership is they don’t understand the stakes of what’s happening in this country.”
“Dangerous” is the correct word. Schumer has voted in favor of Trump cabinet appointees and Trump judicial appointees. He has downplayed the threat posed by the more deranged members of the Trump base by equating it to nonviolent protests from the left. And he refuses to talk impeachment.
So what happens if the president, in a desperate attempt to deflect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report or a future recession, decides to do something crazy? To start, say, a war with Iran? Do you think the senator from New York, who wrote a blank check for former President George W. Bush in 2002, is going to stand in Trump’s way?
Schumer may have since regretted his vote in favor of the Iraq invasion, but he has never disowned the warped thinking behind it. “Today,” he wrote in “Positively American,” his 2008 book, “I still believe that when our country is under attack the chief executive deserves a degree of latitude. If God forbid, we were attacked again, I could well vote to give it to a future president, Democrat or Republican.”
Deferential. Cowardly. Feckless. Craven. Corrupt. Complicit. Pick your own combination of words to describe Chuck Schumer. The biggest problem we all face is that the Democrats in the upper chamber of Congress have already picked theirs: “Senate minority leader.”
It wasn’t Mike Pence who said that “since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas … to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go makes sense.”
It wasn’t John Bolton who voted for the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2002, saying that Saddam Hussein was engaged in a “vigorous pursuit of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.”
It wasn’t Mike Pompeo who said, “It’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you’re in the foxhole, it’s a very different deal.”
It wasn’t Stephen Miller who responded to the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris by suggesting “a pause may be necessary” in the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States.
It wasn’t Betsy DeVos who joined a group of finance industry executives for breakfast only a few weeks after the 2008 financial crash and told them, “We are not going to be a bunch of crazy, anti-business liberals.”
Forget the hawks, blowhards, and kakistocrats of the Trump administration. You know who made all these statements? It was Chuck Schumer.
Yes, the fourth-term Democratic senator from New York has a long history of making really right-wing and rancid remarks. Yet on Wednesday morning, Schumer was re-elected as minority leader by acclamation in a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats. They didn’t even bother to vote on it.
By Wednesday evening, though, the New York Times had published a blockbuster investigation into Facebook, which reminded us how Schumer, in the words of my colleague Glenn Greenwald, “has long been the embodiment of everything sleazy, legally corrupt, corporatist and craven in Washington.”
What did the Times say about the newly re-elected Senate minority leader?
In at least one instance, the company also relied on Mr. Schumer, the New York senator and Senate Democratic leader. He has long worked to advance Silicon Valley’s interests on issues such as commercial drone regulations and patent reform. During the 2016 election cycle, he raised more money from Facebook employees than any other member of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Mr. Schumer also has a personal connection to Facebook: His daughter Alison joined the firm out of college and is now a marketing manager in Facebook’s New York office, according to her LinkedIn profile.
In July, as Facebook’s troubles threatened to cost the company billions of dollars in market value, Mr. Schumer confronted [Sen. Mark] Warner, by then Facebook’s most insistent inquisitor in Congress.
Back off, he told Mr. Warner, according to a Facebook employee briefed on Mr. Schumer’s intervention. Mr. Warner should be looking for ways to work with Facebook, Mr. Schumer advised, not harm it. Facebook lobbyists were kept abreast of Mr. Schumer’s efforts to protect the company, according to the employee.
To be clear: The leader of the Senate Democrats tried to bully a fellow Democratic senator to “back off” from investigating a company where his daughter works and which gives him more money than any other member of Congress. Why isn’t this a bigger story? How is this not a resigning issue?
Remember, there are, as of right now, 47 elected Senate Democrats. Almost any of them — with the glaring exception of the pretend-Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia — would do a better job of leading the party than Schumer.
As I argued earlier this week, the next two years in U.S. politics will be a 24/7 battle for the future of American democracy; a relentless fight against fascism, racism, and white nationalism. Are we really expected to believe that Schumer will be the leader of the #Resistance in the Senate ? Don’t make me laugh.
In January 2017, Trump nominated the hawkish Mike Pompeo, who has ties to a far-right network of Islamophobes, to serve as director of the CIA. Schumer’s response? He voted in favor of Pompeo.
In April 2017 and then again in April 2018, Trump launched airstrikes against the Assad regime in Syria. Schumer’s response? He backed both sets of strikes, calling the first “the right thing to do” and the second “appropriate.”
In February 2018, Trump signed off “on the biggest budget the Pentagon has ever seen: $700 billion.” Schumer’s response? “We fully support President Trump’s Defense Department’s request,” his office announced.
In May 2018, Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, in defiance of the international community. Schumer’s response? “In a long overdue move, we have moved our embassy to Jerusalem,” he declared, adding: “I applaud President Trump for doing it.”
In August 2018, prior to the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Trump nominated a bunch of new judges to fill vacancies in a number of federal district courts. Schumer’s response? As Vox reported, the Senate minority leader “reached an agreement late Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to fast-track the confirmations of 15 Trump-nominated judicial picks.”
In October 2018, a Trump supporter sent a pipe bomb in the mail to George Soros, a billionaire donor to liberal causes. The California office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was vandalized a couple of days earlier. Schumer’s response to these incidents?
He tweeted:
Make no mistake: Despicable acts of violence and harassment are being carried out by radicals across the political spectrum—not just by one side. Regardless of who is responsible, these acts are wrong and must be condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike. Period.
To be clear, property damage is not the moral equivalent of an assassination attempt. Trump supporters have carried out a long list of terrorist attacks — incited or inspired, on multiple occasions, by the president himself.
Schumer’s craven response? Both sides!
This isn’t resistance; this is collaboration. The Senate minority leader is a cautious and conservative politician who prefers to make deals, not noise. He avoids confrontation and likes to schmooze Republican friends while in the Senate gym. He is, to quote from the headline of a New York Times profile published a few months after the financial crash, a “champion of Wall Street.”
For the corrupt and lawless Trump, having his old friend Schumer — to whom he has donated thousands of dollars — in charge of the Senate Democrats is a blessing. Schumer is bent on negotiating with this president, whether over immigration reform or infrastructure. That Trump can’t be trusted, or that Trump is leading a white nationalist movement from the White House, doesn’t seem to bother him. As one of the young organizers of a November 2016 protest at the Senate office of the minority leader told the Village Voice: “What’s really dangerous about Chuck Schumer and the Democratic leadership is they don’t understand the stakes of what’s happening in this country.”
“Dangerous” is the correct word. Schumer has voted in favor of Trump cabinet appointees and Trump judicial appointees. He has downplayed the threat posed by the more deranged members of the Trump base by equating it to nonviolent protests from the left. And he refuses to talk impeachment.
So what happens if the president, in a desperate attempt to deflect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report or a future recession, decides to do something crazy? To start, say, a war with Iran? Do you think the senator from New York, who wrote a blank check for former President George W. Bush in 2002, is going to stand in Trump’s way?
Schumer may have since regretted his vote in favor of the Iraq invasion, but he has never disowned the warped thinking behind it. “Today,” he wrote in “Positively American,” his 2008 book, “I still believe that when our country is under attack the chief executive deserves a degree of latitude. If God forbid, we were attacked again, I could well vote to give it to a future president, Democrat or Republican.”
Deferential. Cowardly. Feckless. Craven. Corrupt. Complicit. Pick your own combination of words to describe Chuck Schumer. The biggest problem we all face is that the Democrats in the upper chamber of Congress have already picked theirs: “Senate minority leader.”
The DC Centrist Democrat Spin Cycle
The votes aren’t even done being counted yet, but the classic post-election spin cycle from the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party is already in full gear. Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum are still fighting for their lives in razor-thin margin elections, but you can just feel the excitement about their losses from the Third Way types, whose public pronouncements already assume they have lost.
By Mike Lux - crooks & liars
11/12/18 8:00pm
The votes aren’t even done being counted yet, but the classic post-election spin cycle from the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party is already in full gear. Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum are still fighting for their lives in razor-thin margin elections, but you can just feel the excitement about their losses from the Third Way types, whose public pronouncements already assume they have lost.
