Who Is The Worst Democrat In Congress-- And The Best Republican?

Seriously-- would YOU shake hands with Trump without a glove on?

Arizona Blue Dog Kyrsten Sinema is no longer the worst Democrat in the House. Thanks to Chuck Schumer's always screwed-up recruiting agenda, she's now the worst Democrat in the Senate. Actually her crucial vote score (38.46%) is tied with Jo Manchin, so... to be fair, she's tied for worst. But that leaves the important slot in the House open.

Who's the worst Democrat-- at least so far-- in the House? Well, according to ProgressivePunch-- and their explanation of how they arrive at their scores is here-- there is a 3-way tied between 3 especially reactionary Blue Dog freshmen: Joe Cunningham (SC), Ben McAdams (UT) and Jeff Van Drew (NJ). Each scores a 30.0%. Two Republicans-- Justin Amash (MI) and Brian Fitzpatrick (PA)-- are voting more progressively than they are. There's a simple case for breaking the tie and declaring Van Drew the winner (the loser). Cunningham's district has a PVI of R+10 and Trump beat Hillary there 53.5% to 40.4%. McAdam's districts even worse-- R+13 and Hillary only managed to win 32.4%. Van Drew's district, on the other had, isn't deep red, but a normal swing district. The PVI is R+1, the least red of the 5 New Jersey swing districts occupied by Democrats. Obama lost both times he ran in McAdam's district and in Cunningham's district, but Obama won both times in Van Drew's district-- and with slightly over 53% both times. Trump beat Hillary 50.6% to 46.0%, a much less drastic loss than in McAdam's and Cunningham's districts.

In other words, NJ-02 is a place that will vote for someone with a progressive message. Van Drew is going in the opposite direction-- pure GOP-lite. He even votes with Republicans other silly game-playing procedural roll calls meant to do nothing but embarrass Democrats. Van Drew-- a dentist but absolutely not a brain surgeon-- is one of the only freshmen still falling for it.

Late last week, the editorial board of the South Jersey Times took a look at his voting record so far, noting what a kiss up he is to Trump.

The media in New Jersey made a big deal about the lengths to which U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, the freshman South Jersey Democrat, went to make sure that he was seen shaking hands with President Donald Trump at last month’s State of the Union address.

It looked at times as if Van Drew had aced a course in Advanced Photobombing 101. NJTV reported that Van Drew tugged at the president’s coat sleeves three times until he got Trump’s attention.

“I shook his hand going in and coming out,” Van Drew told columnist Paul Mulshine later. “The president of the United States occupies the highest office in the land. It’s traditional to greet him.”

One can argue that a president who seems to disrespect everyone else doesn’t command respect from opposite-party members of Congress. But to Van Drew, who represents the 2nd District, a hand-clasp with Trump is the ultimate symbol of bipartisanship.

Last week, Van Drew noted that he’d been named co-chair of the National Security Task Force of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative Democrats named for their historic origins as a response to “yellow-dog Democrats” who would vote the party line even if its candidate was a yellow dog.

Although another newly elected New Jersey House Democrat, Mikie Sherill of the 11th District, has also joined the Blue Dogs, she hasn’t embraced the designation the way Van Drew has.

Broadly, Van Drew has refused to take any of numerous opportunities to attack Trump’s call for a greatly extended border wall. Congress’ failure to provide the president with $5.7 billion for the wall prompted the recent, but unsuccessful, Trump-engineered government shutdown. Further, Van Drew’s statement about his Blue Dog leadership states that he’s “looking forward to proactively engage on issues that promote a strong and smart national security for the United States.”

Van Drew was the same kind of fake Democrat in the New Jersey state Senate before the DCCC recruited him to run for the open NJ-02 seat. In the legislature, he was considered the worst Democrat, always the one most likely to betray the party and back the GOP. That he was, was the whole reason the DCCC recruited him. Those are always the kinds of Democrats the DC establishment tries to bring into Congress. It's so self-defeating and self-loathing. (It was the same with Schumer's design to recruit Sinema.)

Justin Amash is an odd duck. He's a popular Grand Rapids libertarian who tends to vote with the GOP less than any of his GOP colleagues. Until he passed away last month, Walter Jones (R-NC) sometimes beat Amash voting more progressively and these days, super-vulnerable swing district Pennsylvanian Brian Fitzpatrick sometimes votes more progressively. But, generally speaking... well, let's put it like this: if I could trade Van Drew for any Republican, it would be Amash... hands down.



