Jayapal Breaks Silence on DCCC Policy Protecting Incumbents From Progressive Challengers -- Common Dreams
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
One of the top progressive Democrats in Congress fought back publicly for the first time Thursday over efforts by the party's Congressional Campaign Committee to undercut primary challengers to incumbents.
In an interview with Politico, Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.)—chair of the DCCC—said she isn't backing down from her controversial decision last month to blacklist vendors that work with new primary challengers to incumbent Democrats.
"We've got a policy that the caucus supports, the leadership supports, and it plays the long game," Bustos told Politico.
Framing the vendor policy as a way to ensure the Democrats remain in power in the House moving forward, Bustos said the party needed to concentrate on not working against one another.
"If we're going to be successful as Democrats, and going into 2020 with a very, very fragile majority, [we've] got to be on the same team," said Bustos.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, broke her public silence on the vendor decision Thursday morning in response to Bustos's interview with Politico.
"It is not playing games for the Democratic party to be inclusive of all its members perspectives," Jayapal said in a tweet. "I have refrained from commenting publicly on this issue until now, but I am extremely disappointed that there is no movement on this issue."
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While Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez got traction and media attention from their comments last week, Thursday was the first time that the Progressive Caucus's leader took the fight public.
The imbroglio over the DCCC's move to undermine primary challenges is not the only evidence of tension between the progressive and centrist factions with the party.
On Thursday, Common Dreams reported on another point of conflict between the two sides: attempts by the Democratic Party's centrist wing to water down a $15 minimum wage proposal.
"Being in Congress means leading, and we need to lead on minimum wage," said Jayapal.
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Seeder's Note: Excerpts from reporting by Common Dreams. Click on the seed link to read the full article.
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Throw shade on this. What's the point of protecting a majority in Congress if the whole effort is nothing more than retaining butt embossed upholstery? And even if incumbents are shown the door they remain in government as lobbyists.
The DCCC isn't about governing; it's all about party politics and protecting political insiders. Time to throw a little light onto the swamp.
Yep, same as the GOP. They're talking about cancelling the primary in South Carolina to keep any Republicans from running against Trump, and pulling some other crap as well.
They're both the same in that regard.
Yawn.
Letting the inmates run the asylum isn't the best way to govern. The Progressives aren't much better than the Freedom Caucus.
If the Progressives had real world working ideas, it wouldn't have to worry about what more moderate incumbents were, or weren't doing. They'd be getting elected on their message and not because the Party outspent the other side.
Why does the DCCC get to decide? I thought voters were supposed to do that.
Because it's their party - their rules. Again if the Progressives had a better system they would be running either their own party or be the power in DCCC. This whole article is an example of why Trump won and likely will again. The Progressive populists think they are too good to work with others, or within the system that gives them voice in the first place.
AOC and others have bucked party rule and won. It can be done.
We saw how limiting choices worked out in the 2016 election. The DCCC is forcing elections to become a referendum on incumbents. And if voters don't like a Democratic incumbent the only choice is to elect a Republican.
Retaining a majority is going to require more than just protecting incumbents.
In 2016 in Colorado the Republicans had no primary vote or caucus vote for the presidential candidate. They wanted to keep Trump out. The voters had no say at all. It’s not just the dirty Dems.
"Limiting choices"? Really? Sanders overstayed his welcome in the primaries. He was mathematically eliminated and still chose to stir up shit. I say this as someone that voted for him in my state primary. Once he it was clear he couldn't win he should have thrown his populist weight behind Clinton to get those "Bernie Bros" off their asses at the ballot box. Instead a sizable group stayed home and others voted against Clinton to be contrary.
It might be news to AOC and the GoP that she's a Republican. /s Progressives can run against incumbents, they will just have to get help from outside the Party and if they have a better message they will win. Once they win a seat THEY will be the incumbent and benefit from these rules when a moderate wants to try to unseat them.
Or they can work to elect a Republican and kick out the incumbent. That opens the field for more Democratic candidates in two years. An insurgency that wants to change the party doesn't have loyalty to the status quo.
Unity is key to any groups success. Unless a party endorses a candidate, they can't just claim to represent the party. That would be like an athlete just saying they're going to represent 'Nike' shoes and starts wearing their apparel but then get upset when they don't get a paycheck or aren't invited to the company sponsored tournaments. If a local politician wants to run as a Democrat they should get the parties support and approval, otherwise they should run as an independent if they want to challenge an incumbent Democrat.
If success is measured by being in office for decades then that's true. Charles Rangel would certainly agree.
The two parties have a stranglehold on the political process to prevent independent challenges. Independent candidates don't have the same access to the compliant press. The only way to change party politics is from within the political parties. Protecting incumbents has created the necessity of primary challenges to shift the direction of the party.
The priorities of the political parties are being dictated by party bosses, not by voters. That's not the way the process is supposed to work.