15 House Democrats Who Can't Be Primaried Soon Enough
Norman Solomon, Sam McCann,
Pia Gallegos and Jeff Cohen
JUN 25, 2019 OPINION
The following report is by no
means exhaustive — only illustrative. There may well be a Democratic
member of Congress near you not included here who serves corporate
interests more than majority interests, or has simply grown tired or complacent
in the never-ending struggles for social, racial and economic justice as well
as environmental sanity and peace. Perhaps you live in a district where
voters are ready to be inspired by a progressive primary candidate because the
Democrat in Congress is not up to the job.
It isn’t easy to defeat a
Democratic incumbent in a primary. Typically, the worse the Congress member,
the more (corporate) funding they get. While most insurgent primary campaigns
will not win, they’re often very worthwhile — helping progressive constituencies
to get better organized and to win elections later. And a grassroots
primary campaign can put a scare into the Democratic incumbent to pay more
attention to voters and less to big donors.
______________________________
CHERI BUSTOS (IL-17)
Few Democrats in Congress have
earned faster or fiercer notoriety among progressives nationwide than Cheri
Bustos. Just 10 weeks after becoming chair of the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee in early January, she imposed a new policy that blacklists
any consultant or vendor who works for a primary challenger against an
incumbent House Democrat. Despite withering and ongoing pushback from a wide
range of progressive forces, including dozens of chapters of College Democrats and leaders of the Congressional Progressive
Caucus, Bustos has been immovable. “We are an incumbent-friendly
organization,” Bustos told College Democrats of Illinois
leaders who challenged her about the DCCC blacklist at their
convention in May.
“Incumbents are being
protected, even when their policies are out of step with their constituents,”
Our Revolution board member James Zogby wrote. “The Democratic Party is hurting
itself with this policy, but more importantly, it is hurting millions of
Americans who need radical change right now.” Activists warn that the Bustos
blacklist policy will actually undermine party growth, jeopardizing
rather than protecting the party’s hold on the House. “This isn’t about keeping
a majority, it’s not about Democratic priorities, and it’s not about real
representation,” said a statement from Justice Democrats. “It’s about powerful
insiders protecting powerful insiders against the true will of the people, no
matter what the cost.”
Bustos is in her fourth term
representing the sprawling 17th District in northwest Illinois — a (slightly
altered) district that was represented by the late populist Democrat Lane
Evans, one of six co-founders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Bustos,
a member of the corporate-allied New Democrat Coalition, is out of sync with
large numbers of progressive constituents. After defeating her GOP opponent by
more than 20 points in November 2016 (in a district Donald Trump won by less
than 1 percent), Bustos went back to Capitol Hill and voted with President
Trump more than one-third of the time in
2017-18, according to FiveThirtyEight’s tally. Whether her record at the DCCC
and on the House floor will cause her problems with a progressive primary
challenger next year remains to be seen.
_____________________________
JIM COOPER (TN-5)
With Nashville as its main
population center, the 5th Congressional District is something of a progressive
oasis in Tennessee; Hillary Clinton topped Trump there by 18
points. Yet voters have been saddled for more than 16 years with Jim Cooper, an
old-style GOP-type deficit hawk who supports austerity economics that hurts the
vast majority of his constituents.
Cooper, a longtime leader of
the almost-Republican “Blue Dog Democrats” and member of their “Budget
Taskforce,” is a staunch proponent of “PAYGO,” a conservative policy designed to stop new
federal expenditures unless offset by budget cuts or tax increases. PAYGO
undermines Congress’ ability to confront major challenges, from funding a
jobs-producing Green New Deal to providing universal healthcare — both of which are broadly popular with
voters, especially Democrats. In 2009,
when the country was reeling from recession, Cooper was one of just
11 Democrats to vote against the stimulus bill. In 2010,
Cooper sponsored the PAYGO bill;
he’s the kind of Democrat who helped keep the austerity measure in
place this year when Democrats took control of the House.
In 2010, Nashville experienced
the sort of disaster that climate change fuels, when the Cumberland River
flooded, killing 11 in the Nashville area.