In 2012, the Democrats once ran some shithead, Steve Pestka, against him from the right! An anti-Choice homophobic piece of crap "Democrat"... and I enjoyed watching Amash wipe the floor with him. Yesterday, CNN dubbed Amash the loneliest Republican in Congress, after an interview with Jake Tapper. Haley Byrd wrote that Amash's "firm libertarian stances on foreign policy, surveillance and federal spending put him in an awkward position with many in his own party. And two years into Donald Trump's presidency, Amash appears lonelier than ever. His closest allies-- conservatives who routinely sparred with the GOP establishment in the past-- have coalesced behind Trump even as his political and legal woes have mounted, with Republican lawmakers now marching in lock-step behind the President even on issues they historically haven't supported, like shutting down the government. But that's not Amash's style."

Some have suggested Amash run for president in 2020 as a Libertarian. He told Tapper he "would never rule anything out" but it's not on his radar. I don't see him doing anything like that. He's important in Congress and he knows it.

The divide was clearer than ever during a February oversight hearing with former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. While most Republicans on the panel stuck to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan's strategy of attacking Cohen's character and playing defense for the President, Amash asked sharp questions designed to draw out information.

..."From the time the President was elected, I was urging them to remain independent and to be willing to push back against the President where they thought he was wrong," said Amash. "They've decided to stick with the President time and again, even where they disagree with him privately."

Amash was the sole member of the caucus to vote against Trump's use of emergency powers to seize funds for his long-desired wall along the southern border, even though the Freedom Caucus was known for lambasting President Barack Obama's executive maneuvering to get around Congress.

"In some sense you've delegitimized objections to the President," Amash said of his peers. "You've built up such credibility for him that you just can't challenge him anymore."

Asked if he'd thought about leaving the Freedom Caucus in recent months, the congressman admitted he has been "disenchanted" enough to consider it at times. But he said having close partners to work with on issues he cares about has kept him from calling it quits.

Still, the relationship has evolved.

Leading up to the 2018 election, Amash started to feel like the group wasn't going to turn around. Since then, he hasn't been attending all of the meetings like he used to, going only "infrequently," he told CNN.

"I came to a meeting and really gave them a dramatic speech about what my concerns were and what we needed to do as a group and how we were losing sight of our purpose and our principles," Amash recalled. "And that was sort of it."

Tension built as Amash regularly argued for the group to return to a focus on opening up the legislative process. In recent years, it has become harder and harder for rank-and-file members to have a say in lawmaking. Leaders in both parties opt for a top-down approach, rejecting the idea of allowing a robust amendments process. When the Senate was debating the GOP health care bill, only a small handful of senators actually knew what would be included in the bill-- even up until the final hours before the vote. And the House recently experienced its most closed session in history under now-retired House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The question of whether to prioritize process or policy has plagued the Freedom Caucus since its inception, and divisions have only heightened in the Trump age. It hasn't helped that Amash has lost key allies like Raul Labrador, the Idaho lawmaker who left Congress last year to run unsuccessfully for governor of his state, and Mark Sanford, who lost his South Carolina primary to a more Trump-friendly opponent in 2018.

Yet Amash reiterated his Freedom Caucus colleagues remain some of his closest friends in Congress.

"They are good, kind people," he said. "I may have my disagreements with some of the current approach, but I'd still take them over pretty much anyone in Congress."

And members who differ with Amash's stance say he still brings a helpful perspective.

"Justin, like all of us, is just looking for a way to be the most effective and efficient he can be," Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs said. "When we're debating, he engages in debate and offers a ton of valuable comments and I think that's invaluable for all of us."

Amash has the rhetorical style of someone who really enjoys arguing for the sake of arguing but also benefits from fiercely believing what he says. He also has a wry sense of humor.

Soon after inauguration day in early 2017, Trump signed a travel ban targeting six majority Muslim countries. Amash-- whose mother is a Syrian immigrant and whose father came to America as a Palestinian refugee in 1956-- opposed the executive order. In the immediate aftermath of the ban, protestors flocked to airports, where travelers were stranded.

At the height of the outcry, Amash excused his lateness to a Freedom Caucus meeting one night with a joke at the administration's expense, according to one attendee who told CNN about the incident at the time. "Hey guys. Sorry I'm late," he said. "The travel ban got me held up at the airport-- they're screening all the Syrians."

Half of the room was amused by the quip. The other half-- not so much. It was memorable enough that a lawmaker who also attended the meeting still recalled the episode more than two years later.

To his closest friends in Congress, Amash's ability to call out his own side is part of his charm.

"Justin Amash is probably one of the most, if not the most consistent and honorable members of Congress that I met in the eight years I was there," Labrador, the former Idaho representative, said. "He always outlined what he believes in, why he believes in the things that he does and why he makes the decisions that he makes."

It's not clear what's next for Amash, whether another term in the House or something new. He admits he's thought about everything from breaking away from the GOP to launching a presidential bid.

"I never stop thinking about these sorts of things," he told CNN. "It's not because I have any immediate plans or anything like that, but I never stop thinking about those things because there is a big problem with the current two-party system we have, and someone has to shake it up."

"Now, is it possible for anyone to shake it up and make a difference?" he added. "I don't know."