SEP 05, 2019
Progressive activists often
see a frustrating pattern. Many Democrats in office are good at liberal
platitudes but don’t really fight for what we need. Even when constituents
organize to lobby or protest, they have little leverage compared to big
campaign donors, party leaders and corporate media spin. Activist efforts
routinely fall short because—while propelled by facts and passion—they lack
power.
Right now, in dozens of
Democratic congressional districts, the most effective way for progressives to
“lobby” their inadequate representatives would be to “primary” them. Activists
may flatter themselves into believing that they have the most influence by
seeking warm personal relationships with a Democratic lawmaker. But a credible
primary campaign is likely to change an elected official’s behavior far more
quickly and extensively.
In short, all too often,
progressive activists are routinely just too frigging nice—without galvanizing
major grassroots power.
With rare exceptions, it
doesn’t do much good to concentrate on appealing to the hearts of people who
run a heartless system. It may be tempting to tout some sort of politics of
love as the antidote to the horrors of the status quo. But, as Martin Luther
King Jr. wrote shortly
before he was murdered, “love without power is sentimental and anemic.” Beyond
speaking truth to power, it’s crucial to take
power away from those abusing or squandering it.
In the long run, constituents’
deference to officeholders is a barrier to effectiveness—much to the
satisfaction of people who reap massive profits from the status quo of
corporate power, rampant social injustice, systemic racism, vast economic
inequities, environmental destruction, and the war machinery.
If activists in New York’s
14th Congressional District had been content to rely on lobbying instead of
primarying, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would still be tending bar—and power
broker Joe Crowley would still be serving his corporate clients as a Democratic
leader in Congress.
The Bad Blues report issued
in early summer (written by Jeff Cohen, Pia Gallegos, Sam McCann and myself for
RootsAction.org) zeroed in on 15 House Democrats who deserve to be primaried in
2020. The report acknowledges that it is “by no means exhaustive—only
illustrative,” adding: “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.”
A few words of caution:
Running a primary campaign should be well-planned, far in advance. It should
not be an impulse item. And it’s best to field only one progressive challenger;
otherwise, the chances of ousting or jolting the incumbent are apt to be
greatly diminished.
“It isn’t easy to defeat a
Democratic incumbent in a primary,” the Bad Blues report noted. “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.”
An example of a promising
campaign to defeat a powerful corporate Democrat is emerging in Oregon’s 5th
Congressional District, where six-term incumbent Kurt Schrader is facing a challenge
in a slightly blue district that includes much of the Willamette Valley and the
coast. The challenger is the mayor of the 20,000-population city of
Milwaukee, Mark Gamba, who told us
that Schrader “likes to pretend that he’s reaching across the aisle to get
things done, 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 anti-union, anti-environment U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
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.” (Only four House Democrats have a lower lifetime environmental
score than Schrader.)
Gamba also supports Medicare for All,
while he says 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.” A coalition of groups—including National Nurses United,
Health Care for All Oregon-Action and Democratic Socialists of America—has
scheduled a rally in front of Schrader’s Oregon City office on September 6. The
organizers say: “We should convince him how affordable and equitable Medicare
for All will be.”
In the few months since Gamba
announced his primary challenge to Schrader, voices of opposition to the
incumbent have become more significant. “I have called out Congressman Kurt
Schrader for his continuing record of voting against the needs of workers,” the
retiring Oregon AFL-CIO president, Tom Chamberlain, recently wrote. “On July 15,
2019, Schrader once again showed his corporate colors and voted against raising
the federal minimum wage. I am always hopeful that a strong pro-worker
candidate will emerge from Oregon’s 5th Congressional District so we can show
Schrader the door to retirement.”
Among the top targets of the
pathbreaking group Justice
Democrats is corporate-tied Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar—a
Democrat in
name only. No Democrat voted more
frequently with Trump in 2017-18, and none had a higher ranking in 2018 from
the Chamber of Commerce. One of the rare Democrats backed
by the Koch Industries PAC, Cuellar is loved
by the NRA and disliked by pro-choice
groups and environmentalists.
Although representing a predominantly Latino district with many immigrants and
children of immigrants, he won praise from Fox News for his “hardline
talk” on deporting immigrant youths.
The good news is that Justice
Democrats—which was instrumental in Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning 2018 victory—is
backing a primary challenge to Cuellar in the person of Jessica Cisneros, a
young human rights lawyer with a history of defending
immigrants. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she was born and raised in
Laredo, the main population center in the strongly Democratic South Texas
district. If Cisneros defeats the well-funded Cuellar in the primary, “the
Squad” of House progressives would gain an exciting new member.
Insurgent progressives need a
lot more allies elected to Congress as well as colleagues who feel rising heat
from the left in their districts. That will require social movements strong
enough to sway mainstream entrenched Democrats—with the capacity to “primary”
them when necessary.
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