Cooper decried the Army Corps of
Engineers’ decision not to produce a post-flood report. But for a future safe
from ecological catastrophe, government will have to make big infrastructure
expenditures, the kind Cooper frowns on. In 2012, Cooper underscored his
refusal to spend what it takes to confront warming-intensified disaster when he
was the only Democrat to vote
against $51 billion in federal relief for areas hit by Hurricane Sandy —
leading to a Daily Kos headline: “Democrat Jim Cooper’s Vote Against
Sandy Relief Shows, Once Again, Why He Needs to Be Primaried.”
Cooper is in no way stingy
when it comes to limitless war spending; last
year, he supported Trump’s record-breaking $717 billion Pentagon
budget. Nor is Cooper a cost-cutter when it comes to federal surveillance; in
2013, he was one of three dozen Democrats on The Atlantic’s list of “Exactly Who to Blame in Congress for
Authorizing Government Spying.”
As far back as the early 1990s,
during an earlier 12-year stint in Congress representing a rural district that
did not include Nashville, Cooper fought healthcare reform
that might impinge on insurance company profits. In turn, the industry heavily backed his failed
US Senate bid in 1994; Cooper tried to make light of
his donors: “I thought about only accepting money from Mother Teresa — but then
she’s in the healthcare business.”
A primary challenger would
have little trouble explaining to voters why Cooper should be retired after 30
years in Congress.
_______________________________
JIM COSTA (CA-16)
In 2018, Data for Progress
found that 64 percent of Democrats support
a Green New Deal, reflecting the view that a massive government commitment to
fighting climate change is the only way to save the planet — while providing
jobs and economic justice. A Hart research poll pegged support at 83 percent among likely
Democratic primary voters. Given these numbers, how can a congressmember in a
Democratic district stay in office when plainly doing the bidding of our
nation’s largest polluters?
Eight-term Congressman Jim
Costa is a fossil from another era. Representing a Latino-majority district in
California’s central San Joaquin Valley, Costa has extracted a political career
from the pockets of big oil and big agriculture. In 2015, he was one of 28
House Democrats to vote with the GOP to authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
In 2011, he was one of only 19 House Democrats who voted to prohibit the EPA
from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
He has a lifetime score of just 49 percent from
the League of Conservation Voters — the
third lowest among all Democrats in the House.
Costa’s decision to side with
big business over planetary health makes sense when you glance at his campaign
coffers. Last election cycle, agribusiness donated $492,047 to Costa
and the energy sector chipped in another $174,055. Together, that represents 36
percent of his contributions. He is a member of both corporate-allied
Democratic caucuses in Congress — the New Democrat Coalition and the Blue Dog
Coalition. The right-wing Koch Industries PAC made him one of only four
Democrats in Congress to receive its funding in the 2018 cycle.
Costa has also been allied with Saudi Arabia in
its horrific war in Yemen. Last year, he was one of just five House Democrats to
join with Republicans to pass a farm bill that included a provision
preventing Congress from blocking Saudi military assistance. “Jim Costa’s
Unconscionable Yemen Votes” was the headline of a Sacramento Bee editorial .
_____________________________
HENRY CUELLAR (TX-28)
Henry Cuellar is in his
fifteenth year of representing a south Texas district that’s now two-thirds
Hispanic. Yet, mis-representing this thoroughly Democratic district (which went
for Clinton over Trump by a margin of 20 percent),
Cuellar voted with Trump 68.8 percent of the time in
2017-18 as calculated by FiveThirtyEight — including on bills weakening the
Dodd-Frank Act, privatizing veterans’ healthcare and opposing a carbon tax. No
Democrat in Congress had a higher vote-with-Trump score than
Cuellar; none had a higher ranking in
2018 from the US Chamber of Commerce.
Although nominally a Democrat,
he is close to Texas Republicans like
former Governor Rick Perry, now Trump’s Secretary of Energy. Cuellar crossed
party lines to endorse George W. Bush for president in 2000. He’s one of the
rare Democrats to receive Koch Industries PAC funding,
including a donation in 2019.
Roughly 25 percent of
Cuellar’s constituents live below the poverty line, and
Cuellar often votes to make their lives more difficult. In 2015, for example,
he was one of only a dozen Democrats who
voted with Republicans to eliminate Obamacare coverage for employees who work
30 to 39 hours a week. Last year, he supported a bill that would result in
a $3 wage cut for
agricultural guest workers, to $8.34 an hour.
