Barbara Lee Takes On Corporate Whore Joe Crowley For House Leadership

2 dangerously ambitious douche-bags with guitars

Sunday morning I was bemoaning the miserable state of the House Democratic caucus leadership because progressives seemed to be leaving the field and allowing the worst corporate shills to run away with everything. A Democratic House leadership run by Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Steve Israel means that other than on social issues, the two Houses caucuses are essentially equally bad and that corruption has been institutionalized above any kind of principle of any set of values.

I was on the phone with the manager of a congressional campaign who told me the DCCC never got involved because-- and this is an exact quote-- "you get blackballed when you don't use their high-priced media people and their pollsters; they all want kickbacks." I hear it a lot, from candidates, staffers and members. The DCCC stinks to high heaven of the kind of corruption one expects from Republicans and the revolving door between DCCC staffers and consulting firms rolling in cash contributed as much to the stupendous failure this year to win back the House as did gerrymandering and Steve Israel's attempt to stock the caucus with conservative Blue Dogs and New Dems who would support his personal career trajectory and that of his corrupt allies. I ended my call with that campaign manager to take a call from a congressional chief of staff telling me I left something important out of my post, namely that Barbara Lee, one of Congress' most outstanding and principled members was running against one of the most corrupt low-lifes in the leadership, sleazy Queens County boss and chairman of the Chamber of Commerce wing of the Democratic Party, the New Dems, Joe Crowley.

Barbara and Crowley are running for vice chair of the caucus. [After I wrote this post, I was informed that Jared Polis is also probably running for the same post, Jared one of the only members of both the Progressive Caucus and the New Dems.]

Aside from having an iron grip on the donations made by the New Dems PAC, Crowley has his own leadership PAC as well, Jobs, Opportunities & Education PAC (JOE Pac). This cycle it took in over a million dollars, much of it in $10,000 pops from some of the sleaziest corporate entities in America-- Verizon, Altria, AT&T, Bank of America, Comcast, Credit Suisse, FedEx, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Mastercard, Metlife, National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, NY Life Insurance, Pfizer, etc-- and passed it out to the Members and Members-elect whose votes he is trying to corral. Although much of his money was wasted on Blue Dogs and New Dems, like Ben Chandler, Val Demings, Sal Pace, Christie Vilsack, Kathy Hochul, Joe Baca, Shelley Adler, Julian Schreibman, Jason Altmire, Leonard Boswell and Brandan Mullan who lost on Tuesday, among those who will be deciding between Crowley and Barbara Lee are plenty who took the cash he collected from K Street lobbyists and salivating corporations with agendas.

Let's watch carefully and see who votes against Barbara Lee and for one of the House's most ethically-challenged and corporate oriented Democrats. That will tell us a lot about how Congress is likely to behave for the next two years. These are some of the congressmembers and congressmembers-elect who will be voting who took cash from Crowley's PAC (new members in bold):

John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA)- $3,500
Joyce Beatty (D-OH)- $1,000
Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)- $4,000
Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)- $1,500
Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR)- $2,000
Julia Brownley (D-CA)- $2,500
Cheri Bustos (D-IL)- $4,000
Lois Capps (New Dem-CA)- $1,000
Tony Cardenas (D-CA)- $1,000
Joaquin Castro (New Dem-TX)- $2,000
David Cicilline (D-RI)- $3,500
Gerry Connolly (New Dem-VA)- $3,000
Joe Courtney (New Dem-CT)- $1,500
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- $1,500
John Delaney (New Dem-MD)- $2,500
Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)- $1,000
Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)- $1,500
Donna Edwards (D-MD)- $1,500
Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)- $1,500
John Garamendi (D-CA)- $1,500
Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)- $1,500
Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM)- $1,000
Janice Hahn (D-CA)- $5,000
Colleen Hanabusa (New Dem-HI)- $1,000
Denny Heck (New Dem-WA)- $3,500
Steven Horsford (D-NV)- $1,500
Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)- $1,500
Joe Kennedy III (D-MA)- $1,000
Dan Kildee (D-MI)- $1,000
Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)- $2,000
Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ)- $2,000
Ann Kuster (D-NH)- $2,500
Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY)- $6,000
Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)- $1,500
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)- $4,500
Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)- $4,500
Juan Vargas (New Dem-CA)- $1,000
Marc Veasey (D-TX)- $1,000

On top of that the New Dems spread around another $1,878,935, also overwhelmingly from big corporations with agendas before congress, in other words, blatant but legalistic bribes. The New Dems funneled large sums of money to Crowley cronies through their own PACs-- Jim Himes, Gerry Connolly, Jim Moran, Ed Perlmutter, John Barrow, Gary Peters, Allyson Schwartz, Ron Kind, Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- and huge contributions to some of the most conservative and corrupt Members of the Democratic caucus, Crowley's base of support: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, John Barrow, Jim Cooper, Terri Sewell, Jim Himes, Allyson Schwartz, Ron Kind, Rick Larsen, Ron Barber, Bill Owens, John Carney, Adam Schiff... and, of course, the lifelong Republican gussied up as a New Dem who beat Allen West, Patrick Murphy ($10,000).

In contrast, Barbara Lee's leadership PAC, One Voice, didn't get any money at all from corporations or K Street lobbyists. It spent $50,678 but none of it in trying to foster her career or line up votes for the coming showdown with Crowley. The biggest recipient of her money was Tammy Baldwin who won the U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin and won't even be eligible to vote. This Barbara Lee, the only one in the entire Congress brave enough to have voted against Bush's race to destroy Afghanistan:



There's been a lot of chatter about how, for the first time, the House Democratic caucus has a majority of women and people of color, It should be interesting how that figures into this race between a corrupt old white male and an African-America woman of impeccable progressive and reformist credentials. Crowley is a political animal with a careerist agenda. Barbara Lee has an agenda as well-- peace on earth and prosperity for American working families. In a week or two the Democrats in Congress will pick between them.