Cleaning House... In Rochester, New York

Monroe County (Rochester, NY) has its own member of Congress. It's a nice, safe blue district-- PVI is D+8-- and Obama won both times with 59% and even Hillary beat Trump in the district 55.5% to 39.1%. Louise Slaughter represented the district for 16 terms, from 1987 'til her death in 2018. she was succeeded by a local political hack, then an Assemblyman and a cog in the corrupt New York state political machine of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who appointed him Assembly Majority Leader. (Silver was arrested in 2015 on federal corruption charges for which he was convicted and then sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to repay $5.3 million in ill-gotten gains.) When he was arrested, his puppet Morelle became acting Speaker. Morelle is incredibly corrupt and has been caught fixing his own election petitions, a crime.

Morelle joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems and quickly earned an "F" vote score from ProgressivePunch. He paid to also become a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus-- a kind of insurance policy for election time when he can-- falsely-- claim to be a "progressive."

This cycle, Robin Wilt, an actual progressive-- endorsed by Blue America, is running for the seat. One of Wilt's top issues is Medicare-for-All, which Morelle opposes. He had previously voted against the NY Health Act in the state Assembly in 2017 and 2018, despite the bill passing 94/46 and 91/46 respectively, then Chairman of the Assembly Standing Committee on Insurance, a fount of corruption for state politicians. One of his top donors is the American Hospital Association, which is also participating in the funding of the anti-Medicare for All jihad.

Another major plank in Wilt's platform is her support for the Green New Deal, which is also opposed by Morelle who has refused to cosponsor AOC's Green New Deal Resolution.

Morelle has been on the wrong side of almost every progressive initiative since he came to Congress-- from Criminal justice reform (including the No Money Bail Act and the Marijuana Justice Act, which would remove Marijuana as a controlled substance and re-invest in communities affected by the racist war on drugs-- to affordable housing legislation and immigration reform to foreign policy-- he's an AIPAC stooge-- and military spending.

Robin Wilt: "In Monroe County, we hear the clarion call for change. Joe Morelle and the policies that he has championed over the last three decades have rendered our community among the most segregated and impoverished in the country. Our movement has emerged to challenge the status quo and demand policies that will improve the lives of everyone, not just his political cronies and the monied elite."

If you would like to see Bernie's program enacted by Congress, it is incumbent on all of us to help support and elect candidates who back it. Robin Wilt is one of them and you can contribute to her on our Bernie Congress page, which can be accessed by clicking on the thermometer on the right.