On immigration, Cuellar is
also out of touch with a district in which 22 percent of residents are foreign-born (almost
all from Latin America). In 2014, Cuellar joined Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn in
launching a bill to speed up deportation of unaccompanied
minors from Central America, allowing border patrol
agents to turn away vulnerable children at the border. (Fox News hailed Cuellar
for his “hardline talk” and for being “One of Obama’s Biggest Critics on Border
Crisis.”) In 2017, he was one of 11 House Democrats who
voted with Republicans to allow the government to
deport or detain immigrants “suspected” of gang membership,
even if never arrested for any crime.
Cuellar has regularly
voted to restrict abortion rights. Both NARAL and Planned Parenthood Action Fund rank
him among the worst Democrats on women’s reproductive health.
Cuellar has a lifetime
environmental ranking of 42 percent from the League of
Conservation Voters, the second-lowest among
all Democrats in the House.
While Cuellar’s district
includes urban areas like Laredo and part of San Antonio, he votes in line with
the NRA, which gave him 93 percent ratings in
both 2016 and 2018; he also collects checks from the NRA Political Victory Fund,
leading to headlines like this: “Meet the Last NRA Democrat.”
Cuellar’s vote-like-a-Republican
dance is an old routine. What’s new is that he’s facing a progressive primary challenger —
immigration lawyer Jessica Cisneros, endorsed by
Justice Democrats.
___________________________
ELIOT ENGEL (NY-16)
For someone in the Democratic
leadership, this 16-term Congressman and chair of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee is notable for repeatedly breaking with
his own party to support Republican foreign policy positions. In 2003, when
most House Democrats refused to authorize an invasion of
Iraq, Engel voted for President Bush’s disastrous war. In 2015, he
was one of only 25 House Democrats to
join Republicans in opposing President Obama’s historic Iran nuclear deal.
Engel’s support for hawkish
Republicanism has continued into the Trump era. Engel sided
with President-elect Trump’s machinations and
against President Obama by castigating Obama for
not vetoing a UN resolution (the US abstained) against Israel’s expansion
of illegal settlements. He was one of the few House Democrats
to applaud Trump’s destabilizing move of
the US Embassy to Jerusalem. A defender of strong US-Saudi relations , Engel helped delay a Democratic
initiative last year to end US support for the devastating Saudi bombing of
Yemen. His ascent to House Foreign Affairs chair was cheered by Republican-aligned hawks,
including one who called Obama “a Jew-hating anti-Semite.”
Covering parts of the Bronx
and Westchester County, NY-16 is a thoroughly Democratic district where Clinton
beat Trump by 75 to 22 percent. The district is now more than 60 percent black,
Latino or Asian. It’s 12 percent Jewish, and Engel’s hardline views on Israel (and Iran) are
out-of-step with most Jewish Democrats.
Since entering Congress back
in 1989 by primarying a Democratic incumbent, Engel hadn’t faced a serious
primary challenge himself in two decades. Until now. Two progressives
have entered the primary, both highlighting their opposition to Engel’s pro-war
record — special education teacher Andom Ghebreghiorgis and
middle school principal Jamaal Bowman, who is endorsed
by Justice Democrats, a group that was crucial to Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 victory.
Congressman Engel has
long affiliated with the corporate wing of the party, as part of the New
Democrat Coalition and formerly the Democratic Leadership Council.
Although liberal on many domestic issues, his militarism and support of ever-higher
military budgets subvert the possibilities for an expansive
domestic agenda.
Engel, whose district borders
that of Ocasio-Cortez, is active in the intraparty battle against progressives
who question the foreign policy status quo.
When Muslim-American Representative Ilhan Omar challenged the
Israel-right-or-wrong lobby, Engel was one of two Democrats who
sparked the effort to censure Omar for supposed “anti-Semitism.” A few years
earlier, Engel was a featured speaker at a “pro-Israel” rally that
also featured infamous right-wing anti-Muslim bigot Pamela
Geller. No resolution was proposed to censure Engel.
_______________________________
JOSH GOTTHEIMER (NJ-5)
Very few House Democrats are
more eager to align with the GOP than Josh Gottheimer. During his first two
years in Congress, he voted with Trump a whopping 55 percent of the time.
Gottheimer cochairs the reach-across-the-aisle Problem Solvers Caucus; his
official website says he leads the group “to find areas of agreement” for such
goals as “lowering taxes” and “cutting burdensome and unnecessary regulation.”
