The GOP Ramps Up Their War Against Consumer Protections While Everyone Is Looking At The Horrors Of Trump And TrumpCare

The vote in the House Tuesday evening was 231-190. Every Republican but Walter Jones of North Carolina voted to hamper the ability of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect bank customers from the kinds of systemic abuse and predatory behavior that led directly to Bush's Great Recession and destroyed the financial stability of millions of American families. Every single Democrat-- even the worst paid-off Blue Dogs and New Dems-- opposed bankster-pawn Keith Rothfus' bill.

What the Republicans are doing is stripping the rights of consumers to use class action lawsuits to protect themselves from the big banks. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbyists who wrote Rothfus' bill for him, were dancing for joy. They are furious that over 34 million bank customers received $1 billion in payments from lawsuits over the past 5 years and want to destroy the Bureau.

Here in California, several progressive Democrats running for congressional seats alerted voters in their districts that their own congressmen had betrayed their interests once again. The architect of the CFPB was Elizabeth Warren, who noted that the rule the Republicans just voted to repeal "allows working families to hold big banks accountable when they’re cheated and help discourage the kinds of surprise fees that consumers hate." The Orange County candidate who has worked with her on this issues is Katie Porter, who is running for the seat held by rubber stamp Republican Mimi Walters. This issue is part of Porter's field of expertise and we asked her for a reaction last night. This is what she told us:

As the Senate voted to take away health care for millions, Congresswoman Mimi Walters and the House GOP were taking away justice for all consumers. Today, they rewrote the rules in order to protect Wall Street banks that cheat consumers, no matter how outrageous the banks' conduct. "Mandatory predispute arbitration" agreements ban consumers from telling their stories to judges, instead forcing them into an arbitration process that exists only to protect the big banks from being held accountable.

I've fought against arbitration in my decades of work as a consumer advocate. That's a fundamental difference in this race. I have stood up to powerful financial institutions that break the law and hurt families. In Congress, Mimi Walters has done the opposite. She is as consistent of an ally for big banks, as she is for President Trump's agenda. Wall Street banks can count on Walters' support 100% of the time. Our district needs a congresswoman who will stand up to powerful interests, and that's my pledge to Californians.

Ironically, Porter isn't the only stalwart progressive in the CA-45 race who worked on this issue. Kia Hamadanchy worked on the staff of another top Democrat concerned with Republican collusion with Wall Street predators, Sherrod Brown. Hamadanchy told us that "Once again Mimi Walters has put the interests of her donors and those in Wall Street who have ripped off consumers time and time again above the people of Orange County. If this rule is repealed it would mean that a bank like Wells Fargo could avoid being held accountable for its actions despite a clear evidence of a pattern and practice of wrongdoing. Every American deserves their day in court when they are taken advantage of by the financial services industry and its not surprising that Mimi Walters doesn't agree. Time and time again she continues to vote against the interests of her constituents and in November 2018 she is going to see where that gets her."

North of CA-45, we get to Wall Street puppet Ed Royce's congressional district. Since 1990 Royce, who is a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, has taken an astounding $7,116,597 in legalistic bribes from the Financial Sector. The only current members of the House to have taken bigger bribes than Royce are Paul Ryan ($9,781,835) and House Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling ($7,468,190). All three should be rotting in prison.

The DCCC is trying to run some qualification-less "ex"-Republican lottery winner and self-funder, Gil Cisneros, against Royce. Fortunately there's an eminently qualified progressive determined to take on Royce instead, Sam Jammal. Yesterday he pointed out that "If you're wronged, Americans believe you should be able to have your day in court. It's a fundamental check on absuses by the most powerful. This apparently doesn't apply to the biggest banks. It's hard to tell who Ed Royce really represents. Common sense would say that consumers should know their rights and have options to preserve those rights. But, if that is upsetting to his big donors, it looks like Ed is perfectly fine forgetting about consumers in Buena Park or small businesses in Walnut. We need our voices heard again in Washington."

No one ever doubted CA-25 Rep, Steve Knight, would vote to repeal the amendment protecting financial consumers. He's perversely dependable in that sense-- the perfect little rubber-stamp for Ryan and Trump. His progressive opponent, Katie Hill told us "This is yet another example of Steve Knight putting special interests-- in this case big banks-- ahead of working Americans. I personally know so many people in the 25th district who have been taken advantage of or harmed by Wall Street in some way or another. This simple rule would give every day people some small protection and a way of banding together to fight back-- but Steve Knight and other Republicans are too concerned with protecting the profits of their own financial backers. We need representatives in Congress who will once again return power to the people."

