NY Times Exposes The Garbage Candidates The DCCC Spends All Their Money On

The root of the House Democrats' problem

California freshman Democrat Mark DeSaulnier is the only Member of the House left with a ProgressivePunch crucial vote score of 100. He's never backed any of Boehner's right-wing agenda. Aside from DeSaulnier, the 10 Members who have, over the course of their careers, been the least likely to vote for Republican efforts to undermine America's working families are Mark Pocan (D-WI), Katherine Clark (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Judy Chu (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY). Way on the other end of the scale, the House Democrats who have the career-long worst ProgressivePunch crucial vote scores-- the ten voting most frequently with the Republican Party against the legitimate interests of working families-- are (with their abysmal scores):

• Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL)- 29.42
• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)- 29.42
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)- 36.67
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)- 39.52
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 39.98
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 40.54
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- 43.85
• Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL)- 44.03
• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)- 45.71
• Raul Ruiz (CA)- 46.03

Each of them has voted more often against progressive legislation than for it. Exposing these false Democrats has been one of the themes of DWT-- a lonely effort overall-- for years. So wasn't I pleasantly surprised yesterday when Derek Willis reported in the NYTimes who the House Democrats are who have been backing the GOP agenda? (Unfortunately, Willis uses crude data that doesn't show the depths of right-wing support these fake Dems have been exhibiting, just their relative ignominy.) It isn't a subject Times readers are normally exposed to and I can imagine that the report absolutely freaked out the DCCC-- not the content, of course, but just that the Members they waste the most money on were exposed, and exposed to nearly the entire DCCC donor base.

Appropriately enough, the piece is accompanied by a photo of political chameleon Kyrsten Sinema, who started her shameful career as a socialist and a Green, posing provocatively. Willis' point isn't just that these treacherous Democrats abandon working families but that they're doing it even more consistently than they used to. And he's most interested in talking about the careerist scum looking for political advancement by selling out progressive values.

A small group of House Democrats has begun moving to the right in the current Congress, breaking from a majority of colleagues on votes that pit lawmakers from liberal areas against those from more rural and conservative districts.

The lure of a Senate seat, which in many cases requires shifting from a narrower ideological focus to a broader one, and the threat of a well-funded challenger are among the reasons for this this shift.

A few members of this group, which numbers fewer than a dozen, are congressional veterans like Collin Peterson of Minnesota, who survived a tough challenge in 2014 and is voting with a majority of his fellow Democrats 64 percent of the time, down slightly from the previous Congress.

But most are new to the House and have known life only in the minority, with Republicans controlling the schedule and agenda. These Democratic lawmakers have voted against Democratic legislation such as the alternative budgets proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus.

Their ranks include John Delaney of Maryland, who was first elected in 2012 and narrowly defeated his Republican challenger last fall, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who won easily in 2014 but may be considering a run for the Senate (and, notably, did not vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House in January). Ms. Sinema’s party voting percentage has dropped to 73 percent from 80 percent this year, while Mr. Delaney’s score has fallen further, to 80 percent from 92 percent.

Patrick Murphy of Florida is another example; he’s already running for the Senate seat currently held by the Republican Marco Rubio, and his party voting score has dropped from 83 percent in the last Congress to 77 percent in this one.

Also in the group are four California Democrats who have voted less often with their party in the current Congress than in the previous one, including Julia Brownley, who has joined a majority of Democrats on 84 percent of votes in 2015 compared with 91 percent the previous two years.

...The bills that have attracted the support of the small group of Democrats have included ones that provide tax cuts; support the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline; and change the ways the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies study and approve regulations.

Willis' list of the worst House Democrats:

• Collin Peterson (MN)
• Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)
• Kurt Schrader (OR)
• Jim Costa (CA)
• Patrick Murphy (FL)
• Scott Peters (CA)
• John Delaney (MD)
• Ami Bera (CA)
• Julia Brownley (CA)

A motley collection of political cowards, many of them claim they vote with Republicans because their seats are in jeopardy in "moderate" districts, although each of them won those districts campaigning on progressive values. None of them will acknowledge that their seats are in jeopardy because they vote with Republicans so much and have managed to alienate their own support base.