I have seen this kind of post-election spin after every election since 1994: if Democrats have a bad year, it’s because we moved too far left. If we have a good year like this one, it’s because of the noble centrists who prevailed -- and they’ll pick over the bones of any progressive Democrat who didn’t win and point with glee saying, “See! See! They got beat!” It is especially galling given that some of these races aren’t even over. (I guess at least it’s better than actively trying to beat progressive Democrats as Third Way has been known to do over the years, like when they attacked Elizabeth Warren as being anti-business when she was in the heat of a tough 2012 Senate race to defeat popular incumbent Scott Brown.)
There’s a couple of articles out where this spin is in overdrive, here, and here. The official line is that the progressive Democrats who won primaries (defined a certain kind of way that fits the spin) didn’t win a single general election race they were involved in and didn’t turn a single Republican district to Democrat.
These kinds of spin games have to be put to rest. I think it’s important to make the following points about some of the goofy things in these articles:
1. Not all of the progressives on the Wall Street Dems’ list have lost. Gillum, along with centrist white guy Senator Bill Nelson whose number of votes and margin are almost identical, are in the midst of recounts, in case you hadn’t noticed. Two of the closest elections in Florida history, and Florida has had its share of close ones, as you may recall. Not all of the votes are counted in Georgia either, and the race might go to runoff. Not all the votes have been counted in Katie Porter’s race in California, either. Guys (because most of the people putting out this BS are indeed men), please don’t dance on the graves of these outstanding Democrats until their races are over. Progressives aren’t sitting around rooting for Kyrsten Sinema to lose because she’s a moderate.
2. The list of progressives who won primaries is a lot longer than the nine people the corporate Dems are crowing about who lost, and tons of them are winning. Brilliant progressive Xochitl Torres Small won a very Republican Congressional seat in New Mexico after winning the primary; progressive star Colin Allred won a tough primary and went on to defeat incumbent Pete Sessions in Texas; Antonio Delgado won a very tough primary in NY-19, and went on to win in a very tough rural district against incumbent John Faso; Mike Levin became the Democrat in California’s strange jungle primary system, beating several other strong Democrats and then winning in what had been the Republican House district of Darrell Issa for many years. Katie Hill in California ran on a strong progressive agenda to beat incumbent Steve Knight, winning a tough Southern California district. I’ll stop at five examples, but there are a great many more than the carefully handpicked list from the Third Way types. All of these were candidates helped in the primaries by many different progressive groups and activists. They generated enormous enthusiasm among progressive netroots donors across the country, and ran unapologetically on a strong progressive agenda in their campaigns.
3. Most of the candidates who ran in competitive races, and most who won, supported major elements of the progressive populist economic agenda. You can look it up!: most of the congressional candidates who won Republican seats supported some combination of Medicare For All or a major Medicare expansion, an expansion of Social Security benefits, a $15 minimum wage, doing something big about student debt, major new taxes on the wealthy and Wall Street banks, and/or major new initiatives on climate change. Given that the Third Way's historic agenda is cutting Social Security benefits, opposing Medicare For All, lessening regulations on Wall Street, and instituting a minimum wage much lower than $15, the incoming class of Democrats were not what you'd call a bunch of Third Way types.
4. Anyone who thinks that the typical cautious centrist campaigns of the past would have run some of these races is smoking something far more potent than marijuana. Whoever won the Democratic primary to run against Governor Larry Hogan in Maryland was almost certain to lose, as he was one of the most popular governors in the country. In Arizona, Governor Ducey was always heavily favored. In Texas, no Democrat running statewide had come anywhere near as close as Beto in 24 years, almost all losing by double digits. Florida and Georgia have not had Democratic governors in 20 years. All of those losses by progressives that the centrist Democrats are so delighted to cite (and as noted some are yet to be declared losses) were in very tough races, that most politicos considered longshots from the beginning of the cycle.
I would add that no serious political observer can make the case that duller, more centrist, white candidates could have turned out as many African-American, Latinx, or young voters as Gillum, Beto, or Abrams, who lit a fire in those communities. Democrats are not going to win in tough places like these without an incredibly high turnout of our base.
5. The centrist Democratic strategy didn't do so well in those red states. In red state Senate races where centrist Democrats worked hard to distance themselves from progressives and the party, we had a pretty lousy track record. Manchin pulled it off, but he is a pretty unique figure in modern American politics -- and he sure was unique in this election, as he was the only centrist who survived. Donnelly in Indiana, McCaskill in Missouri, and Bredesen in Tennessee all did worse than their margin-of-error polling average throughout the campaign, losing by 7, 6, and 11 points respectively. By my book, that's a lot. Meanwhile, Heitkamp in North Dakota, to whom I do give a lot of credit for bravely and strongly opposing Kavanaugh and for not giving in to the temptation to join Trump's race baiting as Donnelly and McCaskill did, nevertheless did run as a pretty centrist Democrat. She also lost by double digits, although she had not been close in the polls for a while.
Some will argue that Montana Senator Jon Tester, who won, ran as a more conservative Democrat, but I did not see it that way. Tester finds ways to emphasizes his pragmatism in getting bipartisan bills passed that Trump could sign, but he describes himself as a "Montana Democrat," someone who is proud of being a Democrat, but is tied to the culture and independence of Montana. A long-time friend of his who is from Montana told me that he even has been known to describe himself as a progressive in public from time to time. He didn't play any of the signaling games in culture-war politics that Donnelly and McCaskill did, either.
6. Tammy Baldwin and Sherrod Brown. The two Democrats who won from states that Trump won in 2016 that the Third Way types avoid talking about at all costs are Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. Their stories in the 2018 cycle are very inconvenient for the ‘Progressives Can't Win’ narrative. They are two of the most progressive and populist people in the U.S. Senate. Both of them were initially very high on the Republican target lists for this cycle. In fact, Tammy Baldwin had more spent against her in 2017 than any other Senate incumbent. But neither of them moved to the center at all or got the least bit mealy-mouthed in voting and speaking out for progressive issues or values. They both were able to establish strong early leads and won going away.
I want to say a special word about Sherrod Brown, who has been one of my favorite senators for as long as he's been here. One of the aforementioned articles talked dismissively about Brown with his populist message only winning by six. The author made it sound like his message didn't work very well, which has to be the single dumbest thing I've read (outside of Trump quotes) since the election. First of all, a margin of six points is a pretty sizable win in any contested state, especially in a red-state like Ohio. Sherrod is the only Ohio Democrat to win a statewide race since 2006. Trump had close to a double-digit win. This year, there was a criminal justice reform ballot measure that Republicans put a lot of money into attacking that was a big drag on the Democrats running. But Sherrod Brown showed how a progressive populist message focused on working people can still win in red America.
The reason all of this is important to lay out is that the DC centrists are working hard to build the case that a progressive candidate and message cannot win the presidential race in 2020. Let me disabuse you of that misguided notion: our best chance by far is for a presidential candidate that is a strong progressive, willing to take on Wall Street, the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, Big Oil, and other big monopolistic corporations who are dominating our economy and threatening the American dream for working families. Sherrod Brown won in Ohio when no other Democrat could; Beto O'Rourke and Stacey Abrams did better than any other statewide candidates have done in a generation; strong progressives won in dozens of tough districts all over the country, and came close in many more; and Andrew Gillum is a hare's breath away from becoming the first Florida governor in a generation.
Have progressive candidates solved all the challenges of the modern era in terms of winning elections? Of course not. But the formula of genuinely reaching out to working folks of all races and religions, getting young people excited about politics again, and telling the story of how Wall Street and big monopolies need to be tamed again is a formula than is going to win us far more elections than the Third Way agenda of cuddling up to the big banks and cutting Social Security benefits. At the end of the day, what Democrats need to do is to reject the false choices that have plagued our party for the last generation: we don't have to choose between white working class and rural voters and firing up our base; we don't have to choose between advocating for fairness and advocating for economic growth. We win with a message that inspires and motivates Democrats and progressive activists and voters, and appeals to those working class and rural folks in the middle at the same damn time.
