Sleazy Steny Hoyer Up To No Good Again

Friday the Republicans will bring up their balanced budget amendment. It's the favoritest thing ever-- a Grover Norquist wet dream. But it takes a two-thirds vote in each chamber to be able to send it on to the states for ratification. We'll look at it more closely tomorrow morning. I'm just bringing it up tonight because I wanted to mention that it wasn't only the Blue Dogs who supported it last time it came up-- in 1995-- but all kinds of corporate whores and servants of the 1%. In fact, in 1995 the considerable Democratic support for this stunningly bad idea came from the absolute worst corporate shill in the Democratic caucus, Steny Hoyer. Hoyer is promising to be better behaved Friday. He sure isn't being well-behaved in the race to win the Democratic-leaning seat in the northern Chicago suburbs currently held by Robert Dold. Although Ilya Sheyman is the frontrunner, Hoyer is throwing his considerable weight behind conservative businessman Brad Schneider.

Sheyman, who was one of the first candidates endorsed by Blue America this cycle, is being backed by Keith Ellison, Raul Grijalva, neighbor Danny Davis and Howard Dean. Ilya is a progressive activist with roots firmly in the 99%. Schneider, like Hoyer, is just some transactional politician looking to make a good deal, advance his own career and feather his nest. In the last 4 election cycles before this one he donated considerable money to Republican Congressman Mark Kirk (who represented the district before Dold). He's exactly the kind of politician the Democrats would be better off without. Which explains why he's so appealing to someone like Steny Hoyer, someone who voted with Boehner and Cantor to destroy working families with a toxic balanced budget amendment.

Are Schneider and Hoyer as bad as Boehner and Cantor? Not exactly but... isn't it time we got some real tribunes of working families into Congress instead of more corporate whores willing to constantly bend over for the 1%? This is a time for leaders like Ilya Sheyman, not fric and frac. Please consider giving him a hand here.

Several years ago Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel came into West Palm and told Democrats there not to support union activist and school teacher Dave Lutrin, who was running against Republican incumbent and sex predator Mark Foley. Instead they had another "business-friendly" candidate with a history of donating to Republicans, Tim Mahoney. In fact, Mahoney was a Republican himself and Steny and Rahm got him to switch parties at the last minute. They starved Lutrin's campaign and forced him out of the race. Rahm leaked the story about Foley preying on young male pages and Mahoney won, joined the Blue Dogs and proceeded to vote with Republicans most of the time. He then got into his own sex scandal and lost the seat. That's a Steny Hoyer candidate! I asked Dave-- who's running again next year-- to comment on what Hoyer is trying to do to Ilya's campaign now. He was too much of a gentleman to bring up Hoyer's perfidy. Here's what he told me today though:

"For us to facilitate meaningful change for America, we need to not just replace the obstructionist Republican House members with Democrats, but to replace them with more Democrats like Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva. When I hear that a candidate has business background, I cringe and think how Republicans have put this country’s economy on the path of disaster by trying to run it like a business. Business experience is not required to serve the people; however, strong moral values and convictions should be.

"I think that Ilya Sheyman’s core progressive beliefs can make a great difference in Congress. I like his beliefs so much, I just contributed to his campaign on ActBlue. I hope that I have the opportunity to work with him in Washington."