Gottheimer’s generous Wall Street patrons
are no doubt gratified.
A former precocious
speechwriter for President Bill Clinton at age 23, he has won acclaim from
corporate leaders for his congressional efforts. Last year, the US Chamber of
Commerce gave Gottheimer its “Spirit of Enterprise
Award” — which, his office noted, made him “one of only 13
Democrats in the House” to receive the plaudit. Gottheimer quickly returned the
compliment, declaring that the anti-union and anti-environmental Chamber “has
been a voice for economic growth and a champion for opportunity and prosperity
for Americans and businesses of all sizes.”
Gottheimer “has deep ties to
the lobbies for Saudi Arabia and Israel,” The Intercept’s Ryan Grim reported in May — and
deep hostility toward the two progressive Muslims who became colleagues this
year, Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. After meeting with him, Tlaib
recalled: “He was using a very stern tone, like a father to a child. At that
moment, I realized he’s a bully. He had a goal of breaking me down.”
As the first
Palestinian-American in Congress and a strong advocate for the human rights of
Palestinian people, Tlaib has been a logical target for Gottheimer, who has few
equals as an Israel-can-do-no-wrong lawmaker. Overall, Grim
describes him as a centrist “willing to take the fight directly to the squad of
freshmen trying to push the party in a progressive direction.”
In 2016, Gottheimer flipped a
longtime GOP district in northern New Jersey. Since then — on a range of issues including
the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen and predatory banking practices — he has
maneuvered to undermine efforts by progressive Democrats in the House. A
prodigious big-check fundraiser, he entered this year’s second quarter
with almost $5 million in his
campaign coffers.
______________________________
JIM HIMES (CT-4)
“Wall Street’s Favorite
Democrat.” That’s how a Bloomberg profile described Jim Himes in
2011, with a subtitle: “Jim Himes works to dial back laws that get in the big
banks’ way.” During his decade in Congress, the Connecticut congressman has
done much to win Wall Street’s favor.
Himes hails from Goldman
Sachs, where he worked in its Latin America division and eventually became a
vice president. His ties to finance run deep: in 2008, while the industry
pillaged low-income and middle-class homes, bankers made sure to steer funding
to their ex-colleague’s congressional campaign. That election cycle, Himes
raised $500,000 from the finance sector,
including $150,000 from his old cohorts at Goldman Sachs.
That’s proven to be a sound
investment. Upon arriving in Washington in 2009, Himes promptly joined the aggressively
pro-business, light-regulation New Democrat Coalition, where he served on its
“Financial Services Task Force.” Himes remains Chair Emeritus of the NDC.
During the Obama years, Himes
worked to undermine the mild regulations that Democrats implemented in the wake
of the financial crisis. In 2013, just three years after Congress managed to
pass the Dodd-Frank Act, Himes cosponsored legislation to
undercut one of its key elements, a provision separating federal insurance from
risky swap trades. The Treasury Department opposed the change pushed by Himes
and Republican colleagues. The New York Times exposed that two key
paragraphs of the bill were literally written by Citigroup, at a
time when Himes — then the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee’s finance chair — received more Citigroup
funding than any other member of Congress.
Mercifully, that bill died in
the Senate. But Himes had more allies when he took his next big swing at
financial regulations in 2018, with Trump in the White House and a
Republican-controlled Congress. This time, Himes was one of 33 House Democrats
who joined Trump’s GOP in loosening a host of regulations that
included “reporting requirements used to counter racial discrimination in
lending practices.”
Connecticut’s 4th district —
largely middle class in the southwestern corner of the state — is strongly
Democratic and unfriendly to Trump collaboration. Clinton won the district by
23 points in 2016. A savvy challenger could spotlight Himes’ subservience to
corporate interests and the 29 percent of the time that
he voted in line with Trump’s positions in 2017-18.
_______________________________
STENY HOYER (MD-5)
Consummate power broker Steny
Hoyer has long served as the number-two Democrat in the House, often using
leverage for policy agendas that are unpopular with the party’s base but popular with Wall Street and
the military-industrial complex. In late 2002, he was among the minority of
House Democrats voting to authorize war on Iraq. In 2008, he angered
civil-liberties advocates when he helped draft a “compromise bill” with
Republicans that expanded government surveillance power and
immunized telecom firms for privacy abuses. (Senator Russ Feingold called it “a capitulation.”) In 2012, he
urged a “grand bargain” budget deal that
would cut entitlement programs.