I have seen this kind of post-election spin after every election since 1994: if Democrats have a bad year, it’s because we moved too far left. If we have a good year like this one, it’s because of the noble centrists who prevailed -- and they’ll pick over the bones of any progressive Democrat who didn’t win and point with glee saying, “See! See! They got beat!” It is especially galling given that some of these races aren’t even over. (I guess at least it’s better than actively trying to beat progressive Democrats as Third Way has been known to do over the years, like when they attacked Elizabeth Warren as being anti-business when she was in the heat of a tough 2012 Senate race to defeat popular incumbent Scott Brown.)
There’s a couple of articles out where this spin is in overdrive, here, and here. The official line is that the progressive Democrats who won primaries (defined a certain kind of way that fits the spin) didn’t win a single general election race they were involved in and didn’t turn a single Republican district to Democrat.
These kinds of spin games have to be put to rest. I think it’s important to make the following points about some of the goofy things in these articles:
1. Not all of the progressives on the Wall Street Dems’ list have lost. Gillum, along with centrist white guy Senator Bill Nelson whose number of votes and margin are almost identical, are in the midst of recounts, in case you hadn’t noticed. Two of the closest elections in Florida history, and Florida has had its share of close ones, as you may recall. Not all of the votes are counted in Georgia either, and the race might go to runoff. Not all the votes have been counted in Katie Porter’s race in California, either. Guys (because most of the people putting out this BS are indeed men), please don’t dance on the graves of these outstanding Democrats until their races are over. Progressives aren’t sitting around rooting for Kyrsten Sinema to lose because she’s a moderate.
2. The list of progressives who won primaries is a lot longer than the nine people the corporate Dems are crowing about who lost, and tons of them are winning. Brilliant progressive Xochitl Torres Small won a very Republican Congressional seat in New Mexico after winning the primary; progressive star Colin Allred won a tough primary and went on to defeat incumbent Pete Sessions in Texas; Antonio Delgado won a very tough primary in NY-19, and went on to win in a very tough rural district against incumbent John Faso; Mike Levin became the Democrat in California’s strange jungle primary system, beating several other strong Democrats and then winning in what had been the Republican House district of Darrell Issa for many years. Katie Hill in California ran on a strong progressive agenda to beat incumbent Steve Knight, winning a tough Southern California district. I’ll stop at five examples, but there are a great many more than the carefully handpicked list from the Third Way types. All of these were candidates helped in the primaries by many different progressive groups and activists. They generated enormous enthusiasm among progressive netroots donors across the country, and ran unapologetically on a strong progressive agenda in their campaigns.
3. Most of the candidates who ran in competitive races, and most who won, supported major elements of the progressive populist economic agenda. You can look it up!: most of the congressional candidates who won Republican seats supported some combination of Medicare For All or a major Medicare expansion, an expansion of Social Security benefits, a $15 minimum wage, doing something big about student debt, major new taxes on the wealthy and Wall Street banks, and/or major new initiatives on climate change. Given that the Third Way's historic agenda is cutting Social Security benefits, opposing Medicare For All, lessening regulations on Wall Street, and instituting a minimum wage much lower than $15, the incoming class of Democrats were not what you'd call a bunch of Third Way types.
4. Anyone who thinks that the typical cautious centrist campaigns of the past would have run some of these races is smoking something far more potent than marijuana. Whoever won the Democratic primary to run against Governor Larry Hogan in Maryland was almost certain to lose, as he was one of the most popular governors in the country. In Arizona, Governor Ducey was always heavily favored. In Texas, no Democrat running statewide had come anywhere near as close as Beto in 24 years, almost all losing by double digits. Florida and Georgia have not had Democratic governors in 20 years. All of those losses by progressives that the centrist Democrats are so delighted to cite (and as noted some are yet to be declared losses) were in very tough races, that most politicos considered longshots from the beginning of the cycle.
I would add that no serious political observer can make the case that duller, more centrist, white candidates could have turned out as many African-American, Latinx, or young voters as Gillum, Beto, or Abrams, who lit a fire in those communities. Democrats are not going to win in tough places like these without an incredibly high turnout of our base.
5. The centrist Democratic strategy didn't do so well in those red states. In red state Senate races where centrist Democrats worked hard to distance themselves from progressives and the party, we had a pretty lousy track record. Manchin pulled it off, but he is a pretty unique figure in modern American politics -- and he sure was unique in this election, as he was the only centrist who survived. Donnelly in Indiana, McCaskill in Missouri, and Bredesen in Tennessee all did worse than their margin-of-error polling average throughout the campaign, losing by 7, 6, and 11 points respectively. By my book, that's a lot. Meanwhile, Heitkamp in North Dakota, to whom I do give a lot of credit for bravely and strongly opposing Kavanaugh and for not giving in to the temptation to join Trump's race baiting as Donnelly and McCaskill did, nevertheless did run as a pretty centrist Democrat. She also lost by double digits, although she had not been close in the polls for a while.
Some will argue that Montana Senator Jon Tester, who won, ran as a more conservative Democrat, but I did not see it that way. Tester finds ways to emphasizes his pragmatism in getting bipartisan bills passed that Trump could sign, but he describes himself as a "Montana Democrat," someone who is proud of being a Democrat, but is tied to the culture and independence of Montana. A long-time friend of his who is from Montana told me that he even has been known to describe himself as a progressive in public from time to time. He didn't play any of the signaling games in culture-war politics that Donnelly and McCaskill did, either.
6. Tammy Baldwin and Sherrod Brown. The two Democrats who won from states that Trump won in 2016 that the Third Way types avoid talking about at all costs are Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. Their stories in the 2018 cycle are very inconvenient for the ‘Progressives Can't Win’ narrative. They are two of the most progressive and populist people in the U.S. Senate. Both of them were initially very high on the Republican target lists for this cycle. In fact, Tammy Baldwin had more spent against her in 2017 than any other Senate incumbent. But neither of them moved to the center at all or got the least bit mealy-mouthed in voting and speaking out for progressive issues or values. They both were able to establish strong early leads and won going away.
I want to say a special word about Sherrod Brown, who has been one of my favorite senators for as long as he's been here. One of the aforementioned articles talked dismissively about Brown with his populist message only winning by six. The author made it sound like his message didn't work very well, which has to be the single dumbest thing I've read (outside of Trump quotes) since the election. First of all, a margin of six points is a pretty sizable win in any contested state, especially in a red-state like Ohio. Sherrod is the only Ohio Democrat to win a statewide race since 2006. Trump had close to a double-digit win. This year, there was a criminal justice reform ballot measure that Republicans put a lot of money into attacking that was a big drag on the Democrats running. But Sherrod Brown showed how a progressive populist message focused on working people can still win in red America.
The reason all of this is important to lay out is that the DC centrists are working hard to build the case that a progressive candidate and message cannot win the presidential race in 2020. Let me disabuse you of that misguided notion: our best chance by far is for a presidential candidate that is a strong progressive, willing to take on Wall Street, the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, Big Oil, and other big monopolistic corporations who are dominating our economy and threatening the American dream for working families. Sherrod Brown won in Ohio when no other Democrat could; Beto O'Rourke and Stacey Abrams did better than any other statewide candidates have done in a generation; strong progressives won in dozens of tough districts all over the country, and came close in many more; and Andrew Gillum is a hare's breath away from becoming the first Florida governor in a generation.
Have progressive candidates solved all the challenges of the modern era in terms of winning elections? Of course not. But the formula of genuinely reaching out to working folks of all races and religions, getting young people excited about politics again, and telling the story of how Wall Street and big monopolies need to be tamed again is a formula than is going to win us far more elections than the Third Way agenda of cuddling up to the big banks and cutting Social Security benefits. At the end of the day, what Democrats need to do is to reject the false choices that have plagued our party for the last generation: we don't have to choose between white working class and rural voters and firing up our base; we don't have to choose between advocating for fairness and advocating for economic growth. We win with a message that inspires and motivates Democrats and progressive activists and voters, and appeals to those working class and rural folks in the middle at the same damn time.
DEMOCRATS WHO VOTED TO DEREGULATE WALL STREET GOT WIPED OUT IN A SETBACK FOR BANK LOBBYISTS
David Dayen - the intercept
November 10 2018, 7:22 a.m
THE MOST HIGH-PROFILE bipartisan legislation of the Trump era turned out to be electoral poison — or at least, not a prophylactic — for the Senate Democrats who decided to support it, which could serve as a lesson for party leaders wishing to join with the president on other bills next year.
