Why Is Steve Israel Lying To His Own Colleagues About What Jennifer Garrison Is?

Malcolm and Jennifer

My grandfather was a Socialist. He told me to always be wary of anyone from the Democratic Party. Funny because Malcolm X and he had similar views of the Democrats back them. Mal: "We won't organize any black man to be a Democrat or a Republican because both of them have sold us out. Both of them have sold us out; both parties have sold us out. Both parties are racist, and the Democratic Party is more racist than the Republican Party… What is a Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise."

There were many professional Democrats, careerists and so-called leaders, who were not breaking a sweat on behalf of racial equality. Left to Democratic Party leaders, Jim Crow would still be in place today. A grassroots, bottoms-up movement led the way; some Democratic Party leaders followed… reluctantly, as did some Republican Party leaders. That's very similar to the fight for LGBT equality-- albeit without the Republican Party leaders for the most part. No one should discount the tremendous and effective support from certain sources, and Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi's role has been crucial, but there is still plenty of hostility-- much of it from conservative-leaning males in Congress.

As we saw last week, no one would ever put up with the DCCC making up some bullshit excuse about a Big Tent to recruit some blatant racist from Mississippi to run for Congress as a Democrat. But that's exactly what Steve Israel has been doing in terms of homophobes. He's a strange guy-- got caught cheating on his first wife, Randi, and then married again and got caught cheating on his second wife with a congressional staffer half his age. Then his second wife, NY Family Court Judge Marlene Budd, kicked him out of the house and then divorced him-- and has been threatening to spill the corruption beans on him to the House Ethics Committee ever since.

He doesn't understand why recruiting blatantly homophobic candidates to run for Congress as Democrats isn't acceptable. And Jennifer Garrison-- who some say looks a lot like his last mistress-- is stinking up the whole basket of Israel recruits. I spoke to a congress member from Ohio who was sickened by Israel's tone deaf recruitment of such a thoroughly disliked and distrusted figure like Garrison. "When she ran for the Ohio House, she ran to the right of her opponent. As I recall, she attacked the Republican female incumbent for not supporting the marriage ban that was on the ballot and I think perhaps on choice issues. [State Senator] Lou Gentile may not be a progressive candidate, but he would have had the support of Ted Strickland, who formerly represented that district. Washington County is not as conservative as the DCCC would have it. The Marietta Times in the county seat was the first paper to endorse our marriage equality campaign-- unsolicited. All of the judges are Democrats. There is a working class base there.

"I remember when the powers that be at the Ohio Democratic Party were searching for a secretary of state candidate to replace Jennifer Brunner, who was abandoning her post to run an ill-fated primary for the U.S. Senate, they promoted Garrison as the lawyer who would be able to win. Everyone knew that her colleagues in the Democratic caucus of the Ohio House were overjoyed-- they wanted her to leave. However, the Democratic base would not accept her and there was a vocal backlash about her proposed secretary of state run. She eventually dropped out of the race.

The local blog Plunderbund wrote about an incident where she told Subodh Chandra, a former city law director for Cleveland (I think that was his title, he is now in private practice) and attorney on voting rights cases in Ohio, among other things, who was tentatively looking at an Attorney General race. Subodh met with Garrison who opposed having him on the ticket, saying, 'no one where I'm from would ever vote for someone who looked like you.' Plunderbund noted when she dropped out that the Democratic coalition of 'gays, women, minorities, simply would not accept a candidacy from central casting' (I think the quote ends with something like central casting for a Republican.) The final blow came when labor opposed her as well."

Odd that the LGBT community, women's organizations anti-racist organizations and unions are all letting Israel get away with this now. Several unions have even contributed to Garrison's campaign at Israel's urging-- despite the fact that she voted against increasing the minimum wage, something Democrats and unions are supposed to be for.