Hoyer’s prodigious corporate
services haven’t flagged. These days, he’s busy obstructing progressive
initiatives from Medicare for All to
a Green New Deal. (Only 15 House
Democrats have a lower lifetime
environmental score from the League of Conservation Voters.)
And Hoyer’s heavy hand extends
well beyond Capitol Hill. Last year, as heard on secretly recorded audio,
he overtly pressured a progressive candidate
to bow out of a Denver-area congressional primary in deference
to an opponent anointed by party leaders.
At age 80, Hoyer represents a
southern Maryland district that is two-fifths people of color. For nearly four
decades, he has routinely coasted to re-election while lavishly funded by corporate interests.
Next year he’ll face at least one primary challenger.
Mckayla Wilkes could
hardly be more different than Hoyer. She’s young, black, working-class, a
single mother, formerly incarcerated —
and committed to thoroughly progressive policies.
Hoyer “has no idea what everyday District 5 folks face with excruciating
commutes, lack of affordable housing, exorbitant healthcare costs and
underfunded public schools,” Wilkes told us.
Wilkes faults Hoyer for “not
supporting Medicare for All” and “not supporting the Green New Deal” — “we are
represented by a climate delayer who refuses to support meaningful action.” She
adds: “His contributions alone tell us what we need to know: he privileges the
wealthy and corporations over the regular people in his district. His largest
donors include defense contractors, pharmaceutical companies and the fossil
fuel industry.”
_______________________________
DEREK KILMER (WA-6)
Now representing a Democratic,
largely working-class district that includes the Olympic Peninsula and most of
Tacoma, 45-year-old Derek Kilmer has been an elected lawmaker for most of his
adult life. Currently in his seventh year in Congress after eight years in
Washington’s state legislature, Kilmer chairs the corporate-friendly New
Democrat Coalition.
Kilmer’s rise in power is
appreciated by the US Chamber of Commerce. The anti-union, anti-environment
group honored him in April with
its annual “Spirit of Enterprise Award,” praising his “pro-growth” policies.
The Chamber’s assessment of 2018 voting records ranked only
a dozen House Democrats higher. Impressing corporate interests is not new for
Kilmer; when in the Washington state senate, he was one of only three Democrats opposing labor on
a key bill affecting unions’ ability to support political campaigns.
Kilmer’s increased clout on
Capitol Hill means that he has more leverage against the interests of many
constituents in a district where the median household income is scarcely
$63,000. Meanwhile, the congressman gets plenty of corporate money. During the
last term, Kilmer — who sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee
— received nearly a quarter
of a million dollars combined from the casinos/gambling and
securities/investment industries. The military and tech sectors also
contributed; Northrop Grumman and Microsoft each chipped in more than $30,000.
His campaign and PAC ended last year with more than $3 million cash
on hand.
In three races as an
incumbent, Congressman Kilmer never finished less than 23 percent ahead of his
Republican opponent. He has yet to face a serious challenge from another
Democrat. But that might be about to change.
In early June, a progressive
city councilman in Bainbridge announced an exploratory committee to run against
Kilmer — and lost no time drawing sharp distinctions. “We will not accept any
donations from corporate PACs, trade associations or fossil fuel companies,” Democrat
Matthew Tirman declared on his website. Tirman’s
positions include support for a Green New Deal, Medicare for All and a
$15-an-hour national minimum wage, as well as a commitment to “close corporate
tax loopholes and ensure that the wealthiest among us pay their fair
share.” He told a local
newspaper: “We need to define what it means to be a Democrat and what it
means to be an establishment, corporate Democrat.”
__________________________________
DAN LIPINSKI (IL-3)
It took a while for Speaker
Nancy Pelosi to notice that “Trump is goading us to impeach him,” but activists
in Illinois’ heavily-Democratic 3rd Congressional District have long known that
their Democrat-in-name-only representative, Dan Lipinski, keeps goading us
to primary him.