The “Crapo bill,” a bank deregulation measure co-authored by Senate Banking Committee chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and several centrist Democrats, passed Congress this spring with the help of 17 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus and 33 House Democrats.
In the 10 states where Donald Trump won in 2016 and a Democratic senator stood for re-election this year, the three who opposed the Crapo bill all won a greater share of votes in their states than the seven who voted for it. Senators voting “no” averaged 54.7 percent of the vote and won by 10 percentage points, while the “yes” votes averaged 48.1 percent and lost by 1.5 points. The only Republican who lost, Dean Heller of Nevada, also voted for the Crapo bill, and fell by 5 points to Jacky Rosen, who voted against the legislation in the House.
The Crapo bill rolled back a number of elements of the Dodd-Frank Act, including, in particular, stiffer regulations on banks that have between $50 billion and $250 billion in assets. A recent proposal from the Federal Reserve, using authority granted by the Crapo bill, expands that deregulation up to banks with as much as $700 billion in assets.
Senate Democratic supporters justified their votes by casting the legislation as a tweak to benefit community banks in small towns and rural areas, despite its greatest impact occurring well up the chain. In fact, the bill has already led to accelerated consolidation and further disappearance of community banks.
In reality, the Democrats’ rationale was likely more cynical: They thought supporting the bill would unlock campaign contributions from the financial industry. And they were right.
The three Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee who co-authored the legislation — North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, and Montana’s Jon Tester — became the top three senators for financial industry donations in 2017, as the bill was being written. By the end of the cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the largest Senate recipients of campaign money from commercial banks were Heitkamp ($320,891), Tester ($274,944), bill supporter Claire McCaskill ($236,743), and Donnelly ($232,966). A little behind them was the Democratic Senate candidate from Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema ($173,204), who voted for the Crapo bill in the House.
The American Bankers Association ran an ad for Tester, and Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-funded group, launched a spot thanking Heitkamp for her vote. The Independent Community Bankers of America sent mailers for both Democrats.
By contrast, three more liberal Democrats running in Trump states — Bob Casey of Pennsylvania; Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin; and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, ranking member of the Banking Committee — decided that it wasn’t worth increasing industry donations by deregulating the banking sector. Their own results showed them to be right.
The following chart lists the share of the total vote each Senate Democrat running in a Trump state earned in the election, based on CNN’s numbers as of November 8. Casey, Baldwin, and Brown were the biggest winners, followed by Debbie Stabenow, who ran in a state more Democratic on Tuesday than Ohio but received a smaller percentage of the vote. Heitkamp and Donnelly, two of the co-authors of the Crapo bill, lost their races, as did McCaskill; Nelson’s race is headed to a re-count.
Heller, who was the top Republican in terms of commercial banking industry donations ($227,325), also did poorly, losing his race.
None of this is to say that the banking bill was the primary cause of defeat or sluggish performance on Election Day; there were far more important factors, from the relative conservative lean of the states, to the Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation vote, to Trump’s racist fearmongering.
But the rationale for supporters was that voting for the Crapo bill would help them electorally. Not only could they tout working together on bipartisan relief for local lenders, but they could haul in campaign donations to outpace their rivals. This was the myth that was proven wrong by the results.
Casey, Baldwin, and Brown didn’t chase the banker cash, and they did fine — better, in fact, than those who did. That shows that deregulating the financial industry was unnecessary as a political tool. To quote Adam Jentleson, former deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it was “One of the all-time stupidest votes. This bill had no business passing.”
The industry took notice of the stumbles of their Democratic backers in Congress as well. Ian Katz, a partner at Capital Alpha Partners, told Politico, “Since so many moderate Dems who supported S. 2155 lost, it may now be harder to get the Dems needed to get to 60 on financial services legislation. … It would be hard for Dem senators to think that cooperating with Republicans on financial policy is helpful to winning re-election.”
It will be interesting to see whether that point resonates with the Democratic leadership. Already, there’s been chatter in some circles about bipartisan cooperation with Trump on infrastructure spending or bills to lower the cost of prescription drugs. The devil would be in the details with those bills, but the idea that Democrats must show that they can reach across the aisle, particularly in pursuit of industry friendly deregulation, would seem to be disproven by this outcome.
Moreover, the new crop of freshman Democrats must consider the real value of Wall Street cash as well. It’s long been tradition to drop freshmen onto the House Financial Services Committee as a way to cultivate relationships with big-money lobbyists and shake down the industry for donations. The banks want something in return for that, and this leads to round after round of bipartisan deregulation. The midterm results show that such shilling for Big Finance has little utility in present-day elections.
The “Crapo bill,” a bank deregulation measure co-authored by Senate Banking Committee chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and several centrist Democrats, passed Congress this spring with the help of 17 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus and 33 House Democrats.
In the 10 states where Donald Trump won in 2016 and a Democratic senator stood for re-election this year, the three who opposed the Crapo bill all won a greater share of votes in their states than the seven who voted for it. Senators voting “no” averaged 54.7 percent of the vote and won by 10 percentage points, while the “yes” votes averaged 48.1 percent and lost by 1.5 points. The only Republican who lost, Dean Heller of Nevada, also voted for the Crapo bill, and fell by 5 points to Jacky Rosen, who voted against the legislation in the House.
The Crapo bill rolled back a number of elements of the Dodd-Frank Act, including, in particular, stiffer regulations on banks that have between $50 billion and $250 billion in assets. A recent proposal from the Federal Reserve, using authority granted by the Crapo bill, expands that deregulation up to banks with as much as $700 billion in assets.
Senate Democratic supporters justified their votes by casting the legislation as a tweak to benefit community banks in small towns and rural areas, despite its greatest impact occurring well up the chain. In fact, the bill has already led to accelerated consolidation and further disappearance of community banks.
In reality, the Democrats’ rationale was likely more cynical: They thought supporting the bill would unlock campaign contributions from the financial industry. And they were right.
The three Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee who co-authored the legislation — North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, and Montana’s Jon Tester — became the top three senators for financial industry donations in 2017, as the bill was being written. By the end of the cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the largest Senate recipients of campaign money from commercial banks were Heitkamp ($320,891), Tester ($274,944), bill supporter Claire McCaskill ($236,743), and Donnelly ($232,966). A little behind them was the Democratic Senate candidate from Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema ($173,204), who voted for the Crapo bill in the House.
The American Bankers Association ran an ad for Tester, and Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-funded group, launched a spot thanking Heitkamp for her vote. The Independent Community Bankers of America sent mailers for both Democrats.
By contrast, three more liberal Democrats running in Trump states — Bob Casey of Pennsylvania; Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin; and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, ranking member of the Banking Committee — decided that it wasn’t worth increasing industry donations by deregulating the banking sector. Their own results showed them to be right.
The following chart lists the share of the total vote each Senate Democrat running in a Trump state earned in the election, based on CNN’s numbers as of November 8. Casey, Baldwin, and Brown were the biggest winners, followed by Debbie Stabenow, who ran in a state more Democratic on Tuesday than Ohio but received a smaller percentage of the vote. Heitkamp and Donnelly, two of the co-authors of the Crapo bill, lost their races, as did McCaskill; Nelson’s race is headed to a re-count.
Heller, who was the top Republican in terms of commercial banking industry donations ($227,325), also did poorly, losing his race.
None of this is to say that the banking bill was the primary cause of defeat or sluggish performance on Election Day; there were far more important factors, from the relative conservative lean of the states, to the Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation vote, to Trump’s racist fearmongering.
But the rationale for supporters was that voting for the Crapo bill would help them electorally. Not only could they tout working together on bipartisan relief for local lenders, but they could haul in campaign donations to outpace their rivals. This was the myth that was proven wrong by the results.
Casey, Baldwin, and Brown didn’t chase the banker cash, and they did fine — better, in fact, than those who did. That shows that deregulating the financial industry was unnecessary as a political tool. To quote Adam Jentleson, former deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it was “One of the all-time stupidest votes. This bill had no business passing.”
