Cheri Bustos Is Stoking Racial Tensions Among Democrats In Congress

Cheri Bustos and Marcia Fudge

"Cheri has proven herself a flawless leader... of the Congressional Women's Softball Team," a member of Congress told me this afternoon. "Making her head of the DCCC was a big mistake-- at least for us... They should make her captain of the softball team and get her to walk away from the D-Trip." Bustos, a Blue Dog who switched to the New Dems before making her move for Democratic leadership is the most conservative member of Pelosi's leadership team-- by far. According to ProgressivePunch her strong "F" is based on a lifetime crucial vote score of 52.55%, the worst of any Illinois Democrat-- yes, worse than Lipinski's-- and making her 24th worst Democrat in Congress.

As head of the DCCC, she's recreated the committee in her own image-- basically as a quasi-KKK chapter, with the most worthless, right-wing staff in anyone's memory. One source of frustration is her inability to take minorities any more seriously than the NRCC does. On Thursday, Jake Sherman, Heather Caygle and Laura Barrón-López, reporting for Politico, wrote that the DCCC "is locked in a long-simmering battle with prominent black and Hispanic lawmakers who believe the party committee and its chair have short-changed minorities." They wrote that Senior Hispanic and black members of Congress have been privately clashing with Bustos "over her personnel decisions, what they say are tone-deaf comments on race and whether she's lived up to the promises she made during the campaign to win the chairmanship."

“There is not one person of color-- black or brown, that I’m aware of-- at any position of authority or decision making in the DCCC,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH), a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “It is shocking, it is shocking, and something needs to be done about it.”

Bustos sought a meeting with Fudge, and Fudge said no.

“Until they show me they are serious about diversity, there’s no reason for me to meet with them,” Fudge said.

And Fudge isn’t alone. Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers, aides and strategists detailed months of frustration and unanswered questions about Bustos’ efforts to retain minority staffers in top positions, boost Latino voter outreach and hire firms run by people of color. They charged Bustos of being tactless when challenged by lawmakers of color.

“The overall plan for Latino outreach seems to be some 1980s playbook, which doesn't work anymore,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) said.

...[T]he depth of discontent with the DCCC, and some of the problems it has faced in the early days of this Democratic majority are out of the ordinary, raising concerns in the party ahead of a tough fight to hold on to the House.

The latest sign of DCCC dysfunction: an exodus of key aides.

Bustos’ then chief of staff, Jalisa Washington-- an African American woman-- left the committee after just two months for a job with the Kamala Harris campaign. Sonia Kim, the party’s director of mail, left for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Just last week, Nancy Zdunkewicz, the party’s polling director, left the committee.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) said concerns about diversity among the senior ranks of the DCCC was one of “the biggest issues” he tried to deal with as CBC chair nearly a decade ago and remains a problem.

“My hope is that the CBC will be as concerned about the Latino deficit in the staff at the DCCC as we would about an African-American [deficit],” Cleaver said.

The complaints from members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are, by far, the loudest and most significant. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) has met with Bustos multiple times, including this week, to relay ongoing CHC concerns about staff diversity at the campaign arm. Aguilar declined to comment for this story.

CHC members were inflamed in late June when the Washington Free Beacon published a story revealing that DCCC aide Tayhlor Coleman sent a series of derogatory tweets roughly a decade ago, including one that portrayed as her being afraid of Mexicans. (Coleman publicly apologized for the tweets late last month.)

The day after the story ran, Bustos announced in a caucus meeting at the party headquarters that Coleman was getting a promotion to run the Cycle of Engagement, a minority outreach program. Some lawmakers-- well aware of the spate of controversial tweets-- turned to look at each other in shock, according to multiple sources present.

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a second-term Texas Democrat shocked by the tweets, said he asked Bustos the next day if they were “fake.” Bustos texted Gonzalez back, saying “I want you to know I listened, I acted. She is no longer in the job.” Coleman is, however, still working at the DCCC.

House Minority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said in an interview that he asked Bustos to keep Coleman on staff.

“I asked for her not to be terminated but to please be given different duties and responsibilities, but don’t terminate a young African American woman for something she may have done on social media when she was 19 years old,” Clyburn said.

Clyburn added that it was his “understanding” that Coleman was removed from her position as director of the Cycle of Engagement and moved to a different post internally.

Similarly, Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-CA) didn’t call for Coleman to be fired but wanted her moved elsewhere. The DCCC told Cardenas that Coleman would no longer be working on the minority engagement project or on any issues concerning minorities at all.

But Coleman was scheduling meetings regarding minority outreach strategy as recently as last week, according to messages seen by Politico. A DCCC aide said the committee does not discuss staffing issues.

“Wow, it was my understanding that that individual was no longer in the title that she’d recently been promoted to and that she was in a different position,” Cardenas said. “And also not in the diversity team.”

Cardenas said Bustos has made herself available for meetings with BOLD PAC, the campaign arm of the Hispanic Caucus which he chairs. “I want to see progress. Ben Ray really took it to another level in a good way but we can’t rest on our laurels and we can’t assume it’s going to stay that way,” he said.

Better representation for minorities has long been a central part of Bustos’ campaign. During the three-way race for DCCC chair, Bustos promised to boost Hispanic representation at the top of the DCCC.

After Politico began asking questions about the CHC and CBC’s relationship with the DCCC, the campaign arm sent emissaries to praise Bustos’ tenure as chair-- and argued she’d done more to diversify the DCCC than Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), the former chair who won back the majority just last year. Luján, himself, is Hispanic, and Dan Sena, his executive director, was the first Hispanic person to serve as the committee’s top staffer. [Is that ever a low bar!!]

“The representation within the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is higher now than during the previous chair,” Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA) said.

"I've got to work with four different chairs and I'm very happy with the work that [Bustos is] doing," said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). "I think she's doing a great job."

Costa, a Blue Dog of Portuguese heritage is petrified of being primaried by a Mexican-American woman of the Fresno city council, who is nearly as conservative as he is. And Cuellar is also consumed with being primaried and has been promised by Bustos that the DCCC will stand with him against the progressive grassroots Latina challenging him, Jessica Cisneros.

Meanwhile, progressive members of all races are also sick of the way Bustos marginalizes progressive candidates in favor of Blue Dogs and New Dems, longstanding-- though always denied-- DCCC policy going right back to Rahm Emanuel's stint as DCCC chair. Emanuel was Bustos' original role model and mentor in Illinois politics. One high-ranking and very respected senior progressive told me that "the NRCC couldn't find a better ally than [expletives deleted] Bustos... I've never seen any less capable chair. I voted for her, something I deeply regret now."

The GOP is have a field day with this whole horror show. While praying that no one remove Bustos, they are hooting  and hollerin' at the idea that someone in politics is getting an even worse rap for racism than Louie Gohmert and Marsha Blackburn. Michael McAdams, NRCC communications director, sent out a statement yesterday pointing out that thanks to Bustos the Dems "are heading home in a fiery heap of dysfunction, as Politico detailed the rampant incompetence within Cheri Bustos’ DCCC including an exodus of top staffers, overall mismanagement and concerns over a racist and homophobic staffer being promoted to run their diversity outreach program." Congratulations, Cheri Bustos, opening the DCCC up to this kind of criticism from a source like that! Not even in Rahm's or Steve Israel's worst days...