Will The New Congress Be Able To Accomplish Anything Substantive?

Is there anything the new Congress can do is a question many people are asking. As we saw earlier today, potential— if absurd— presidential candidate, putatively as a Democrat, Howard Schultz, the Starbucks guy, is worried that the Democratic Party is wandering too far left. He’s an idiot. Norman Solomon, in an essay for TruthOut, is far more on the mark. He notes that pundits and conservatives are urging Democrats away from popular policies that are embraced by most Americans, if not by the super-wealthy. “We should expect plenty of such advice during the months ahead as Democrats take control of the House for the first time in eight years,” he wrote. It may sound prudent to urge ‘affordable health care’ instead of Medicare for All, or ‘subsidies for community colleges’ instead of tuition-free public college. But such positions easily come across as wonky mush that offers no clear alternative to a status quo that played a role in driving populist anger into the arms of the right wing in the first place.”

One problem is that the conservative Democrats from the Republican wing of the party is exactly who the DCCC stocked the new Congress with. Many of the winners campaigned on “affordable healthcare,” for example, instead of on Medicare-for-All. Unfortunately, not many progressive were elected. The DCCC saw to that in candidate recruitment and candidate support. Plenty of Republican-lite careerists were elected. “When political campaigns are deeply authentic from the grassroots,” wrote Solomon, “they serve as compost to prepare the ground for future victories. In sharp contrast, there’s little left to build on after Election Day in the wake of top-down campaigns that promote moderate notions in response to extremely dire problems. While commonly applauded by mass media, centrism smothers the fires of grassroots excitement.” So where do we go from there?

Incantations about the need for so-called moderate policies do little to stimulate a big turnout from the Democratic base— and other voters— oriented to voting against Republican candidates if their opponents draw sharp contrasts between advocacy for economic justice and flackery for de facto oligarchy.

Surveys show that voters are hungry for genuinely progressive policies that have drawn little interest from mainstream media outlets. For instance, polling of the US public shows:

• 76 percent support higher taxes on the wealthy.
• 70 percent support Medicare for All.
• 59 percent support a $15 minimum wage.
• 60 percent support expanded tuition-free college.
• 69 percent oppose overturning Roe v. Wade.
• 65 percent support progressive criminal justice reform.
• 59 percent support stricter environmental regulation.

Yet such popular positions are routinely ignored or denigrated by elite political pros who warn that such programs are too far left for electoral success. The same kind of claims assumed that Bernie Sanders would never get beyond single digits in his 2016 presidential campaign.

The midterm election results have made Nancy Pelosi the likely next House speaker. Although habitually bashed by Fox News and other right-wing outlets as an ultra-liberal villain, Pelosi has declared allegiance to fiscal centrism and ongoing militarism that forecloses implementing a progressive political agenda.

In September, as House minority leader, Pelosi precluded any potential left-populist agenda by backing reinstatement of a “pay-go” rule to offset all new spending with tax increases or budget cuts. A former legislative director for three Democrats in Congress, Justin Talbot-Zorn, responded with an article on The Nation’s website pointing out that “bold progressivism and ‘pay-go’ fiscal conservatism are mutually exclusive.” He wrote: “The issues of America’s rising inequality and frayed social contract— including stagnant wages, unaffordable college, and exorbitant health care can only be fixed with major new investments.”

And challenges to Pelosi and coming from the far right of the Party, Blue Dogs with the worst of the New Dems. Congressional progressives seem to just twiddle their thumbs to see what will happen to them. Meanwhile, How about if Congress tries for some great policy that should be adoptable in a bipartisan fashion? Most Americans want big money out of politics. That would be a smart policy for the Democrats to pursue.

Voters overwhelmingly support reform that would include reducing the influence of big money in politics and requiring full disclosure of all money being raised and spent to influence elections. Backing for legislative action is cross-partisan with 85% of Democrats, 81% of independents, and even 78% of Republicans in support. This is something the new Congress could accomplish in a bipartisan way that voters would be really happy with— even if the big donors of both sides of the aisle, as well as certain party leaders from both sides of the aisle, would oppose.

Last week, Simone Pathé, writing for Roll Call reported that three-quarters of Democratic challengers in top races are rejecting corporate PAC money. Rejecting corporate PAC money is easy for a candidate, since they never get offered anyway. What happens when they’re a member with checks being waved under their nose-- either directly from lobbyists or indirectly from party leaders who routinely launder dirty money with a wink and a nod. (Example, anyone who has ever taken a contribution from Wasserman Schultz was taking money from Wall Street, the private prison industry, pay-day lenders, Big Sugar, etc. Hoyer gets his money from sources just as shady.) How will new member navigate that piece of the swamp? How many incumbents currently reject corporate money? I know Ro Khanna and Beto O’Rourke do, maybe a few more— and a few members from both parties reject corporate money from sources that have anything to do with the jurisdiction of the committees they serve on. But those are very rare exceptions.

Some of the new candidates who made the no corporate PAC pledge are, ironically, New Dems, a group within the party that is completely based on bundle dirty corporate cash, particularly from Wall Street, for their members. It’s not easy to imagine characters like Jason Crow (New Dem-CO), Abigail Spanberger (New Dem-VA), Anthony Brindisi (NRA-NY), Max Rose (New Dem-NY), Conor Lamb (New Dem-PA), Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI) sticking to this long without a law forcing them too.

These candidates did get pushback from members of Congress— and some still encounter lobbyists who pressure them to go back on their pledges.

“I got a lot of angry phone calls from senior Democrats,” Slotkin said. Democratic elected officials told New Jersey’s Tom Malinowski his stance would make the campaign harder. Similarly, [Andy] Kim was told to consider all the resources he’d be giving up if he won and ran as an incumbent.

…[E]ven with so many candidates now rejecting PAC money of some kind, there’s still skepticism amongst some D.C. lobbyists and fundraisers, whose business model depends on incumbents taking the money… “This could really be a problem not this cycle, but next cycle when Democrats have a huge map to defend and a lot of candidates in competitive seats who are leaving a million dollars on the table,” said one Democratic lobbyist, who argued that rejecting corporate PAC cash, which is fully disclosed, shouldn’t necessarily be a priority for overhauling campaign finance.

…More than 100 Democratic candidates signed on to a letter last month “to put Congress on notice” and demand that leaders address the issue.

But any campaign finance overhaul is unlikely to become law with Republicans expected to hold on to the Senate and with Trump still in the White House.

Even if a proposal stalls in a divided Congress, candidates who have rejected corporate PAC money say they will keep their promises.

“There’s two options here. One is Max continues to maintain his federal lobbyist and corporate PAC pledge and contribute as a member of Congress,” Rose said. “Or two, Max Rose is no longer a member of Congress.”

It will be interesting to see how party leaders, who accrue and maintain power by their ability to raise immense amounts of money from the sewer, will de-rail this tendency— and have no, illusions… de-rail it they will… or die trying. Without the pay for play system, creeps like Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Steve Scalise and Kevin McCarthy would be what, exactly? Back-benchers competing in a world of ideas where they have no footing whatsoever?