The industry took notice of the stumbles of their Democratic backers in Congress as well. Ian Katz, a partner at Capital Alpha Partners, told Politico, “Since so many moderate Dems who supported S. 2155 lost, it may now be harder to get the Dems needed to get to 60 on financial services legislation. … It would be hard for Dem senators to think that cooperating with Republicans on financial policy is helpful to winning re-election.”
It will be interesting to see whether that point resonates with the Democratic leadership. Already, there’s been chatter in some circles about bipartisan cooperation with Trump on infrastructure spending or bills to lower the cost of prescription drugs. The devil would be in the details with those bills, but the idea that Democrats must show that they can reach across the aisle, particularly in pursuit of industry friendly deregulation, would seem to be disproven by this outcome.
Moreover, the new crop of freshman Democrats must consider the real value of Wall Street cash as well. It’s long been tradition to drop freshmen onto the House Financial Services Committee as a way to cultivate relationships with big-money lobbyists and shake down the industry for donations. The banks want something in return for that, and this leads to round after round of bipartisan deregulation. The midterm results show that such shilling for Big Finance has little utility in present-day elections.
MICHIGAN’S DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR-ELECT PUTS BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD EXECUTIVE ON TRANSITION TEAM — AFTER THE COMPANY FUNDED HER CAMPAIGN
Zaid Jilani - the intercept
November 9 2018, 7:41 a.m.
WHEN FORMER MICHIGAN Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer faced a populist, progressive rival in the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary earlier this year, she had a little help from her health insurance industry friends.
Whitmer was hosted at a fundraiser thrown by lobbyists for Blue Cross Blue Shield. She netted $144,000 during a single day at the event.
The company’s interest in the race came as no surprise, as Whitmer’s chief rival, former Detroit public health chief Abdul El-Sayed, was campaigning on establishing a statewide single-payer health care system. Essentially, he was running to put the company out of business.
But it appears that Blue Cross Blue Shield gained more than just the defeat of single payer. This week, Whitmer won the governor’s mansion, putting the state back in the Democratic column. She quickly announced the composition of her transition team.
One of the “honorary co-chairs” is Daniel Loepp, the president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
In a 2015 interview, Whitmer credited Loepp with being the first person to suggest that she enter politics, back when he worked in the state legislature.
During the campaign, Gretchen Whitmer — whose father is Richard Whitmer, formerly the head of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — was defensive against criticisms that she was too close to the health insurance giant. “It’s extremely sexist to say that a woman is beholden to her father’s former employer,” she told CNN.
The governor-elect’s team did not respond to a request for comment. Though Whitmer ran to the right of El-Sayed, her platform was still broadly progressive and pro-labor.
Whitmer’s transition team isn’t the only one bringing corporate interests onboard post-election. In Georgia, Republican Brian Kemp has declared victory, despite an ongoing legal effort by his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams to chase down enough provisional and absentee ballots to take the race to a run-off.
Kemp announced Thursday that his transition team would be led by David Dove, Kemp’s former legal counsel and chief of staff. More recently, Dove was added to the new lobbying arm of the litigation and regulatory law firm Robbins Ross Alloy Belinfante Littlefield LLC.
The newly minted Robbins Government Relations Group opened October 2, just over a month before the election. In an interview with a legal publication, partner Josh Belinfante explained why the firm decided to open a lobbying arm. He emphasized the potential to influence regulations.
“A lot of our clients’ problems can be resolved through the legislative branch more easily and effectively than through the judicial branch,” Belinfante said. “Or our clients may have a win in the judicial branch that may need to be protected in the legislature — particularly clients who are highly regulated, and particularly when legislation or regulations pass that govern what they do.”
According to disclosures, Dove is not currently registered to lobby. But presumably, the firm’s clients now have a chain of communication to the man responsible for staffing the next governor’s mansion. The Intercept reached out to the firm and to Dove to ask if he would be taking a leave of absence while serving on the transition team, but they have not yet responded.
Whitmer was hosted at a fundraiser thrown by lobbyists for Blue Cross Blue Shield. She netted $144,000 during a single day at the event.
The company’s interest in the race came as no surprise, as Whitmer’s chief rival, former Detroit public health chief Abdul El-Sayed, was campaigning on establishing a statewide single-payer health care system. Essentially, he was running to put the company out of business.
But it appears that Blue Cross Blue Shield gained more than just the defeat of single payer. This week, Whitmer won the governor’s mansion, putting the state back in the Democratic column. She quickly announced the composition of her transition team.
One of the “honorary co-chairs” is Daniel Loepp, the president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
In a 2015 interview, Whitmer credited Loepp with being the first person to suggest that she enter politics, back when he worked in the state legislature.
During the campaign, Gretchen Whitmer — whose father is Richard Whitmer, formerly the head of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — was defensive against criticisms that she was too close to the health insurance giant. “It’s extremely sexist to say that a woman is beholden to her father’s former employer,” she told CNN.
The governor-elect’s team did not respond to a request for comment. Though Whitmer ran to the right of El-Sayed, her platform was still broadly progressive and pro-labor.
Whitmer’s transition team isn’t the only one bringing corporate interests onboard post-election. In Georgia, Republican Brian Kemp has declared victory, despite an ongoing legal effort by his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams to chase down enough provisional and absentee ballots to take the race to a run-off.
Kemp announced Thursday that his transition team would be led by David Dove, Kemp’s former legal counsel and chief of staff. More recently, Dove was added to the new lobbying arm of the litigation and regulatory law firm Robbins Ross Alloy Belinfante Littlefield LLC.
The newly minted Robbins Government Relations Group opened October 2, just over a month before the election. In an interview with a legal publication, partner Josh Belinfante explained why the firm decided to open a lobbying arm. He emphasized the potential to influence regulations.
“A lot of our clients’ problems can be resolved through the legislative branch more easily and effectively than through the judicial branch,” Belinfante said. “Or our clients may have a win in the judicial branch that may need to be protected in the legislature — particularly clients who are highly regulated, and particularly when legislation or regulations pass that govern what they do.”
According to disclosures, Dove is not currently registered to lobby. But presumably, the firm’s clients now have a chain of communication to the man responsible for staffing the next governor’s mansion. The Intercept reached out to the firm and to Dove to ask if he would be taking a leave of absence while serving on the transition team, but they have not yet responded.
Banks to target moderate Democrats, regulators if US House flips
Reuters - raw story
03 NOV 2018 AT 08:30 ET
Financial industry lobbyists say they will focus their efforts on moderate Democrats and regulatory agencies if Democrats take control of the House of Representatives after next week’s congressional elections.
The Nov. 6 vote could result in Democratic Representative Maxine Waters, a fierce bank critic, taking over as the next chair of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, which helps set the nation’s financial policy and oversight agenda.
Yet despite her rhetoric, financial lobbyists say Waters has a track record of working across the aisle and believe there are bipartisan areas on data privacy, bank secrecy and capital formation where they still hope to gain ground under her leadership.
“Congresswoman Waters has shown a streak for consensus-building throughout her career on House Financial Services, particularly on small business capital formation issues which really matter to our group,” said Chris Iacovella, chief executive of the American Securities Association, a group representing regional broker dealers.
Waters, in a statement to Reuters, said: “I look forward to continuing to work with Members on both sides of the aisle on sensible solutions to benefit hardworking Americans and strengthen our nation’s economy.”
If Democrats take the House by a thin margin, as many polls predict, their majority will rely on moderate Democrats who will want to show voters, and the industry, that they can be productive.
Financial lobbyists said they believe those lawmakers, including New York’s Carolyn Maloney, Georgia’s David Scott and Connecticut’s Jim Himes, can be influenced to push bipartisan issues.
The Financial Services Committee has long been a critical panel for lawmakers from both parties to attract campaign funds from Wall Street. Its members will not want to jeopardize that, lobbyists say, and the flow of cash has jumped this year as the industry looks to rebuild bipartisan support it enjoyed before the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
“The folks who have the most power are the moderates who will swing those votes in either direction and they will be very important in the next congress,” said Paul Merski, executive vice president at the Independent Community Bankers of America.
Congressmen Himes and Scott did not respond to requests for to comment, while Congresswoman Maloney said she wanted to remain focused on putting consumers first.
“OPEN DOOR”
Waters, 80, has served in Congress representing a Los Angeles district since 1991. With the gavel in reach, she has been quietly pushing her bipartisan credentials and is promising an “open door policy” to all parties.