In the 2018 primary,
Lipinski narrowly defeated (by
2,145 votes, 51 to 49 percent) liberal challenger Marie Newman. Yet Lipinski
remains mostly conservative. In January, he spoke at the anti-choice March for
Life in Washington, D.C.; he cochairs the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus. He is
the only Democrat in Congress who refused to co-sponsor the
Equality Act, the LGBTQ civil rights legislation introduced in March. (After
pressure, he voted for the bill.)
A leading member of the
“fiscally conservative” Blue Dog Coalition, the eight-term congressman is not
generous toward working-class needs (he voted against Obamacare), but
he’s lavish in
supporting military spending and domestic surveillance. He
was one of a few dozen Democrats who voted against the 2010 Dream Act.
The district in southwest
Chicago and outlying suburbs is so overwhelmingly Democratic that Republicans
hardly contest it (the only person willing to run as a Republican last year was
an avowed neo-Nazi). In 2016, Clinton beat Trump in the district 55 to 40
percent, after Bernie
Sanders had bested Clinton in the primary by a nine-point margin.
Lipinski was smuggled into his
congressional seat by his dad Bill Lipinski, a conservative Democrat (now a DC
lobbyist) and 11-term Congress member who won the Democratic primary for a
twelfth term in 2004 and then stepped aside after finagling to have his son
replace him on the November ballot.
Marie Newman is running again
to end the four-decades-long Lipinski dynasty, backed by a solid
coalition that includes MoveOn, Democracy for America and pro-choice
groups. (Although Newman reportedly supported Sanders in 2016,
she endorsed Kirsten Gillibrand for
2020.) One complicating factor is the blacklisting efforts of
DCCC chair Cheri Bustos that could undermine Newman’s challenge. Another factor
is a second Democrat running as a progressive alternative to Lipinski.
_____________________________
GREGORY MEEKS (NY-5)
After Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
stunned Queens Democratic machine boss Joe Crowley — who left Congress and
became a corporate lobbyist — the
machine needed a new boss. So
establishment Democrats in the borough turned to 12-term congressman Gregory
Meeks, who became the Queens party chair without opposition, backroom-style, at
a meeting not publicly announced. Meeks
has a long history of serving wealthy interests and his
own, not the middle-class and working-class residents of one of
the most diverse counties in
the nation.
Meeks’ corruption
problems are an open secret. The watchdog organization Citizens
for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has repeatedly
chosen Meeks as among the most corrupt inside the Beltway, calling him one of three
who “really stand out.” Meeks bought a million-dollar-plus
home built for him by a campaign contributor, paying far
less than its value. He founded a nonprofit that collected
$31,000 in Hurricane Katrina relief but paid out only $1,392. He
traveled to the Caribbean at least six times on the dime of a convicted Ponzi schemer (who also
donated to Meeks’ campaign).
Meeks serves on the House
Financial Services Committee and has received millions over
the years in finance-sector donations, including almost half a million dollars during
the last cycle. His preference for Wall Street over Main Street has
prompted strong denunciations from labor. When the 2007-8 financial crisis hit
and devastated homeowners of color, he would not support a
moratorium on foreclosures being urged by unions and the NAACP. Meeks has
recently taken a lead role in opposing legislation backed by many Democrats,
including New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, to tax financial transactions.
Unlike most House Democrats, Meeks aggressively supportedthe
corporate-friendly Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
Back in Queens, undeterred by
opposition from local activists and officials, Meeks championed the plan to
grant tax breaks to Amazon (a trillion-dollar corporation run
by perhaps the world’s richest person)
to induce its move to Queens in a deal that would have displaced working-class
residents.
In a borough that offered
grassroots support to the strong insurgent campaigns of Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez for Congress in 2018 and Tiffany Cabán for Queens District
Attorney this year, experienced activists could fuel a challenge to Meeks. A
former AOC campaign staffer, Shaniyat Chowdhury, has
announced his candidacy.
______________________________
BRAD SCHNEIDER (IL-10)
“Brad’s been named one of the
most bipartisan members of Congress because he’s interested in solving
problems,” Schneider’s campaign website declares. A big problem he seems
interested in solving is how to impress middle-class constituents without
fighting for their economic interests. Instead of backing such proposals as
Medicare for All and tuition-free public college, Schneider prefers to talk
vaguely about “affordable” healthcare and “affordable” college.
Schneider told the Chicago
Sun-Times last fall that “working across the aisle to find common ground .