Most recently, she worked with Republicans to craft a bill to help companies raise capital. She also worked across the aisle to help pass reauthorizations of the Export-Import Bank and Flood Insurance programs, which are critical for lenders and insurers.
On the Republican side, the two front-runners to lead the committee, North Carolina’s Patrick McHenry and Missouri’s Blaine Luetkemeyer, told Reuters they were prepared to collaborate with Waters.
McHenry, currently the committee’s vice chair, has previously worked with her on crowdfunding and business innovation bills, he noted in an interview.
“While we largely disagree on approach, we still have areas where we can build some consensus,” he added.
One of the more contentious areas of Waters’ anticipated agenda could be her deploying the chair’s subpoena power to step up oversight of banks, regulators and President Donald Trump personally.
Extensive documentation requests and congressional hearings could tie-up staff and slow work on the regulatory front.
But lobbyists stressed that key rule changes – involving the relaxation of stress tests, proprietary trading, derivatives and liquidity rules – were already in progress and in some cases mandated by laws Congress passed this year.
James Ballentine, chief lobbyist for the American Bankers Association, Washington’s largest bank group, said he was “realistically optimistic” about a Waters chair and did not expect the regulators’ agenda to change.
“They absolutely should take input from members of Congress. But ultimately they have to make the decision,” he said.
The Nov. 6 vote could result in Democratic Representative Maxine Waters, a fierce bank critic, taking over as the next chair of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, which helps set the nation’s financial policy and oversight agenda.
Yet despite her rhetoric, financial lobbyists say Waters has a track record of working across the aisle and believe there are bipartisan areas on data privacy, bank secrecy and capital formation where they still hope to gain ground under her leadership.
“Congresswoman Waters has shown a streak for consensus-building throughout her career on House Financial Services, particularly on small business capital formation issues which really matter to our group,” said Chris Iacovella, chief executive of the American Securities Association, a group representing regional broker dealers.
Waters, in a statement to Reuters, said: “I look forward to continuing to work with Members on both sides of the aisle on sensible solutions to benefit hardworking Americans and strengthen our nation’s economy.”
If Democrats take the House by a thin margin, as many polls predict, their majority will rely on moderate Democrats who will want to show voters, and the industry, that they can be productive.
Financial lobbyists said they believe those lawmakers, including New York’s Carolyn Maloney, Georgia’s David Scott and Connecticut’s Jim Himes, can be influenced to push bipartisan issues.
The Financial Services Committee has long been a critical panel for lawmakers from both parties to attract campaign funds from Wall Street. Its members will not want to jeopardize that, lobbyists say, and the flow of cash has jumped this year as the industry looks to rebuild bipartisan support it enjoyed before the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
“The folks who have the most power are the moderates who will swing those votes in either direction and they will be very important in the next congress,” said Paul Merski, executive vice president at the Independent Community Bankers of America.
Congressmen Himes and Scott did not respond to requests for to comment, while Congresswoman Maloney said she wanted to remain focused on putting consumers first.
“OPEN DOOR”
Waters, 80, has served in Congress representing a Los Angeles district since 1991. With the gavel in reach, she has been quietly pushing her bipartisan credentials and is promising an “open door policy” to all parties.
Most recently, she worked with Republicans to craft a bill to help companies raise capital. She also worked across the aisle to help pass reauthorizations of the Export-Import Bank and Flood Insurance programs, which are critical for lenders and insurers.
On the Republican side, the two front-runners to lead the committee, North Carolina’s Patrick McHenry and Missouri’s Blaine Luetkemeyer, told Reuters they were prepared to collaborate with Waters.
McHenry, currently the committee’s vice chair, has previously worked with her on crowdfunding and business innovation bills, he noted in an interview.
“While we largely disagree on approach, we still have areas where we can build some consensus,” he added.
One of the more contentious areas of Waters’ anticipated agenda could be her deploying the chair’s subpoena power to step up oversight of banks, regulators and President Donald Trump personally.
Extensive documentation requests and congressional hearings could tie-up staff and slow work on the regulatory front.
But lobbyists stressed that key rule changes – involving the relaxation of stress tests, proprietary trading, derivatives and liquidity rules – were already in progress and in some cases mandated by laws Congress passed this year.
James Ballentine, chief lobbyist for the American Bankers Association, Washington’s largest bank group, said he was “realistically optimistic” about a Waters chair and did not expect the regulators’ agenda to change.
“They absolutely should take input from members of Congress. But ultimately they have to make the decision,” he said.
Red-State Senate Democrats Are Top Recipients of Wall Street Donations
BY
Michael Corcoran, Truthout
PUBLISHED
November 2, 2018
Top recipients of donations from finance: Senators.
SHOT FROM CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS
|
Citi Group, which lobbied heavily for the Dodd-Frank repeal, donated more to Heidi Heitkamp than anyone else in the Senate in 2018.
CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS
|
Senate Democrats who helped roll back Obama-era financial regulations make up most of the top recipients of Wall Street donations this election cycle, according to a Truthout analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Wall Street donors have been lavishing the Democrats in the Senate with far more money than their GOP colleagues. The top six recipients (and nine of the top 10) of Wall Street money in 2018 among senators are Democrats. Of the top 20 Senate candidates to receive donations from Wall Street this cycle, 17 are Democrats, up from six in the last midtermin 2014, and five in 2016.
The average amount collected by Senate Democrats is $895,000 vs. $368,000 for Republicans. Wall Street has donated nearly $43 million to Senate Democrats, compared with only $19 million for Republicans — a noticeable departure from typical election years, where (with one exception) donations are about even or trend Republican.
“Wall Street acts in its self-interest. [Donors] want to be friendly with whoever gets the gavel,” said Aaron Scherb, legislative director of Common Cause, in an interview with Truthout. “There are a lot of Democratic incumbents and incumbents usually win.”
There are several variables that can account for these trends, some more sinister than others: Democrats are defending many more seats and incumbents have a large financial advantage. Democrats also have been aggressive and successful in their fundraising.
Further, Wall Street is actually a little skittish about Trump: They support most of his agenda on taxes, but fear his unpredictability, complete disregard for presidential norms and his advocacy for tariffs. Many want to elect Democrats to “serve as a check” on Trump, as one Democratic fundraiser told The New York Times.
One trend that should not be ignored is that the Democrats who are getting the most money are, by and large, the ones who have embraced the Wall Street agenda during the first two years of Trump’s presidency. Seventeen Democrats helped repeal portions of Obama-era Dodd-Frank legislation by voting with Republicans on the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection bill (hereafter “Dodd-Frank repeal”).
(Note: Sen. Angus King of Maine is an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. He is counted as a Democrat in this analysis)
Nine Democrats also crossed party lines to appoint Goldman Sach’s bailout attorney Jay Clayton to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. This was despite opposition from most Democrats who lamented his connection to Goldman, whose exploitation of the 2008 economic crisis is infamous. Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of 37 Senators to oppose his confirmation, said he “embodies the greed that nearly wrecked our economy.”
The party’s dependence on Wall Street money is not new, although it is increasingly pervasive. This ongoing and growing relationship between the party and private capital raises important questions about electoral strategy, the direction of the party (especially as social democrats attempt to wrest control of it from the establishment), and the increasingly troublesome role of money in politics.
While the mainstream media do cover fundraising, they often do it to gauge a candidate’s chances. The potential impacts of political donations on policymaking are rarely discussed on cable television. These media companies themselves are owned by parent companies that benefit dramatically from this influx of cash as well — to buy influence and profit off record-breaking political advertising spending. In March, Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote an op-ed for the Guardian making a similar point:
How often has ABC, CBS or NBC discussed the role that the Koch brothers and other billionaires play in creating a political system which allows the rich and the powerful to significantly control elections and the legislative process in Congress? Sadly, the answer to these questions is: almost never. The corporate media has failed to let the American people fully understand the economic forces shaping their lives…
Wall Street’s Allies in the Democratic Party
After his inauguration, Trump promised to “do a big number” on Dodd-Frank, the law passed by Obama and the 1111th Congress in response to the economic crisis of 2008. The law attempted to lessen the amount of risk banks could take, and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is supposed to protect consumers from the products of finance, an industry fraught with bad-faith lending.
In May, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank repeal and did so with the help of 17 Senate Democrats. These “moderate” Democrats were thanked for this in ads from groups like the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity.
Citigroup, as The Intercept reported, was especially active in lobbying for the bill. Heitkamp of North Dakota received more money from Citigroup than any other Senator, followed closely by Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, both of whom voted for the repeal.
In fact, many of these Democrats did not just vote for the repeal but promoted it as a victory for bipartisanship and consumers. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp was a co-author of this bill and stood next to Trump at the signing ceremony. Heitkamp has received about $2.3 million from the industry, the fifth most of all senators, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
So proud of her role in the bill, she retweeted and republished The Wall Street Journal’s article praising the “roll back” of banking regulations as a victory for Trump and community banks.
Another name that appears at or near the top of nearly every sector in the finance industry – hedge funds, commercial banking, securities — is Claire McCaskill, a two-term senator from Missouri. She has received $4.3 million (and counting) from stock-jobbers, hedge funds, commercial banks — more than any member of (or candidate for) Congress. Her fundraising is outpacing that of her opponent in the tight Senate race in Missouri.
McCaskill voted for the Dodd-Frank repeal and was one of 10 Democratsto confirm Clayton. McCaskill released a press release saying she “helped shape” the financial repeal bill, selling the Dodd-Frank repeal vote as a win for consumers
Sen. Jon Tester of Montana is the third highest recipient of industry dollars. Goldman Sachs has given more to him than any other candidate this cycle. He also voted in lockstep with Trump and Wall Street on numerous occasions, including on the Dodd-Frank repeal and to confirm Clayton. He was rewarded for his loyalty by the American Bankers Association and the Montana Bankers Association, which together produced an ad to support his campaign.
These are just three examples of Democrats getting uncomfortably close with titans of private capital. The problem is an institutional one, however. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, for instance,has raised money from financial interests such as the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors, Experian, Navient, National Venture Capital Association, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Among those 17 Democrats who voted to repeal Dodd-Frank, the average amount of Wall Street contributions is (as of data available on November 1, 2018) about $1.4 million, substantially more than the average Democrat ($944,500) and many times more than the average Senate Republican ($377,000). Of the 13 co-sponsors, the average is about $1.5 million.
Among the 10 Democrats who voted to confirm Jay Clayton, the Goldman bailout lawyer who Trump appointed to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the average was $1.6 million. Not a single Democrat who voted for Clayton voted against the financial regulation rollback, further demonstrating how aligned this sect of the party is on finance.
The fundraising discrepancy has frustrated the GOP. The largest Republican recipient of money from the industry is Sen. Dean Heller with $2.2 million, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz, who, with $1.6 million, is in 13th place among senators.
Despite being an incumbent, Cruz lags his challenger, Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who has collected $3.3 million. In fact, if you expand the list of recipients to Senate candidates, the numbers are more lopsided. O’Rourke has collected more than all but four senators and the pace of his fundraising overall is record-breaking. He collected $38.1 million in one quarter.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who is running a “centrist” campaign in a tight race to fill Jeff Flake’s seat in Arizona, ranks 7th with about $2.2 million in money from finance, outraising not only her opponent but every member of the GOP in Congress.
Does Wooing Wall Street Help Win Elections?
The degree to which Democrats are relying on Wall Street is worrisome and has been for a long time. While some long for the days of President Obama, people forget that he raised more money from finance than any candidate in history at the time of his first presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton’s relationship to Wall Street was a big vulnerability as well. Her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, for instance, gave her problems with the left.
When Bernie Sanders raised the issue in debates, it might have been the most visible debate about the role of money in politics in US history. Now, the debate continues to rage on.
“There’s no way that any vote in a red state or a blue state that supports Wall Street like this is a benefit at the polls,” Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, a progressive organization that raises money for candidates, told The Hill.
Progressives cite compelling statistics from a Public Policy Polling survey from February.
“… voters strongly support regulating Wall Street, oppose [the Dodd-Frank repeal] … and are inclined to punish politicians who support the measure,” the survey said. “This issue has the potential to move votes in this fall’s midterm election. 65 percent of voters are less likely to vote for a member of Congress who supports a bill weakening oversight of many of the country’s largest banks …”
It may well be true that voting for Wall Street doesn’t endear politicians to voters. Polling shows deep distrust over Wall Street. The problem is that these politicians don’t seem to care.
Whatever damage is done by voting with Wall Street seems to be a cost these Democrats are willing to pay. Voting for Wall Street may not endear a candidate to voters, but millions of dollars in advertising and PAC money? Those can help candidates win, especially when they already have all the advantages of an incumbent in a legislative body designed to curb democracy.
Senate.gov: “Was a Senate Really Necessary?”“The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy,” Elbridge Gerry said at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, held in private with no press present among 55 wealthy elites. “The people do not want virtue but are the dupes of pretended patriots.”
It was this line of thinking that led the founders to create a body that voters could not turn over in one election (at least not more than one-third of it). In fact, initially voters did not choose senators at all; they were chosen by state legislatures until 1913 and the ratification of the 17thAmendment.
If distancing politicians from the will of the public was a goal of the founders – and it was – the Senate has proved to be an effective vehicle for that change. This helps explain why Republicans supported a Senate health care bill in 2017 that had the support of only 12 percent of the public, according to a USA Today poll. “[James] Madison clearly recognized the need for a smaller, more deliberative body in the legislative branch to cool the passions and control the urges of democratic masses,” notes the US Senate website, rather candidly. Appropriately, this essay starts off with “Was a Senate really necessary?” That is, indeed, a discussion worth having.
A Public Awakening
The good news is that Americans are more aware of these issues than ever before, Scherb said.
“In recent years, people are paying attention [to] the role of money in politics more and more,” he told Truthout. “People understand that money has too much influence.”
More than that, he says, are that more candidates are starting to shun corporate PAC money. As one PBS headline noted, there has been a recent “Rise of the Anti-PAC Democrat.” Two-thirds of Americans, according to a May 2018 Pew poll, support laws to limit money in politics. The support for these reforms is bipartisan, Pew reports.
If senators feel more pressure to court corporate donors than voters, public opinion won’t count for much. While Democrats badly want to retake Congress next session, it is worrisome that so many prospective members of the 116th Congress are so dependent on Wall Street money for political survival.
If voters and citizens wish to see this change, they will need to stop electing politicians who represent Wall Street. Only when politicians feel the sting from their shady relationship with corporate donors will they feel compelled to change.
Wall Street donors have been lavishing the Democrats in the Senate with far more money than their GOP colleagues. The top six recipients (and nine of the top 10) of Wall Street money in 2018 among senators are Democrats. Of the top 20 Senate candidates to receive donations from Wall Street this cycle, 17 are Democrats, up from six in the last midtermin 2014, and five in 2016.
The average amount collected by Senate Democrats is $895,000 vs. $368,000 for Republicans. Wall Street has donated nearly $43 million to Senate Democrats, compared with only $19 million for Republicans — a noticeable departure from typical election years, where (with one exception) donations are about even or trend Republican.
“Wall Street acts in its self-interest. [Donors] want to be friendly with whoever gets the gavel,” said Aaron Scherb, legislative director of Common Cause, in an interview with Truthout. “There are a lot of Democratic incumbents and incumbents usually win.”
There are several variables that can account for these trends, some more sinister than others: Democrats are defending many more seats and incumbents have a large financial advantage. Democrats also have been aggressive and successful in their fundraising.
Further, Wall Street is actually a little skittish about Trump: They support most of his agenda on taxes, but fear his unpredictability, complete disregard for presidential norms and his advocacy for tariffs. Many want to elect Democrats to “serve as a check” on Trump, as one Democratic fundraiser told The New York Times.
One trend that should not be ignored is that the Democrats who are getting the most money are, by and large, the ones who have embraced the Wall Street agenda during the first two years of Trump’s presidency. Seventeen Democrats helped repeal portions of Obama-era Dodd-Frank legislation by voting with Republicans on the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection bill (hereafter “Dodd-Frank repeal”).