. . has always been a priority for me.” He found common ground with President
Trump about one-third of the time in
2017-18, voting with the White House on such matters as chipping away at
Dodd-Frank Act regulations on banks, boosting military budgets and
reauthorizing warrantless domestic surveillance along with other violations of
civil liberties.
As a member of the
GOP-friendly Blue Dog Coalition, Schneider signed a letter in June decrying
budget deficits and calling on House Democratic leaders to “abide by PAYGO” — the
rule requiring that new
federal spending be offset by new taxes or budget cuts. His fiscal conservatism
doesn’t prevent him from supporting Trump’s
engorged military budgets.
Schneider is also a leader of
the corporate-centrist New Democrat Coalition, where he cochairs its National
Security Task Force — with a decidedly hawkish approach to the Middle East.
Very few in Congress are more avid supporters of AIPAC and whatever actions
Israel takes. Schneider gained some prominence this spring as the lead sponsor
of House Resolution 246, which
aims to stigmatize boycotts as anti-Semitic when they target Israel’s
violations of Palestinian rights; the free-speech-violating bill
gained more than half of the House as cosponsors.
After one House term,
Schneider lost his seat representing Chicago’s northern suburbs to a GOP
challenger in a close 2014 election. It was a notable loss in a blue district,
where Schneider’s “Republican-lite voting record . . . discouraged Democratic
base voters” from turning out in that midterm election, says political analyst
Howie Klein. (While out of office, Schneider was a vocal opponent of the
2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration.) Schneider
regained the seat in 2016 by a 5 percent margin, while Clinton bested Trump in
the district by nearly 30 points. Last year, Schneider captured almost
two-thirds of the vote against his Republican opponent.
As an incumbent, Schneider has
yet to face a primary challenge. Given the contrast between his avowedly
“moderate” record and the leanings of many Democrats in his district (where roughly 45 percent voted
for Sanders against Clinton), there could be an opening for a progressive in
the March 2020 primary.
______________________________
KURT SCHRADER (OR-5)
Since getting to Congress a
decade ago, “moderate” Democrat Kurt Schrader has defeated Republican opponents
by comfortable margins that grew to double digits. As for primary challenges,
the closest one fell short by more than 40 percent. But 2020 could be quite
different. Schrader’s slightly blue district — which includes much of the
Willamette Valley and the Oregon coast — will see a primary contest pitting the
incumbent against a self-described progressive with an electoral toehold on the
southern outskirts of Portland.
Mark Gamba, now in his fifth
year as the mayor of Milwaukee (pop. 20,000), is running to replace Schrader.
“He likes to pretend that he’s reaching across the aisle to get things done,”
Gamba told us, “but it almost always goes back to the corporations that back
him financially.” Schrader, a longtime member of the Blue Dog Coalition,
gets a lot of money from corporate interests,
including from the Koch Industries PAC. Last
year, only one House Democrat was ranked higher
on “key issues” by the US Chamber of Commerce. During 2017 and 2018, one-third of Schrader’s
House votes were aligned with Trump. And like Trump, he’s not a defender of
young Dreamers who have grown up undocumented in this country; he was one of a
few dozen House Democrats to oppose the 2010 Dream Act.
Gamba intends to make climate
a central issue of the campaign to unseat Schrader — who, he
says, “has been notably absent on any substantive climate policy.” A
professional photographer who often went on assignment for National
Geographic, Gamba advocates for “a Green New Deal or some other powerful
response to climate change which is broad-reaching, deep and meaningful.” (Only
four House Democrats have a lower lifetime
environmental score than Schrader.) Gamba also supports
Medicare for All, while his opponent “is quietly but actively
opposing Medicare for All or any law that actually cuts into the profits of the
pharmaceutical and insurance industries.”
Some of Gamba’s other campaign
priorities include “beginning to rectify the vast and growing income inequity
by increasing the taxes on the rich including capital gains; protecting the
unions which have been slowly and purposefully eroded; beginning to slow
the spending on the military-industrial complex; dramatically increase
funding for education: pre-K through college.” If all that sounds like a
certain political revolution, it’s no coincidence. “I endorsed and campaigned
for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary,” Gamba recalls. In that primary,
Sanders came out well ahead of Clinton in the district Gamba hopes to represent
in Congress.
_______________________________
DAVID SCOTT (GA-13)
After sixteen years as one of
the most conservative African-American Democrats in Congress, David Scott is
facing a primary fight in a deep blue district that includes southwest Atlanta
and neighboring suburbs, where Clinton beat Trump by nearly 3-to-1. The
challenge is coming from a former chair of the Democratic Party in populous
Cobb County, Michael Owens, who launched his uphill campaign in May while
signaling that he’ll make Scott’s big-business entanglements a central issue in
the race.
“Owens said Scott, a member of
the House Financial Services Committee, has gotten too cozy with the payday lending industry and
other corporate interests,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“He singled out Scott’s vote last year in favor of rolling back portions of the
Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul.” During the last election cycle,
Scott’s campaign and PAC raised $318,750 from
securities, investment and commercial-banking interests. Just seven Democrats
in Congress earned a higher ranking last
year from the corporatist US Chamber of Commerce, which placed Scott above
almost 100 Republicans.
Seeking to oust the incumbent
in a district that is 70 percent people of color, the Owens campaign aims
to bring political issues home. Says Owens: “I want to make sure that we stop
allowing and supporting policies that are directly attacking our black and
brown communities.”
A member of both
corporate-allied caucuses of Democrats — the Blue Dog and New Democrat
coalitions — Scott is fond of reaching across the aisle, to the point of
publicly backing GOP incumbents for
re-election. He has sided with Republicans on some key issues. Scott supported
the Keystone XL pipeline, and more recently voted against
environmental protection on clean water standards, nuclear storage and
pesticides pollution. Only 18 Democrats in the House have a lower lifetime
environmental score.
Scott’s approach to foreign
policy tends to be hawkish. He opposed the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, and last
December he was one of just five House Democrats to
vote for continuing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and supporting the Saudi war on
Yemen.
________________________________
JUAN VARGAS (CA-51)
Juan Vargas represents an
overwhelmingly Latino and Democratic district (where Clinton beat Trump by a
50-point margin) that includes California’s entire US-Mexico border. Since
being elected to the House in 2012, he has become known for one pet issue, far
from uppermost in the minds of his largely working-class constituents:
defending Israel no matter what.
Unlike most Jewish Democrats,
who are often willing to question the
actions of Israel, Vargas says it’s wrong to do so. (His district is estimated
to be less than 1 percent Jewish.)
When Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was under attack earlier this year, Vargas — who
sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee with Omar — injected himself into
the controversy by tweeting that
“questioning support for US-Israel relationship is unacceptable.”
In January 2017, Vargas criticized President Obama —
and sided with President-elect Trump —
when the Obama administration refused to veto a UN resolution against Israel’s expansion
of illegal settlements. Israeli expansion does not seem to bother
him, as evidenced by a bizarre quip made last
November to the San Diego Jewish World : “Vargas says he has
absolutely no objection if Israel is made to return to its 67 borders — just so
long as the people demanding it are talking about the year 67, not the year
1967.” Vargas was quoted: “If you want to go back to 67, that will
probably take in Lebanon, parts of Syria, Jordan and some portions of Egypt.”
In 2015, Vargas was one of the 25 House Democrats to
join all Republicans in opposing President Obama’s landmark nuclear agreement
with Iran; like other pro-Israel hardliners, he remains against the
Iran deal in the Trump era. He was one of the few Democrats who
repeatedly undermined Obama’s diplomacy by joining
Republican efforts to sanction
Iran.
Vargas joined with a
Republican in early 2015 as lead co-sponsor of a
trade bill — drafted by the Israel-right-or-wrong
AIPAC lobby — aimed at countering the Boycott,
Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. That same year,
Vargas tried (unsuccessfully) to stop a lecture at
Mt. San Jacinto College by an Israeli critic of Israel, author Miko Peled,
sponsored by the campus Amnesty International Club.
Vargas can be liberal on
domestic US issues. But while the Congressional Progressive Caucus includes 50
House members of color (half of its total), Vargas instead is in the
corporate-allied New Democrat Coalition. Last year, he did not join the dozens
of progressives who voted against Trump’s swollen military
budget that diverts vital resources from human needs. In
the last election cycle, a hefty $337,500 — half
of his PAC donations — came from the “FIRE” sector (finance, insurance, real
estate).
A progressive challenger
focused on constituent concerns might thrive in a primary against Vargas.
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