(Note: Sen. Angus King of Maine is an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. He is counted as a Democrat in this analysis)
Nine Democrats also crossed party lines to appoint Goldman Sach’s bailout attorney Jay Clayton to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. This was despite opposition from most Democrats who lamented his connection to Goldman, whose exploitation of the 2008 economic crisis is infamous. Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of 37 Senators to oppose his confirmation, said he “embodies the greed that nearly wrecked our economy.”
The party’s dependence on Wall Street money is not new, although it is increasingly pervasive. This ongoing and growing relationship between the party and private capital raises important questions about electoral strategy, the direction of the party (especially as social democrats attempt to wrest control of it from the establishment), and the increasingly troublesome role of money in politics.
While the mainstream media do cover fundraising, they often do it to gauge a candidate’s chances. The potential impacts of political donations on policymaking are rarely discussed on cable television. These media companies themselves are owned by parent companies that benefit dramatically from this influx of cash as well — to buy influence and profit off record-breaking political advertising spending. In March, Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote an op-ed for the Guardian making a similar point:
How often has ABC, CBS or NBC discussed the role that the Koch brothers and other billionaires play in creating a political system which allows the rich and the powerful to significantly control elections and the legislative process in Congress? Sadly, the answer to these questions is: almost never. The corporate media has failed to let the American people fully understand the economic forces shaping their lives…
Wall Street’s Allies in the Democratic Party
After his inauguration, Trump promised to “do a big number” on Dodd-Frank, the law passed by Obama and the 1111th Congress in response to the economic crisis of 2008. The law attempted to lessen the amount of risk banks could take, and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is supposed to protect consumers from the products of finance, an industry fraught with bad-faith lending.
In May, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank repeal and did so with the help of 17 Senate Democrats. These “moderate” Democrats were thanked for this in ads from groups like the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity.
Citigroup, as The Intercept reported, was especially active in lobbying for the bill. Heitkamp of North Dakota received more money from Citigroup than any other Senator, followed closely by Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, both of whom voted for the repeal.
In fact, many of these Democrats did not just vote for the repeal but promoted it as a victory for bipartisanship and consumers. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp was a co-author of this bill and stood next to Trump at the signing ceremony. Heitkamp has received about $2.3 million from the industry, the fifth most of all senators, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
So proud of her role in the bill, she retweeted and republished The Wall Street Journal’s article praising the “roll back” of banking regulations as a victory for Trump and community banks.
Another name that appears at or near the top of nearly every sector in the finance industry – hedge funds, commercial banking, securities — is Claire McCaskill, a two-term senator from Missouri. She has received $4.3 million (and counting) from stock-jobbers, hedge funds, commercial banks — more than any member of (or candidate for) Congress. Her fundraising is outpacing that of her opponent in the tight Senate race in Missouri.
McCaskill voted for the Dodd-Frank repeal and was one of 10 Democratsto confirm Clayton. McCaskill released a press release saying she “helped shape” the financial repeal bill, selling the Dodd-Frank repeal vote as a win for consumers
Sen. Jon Tester of Montana is the third highest recipient of industry dollars. Goldman Sachs has given more to him than any other candidate this cycle. He also voted in lockstep with Trump and Wall Street on numerous occasions, including on the Dodd-Frank repeal and to confirm Clayton. He was rewarded for his loyalty by the American Bankers Association and the Montana Bankers Association, which together produced an ad to support his campaign.
These are just three examples of Democrats getting uncomfortably close with titans of private capital. The problem is an institutional one, however. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, for instance,has raised money from financial interests such as the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors, Experian, Navient, National Venture Capital Association, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Among those 17 Democrats who voted to repeal Dodd-Frank, the average amount of Wall Street contributions is (as of data available on November 1, 2018) about $1.4 million, substantially more than the average Democrat ($944,500) and many times more than the average Senate Republican ($377,000). Of the 13 co-sponsors, the average is about $1.5 million.
Among the 10 Democrats who voted to confirm Jay Clayton, the Goldman bailout lawyer who Trump appointed to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the average was $1.6 million. Not a single Democrat who voted for Clayton voted against the financial regulation rollback, further demonstrating how aligned this sect of the party is on finance.
The fundraising discrepancy has frustrated the GOP. The largest Republican recipient of money from the industry is Sen. Dean Heller with $2.2 million, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz, who, with $1.6 million, is in 13th place among senators.
Despite being an incumbent, Cruz lags his challenger, Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who has collected $3.3 million. In fact, if you expand the list of recipients to Senate candidates, the numbers are more lopsided. O’Rourke has collected more than all but four senators and the pace of his fundraising overall is record-breaking. He collected $38.1 million in one quarter.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who is running a “centrist” campaign in a tight race to fill Jeff Flake’s seat in Arizona, ranks 7th with about $2.2 million in money from finance, outraising not only her opponent but every member of the GOP in Congress.
Does Wooing Wall Street Help Win Elections?
The degree to which Democrats are relying on Wall Street is worrisome and has been for a long time. While some long for the days of President Obama, people forget that he raised more money from finance than any candidate in history at the time of his first presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton’s relationship to Wall Street was a big vulnerability as well. Her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, for instance, gave her problems with the left.
When Bernie Sanders raised the issue in debates, it might have been the most visible debate about the role of money in politics in US history. Now, the debate continues to rage on.
“There’s no way that any vote in a red state or a blue state that supports Wall Street like this is a benefit at the polls,” Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, a progressive organization that raises money for candidates, told The Hill.
Progressives cite compelling statistics from a Public Policy Polling survey from February.
“… voters strongly support regulating Wall Street, oppose [the Dodd-Frank repeal] … and are inclined to punish politicians who support the measure,” the survey said. “This issue has the potential to move votes in this fall’s midterm election. 65 percent of voters are less likely to vote for a member of Congress who supports a bill weakening oversight of many of the country’s largest banks …”
It may well be true that voting for Wall Street doesn’t endear politicians to voters. Polling shows deep distrust over Wall Street. The problem is that these politicians don’t seem to care.
Whatever damage is done by voting with Wall Street seems to be a cost these Democrats are willing to pay. Voting for Wall Street may not endear a candidate to voters, but millions of dollars in advertising and PAC money? Those can help candidates win, especially when they already have all the advantages of an incumbent in a legislative body designed to curb democracy.
Senate.gov: “Was a Senate Really Necessary?”“The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy,” Elbridge Gerry said at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, held in private with no press present among 55 wealthy elites. “The people do not want virtue but are the dupes of pretended patriots.”
It was this line of thinking that led the founders to create a body that voters could not turn over in one election (at least not more than one-third of it). In fact, initially voters did not choose senators at all; they were chosen by state legislatures until 1913 and the ratification of the 17thAmendment.
If distancing politicians from the will of the public was a goal of the founders – and it was – the Senate has proved to be an effective vehicle for that change. This helps explain why Republicans supported a Senate health care bill in 2017 that had the support of only 12 percent of the public, according to a USA Today poll. “[James] Madison clearly recognized the need for a smaller, more deliberative body in the legislative branch to cool the passions and control the urges of democratic masses,” notes the US Senate website, rather candidly. Appropriately, this essay starts off with “Was a Senate really necessary?” That is, indeed, a discussion worth having.
A Public Awakening
The good news is that Americans are more aware of these issues than ever before, Scherb said.
“In recent years, people are paying attention [to] the role of money in politics more and more,” he told Truthout. “People understand that money has too much influence.”
More than that, he says, are that more candidates are starting to shun corporate PAC money. As one PBS headline noted, there has been a recent “Rise of the Anti-PAC Democrat.” Two-thirds of Americans, according to a May 2018 Pew poll, support laws to limit money in politics. The support for these reforms is bipartisan, Pew reports.
If senators feel more pressure to court corporate donors than voters, public opinion won’t count for much. While Democrats badly want to retake Congress next session, it is worrisome that so many prospective members of the 116th Congress are so dependent on Wall Street money for political survival.
If voters and citizens wish to see this change, they will need to stop electing politicians who represent Wall Street. Only when politicians feel the sting from their shady relationship with corporate donors will they feel compelled to change.
Demo Sellouts are reliable votes!!!
third way and corporate democrats
anti-aca democrats
|
|