Some good news in regard to the Republican war against consumer protections-- yesterday Allied Progress launched the CFPB Action Tracker, a new interactive website that tracks, state-by-state, the CFPB's enforcement actions against big banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions that have preyed on consumers. The website is a great resource for elected officials and organization in the states, allowing them to see what the CFPB has done to benefit local consumers and arming them with important information in the fight to protect the CFPB from attacks by Wall Street special interests and their allies in Congress, like Ed Royce, Paul; Ryan, Jeb Hensarling and Mimi Walters.

Karl Frisch, executive director of Allied Progress: "The Consumer Bureau has played a pivotal role in bringing justice to consumers over the past six years. They have cracked down on big banks, payday lenders, and other financial bad actors and put an end to the irresponsible practices that caused the great recession that cost so many Americans their jobs, their homes, and their savings. Lawmakers in the pockets of big banks have spread misinformation in their efforts to eliminate the Consumer Bureau, but the truth is in the data. Our new interactive Consumer Bureau Action Tracker shows just how much the Bureau has put back into the pockets of Americans. In just six years, the Consumer Bureau has taken $12 billion from predatory financial institutions and returned it to the more than 29 million Americans they ripped off."

The DCCC, of course, is doing nothing about targeting Rothfus and his traditionally blue district (PA-12) north and east of Pittsburgh. The second biggest veterans' district in the country, it was John Murtha's seat forever but has been abandoned to the Republicans by a DCCC eager to woo white collar suburbanites while ignoring the legitimate interests of blue collar workers. Hillary did worse than Obama had both times he ran and she was crushed by Trump, 58.7% to 37.9%. But a progressive veteran who was knocking on doors for Bernie last year, Tom Prigg, has every intention of replacing Rothfus in 2018... running on a progressive platform geared for the people in his district.

This morning Prigg told us that "It's absolutely unacceptable for our Congress to, once again, expose the American people to the unfair banking practices exercised that led to the 2008 housing crash. During that time, America saw the loss of ten million American homes-- that’s five-times more than during the Great Depression. It is bad enough that none of the perpetrators of this crash faced criminal charges; but now our representatives are trying remove any possible class-action litigation to protect the public. The dissolution of this agency is a direct attack on the American public. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in just 5 ½ years of its existence, has awarded five billion dollars in lawsuits against unfair banking practices for twenty-nine million Americans. Not only are those impressive numbers for such a young agency, it’s also a testament to how important this agency is for the American public. It’s this type of irresponsible behavior and special-interest policy making that we can no longer accept. I will never let the American people, and our families, take the fall for irresponsible banking practices like we saw ten years ago. We must vote out politicians who’ll sacrifice the security of American citizens in favor of greed. This is one of the reasons why I’m running against the author of this bill, Keith Rothfus."

Expect to hear more from Tom Prigg here at DWT.

The Trump-Ryan GOP Repays The Predatory Banksters-- The Dismantling Of Consumer Protections

I wouldn't call Comey's testimony yesterday "a distraction," but it sure did distract a lot of people from watching the Dodd-Frank repeal debate in the House that was going on roughly at the same time. The Republicans passed it 233-186. Every Republican voted for it except Walter Jones (R-NC) and all the Democrats who voted, voted NO. (It's worth noting that notorious Wall Street shill, Carolyn Maloney was voting earlier in the day but managed to absent herself when this vote went down.) This is a big one for Wall Street whores like Paul Ryan and Jeb Hensarling. Before we go any further, these are the 10 worst whores currently servicing Wall Street from inside the House of Representatives. The bribe amounts account for all reported contributions since 1990:

• Paul Ryan (R-WI)- $9,781,835
• Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)- $7,468,190
• Ed Royce (R-CA)- $7,116,597
• Pat Tiberi (R-OH)- $6,521,045
• Joe Crowley (New Dem-NY)- $6,238,679
• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)- $6,083,117
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- $5,983,548
• Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)- $5,595,452
• Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)- $5,590,002
• Pete Sessions (R-TX)- $5,481,670

So yesterday while Comey was digging Trump's grave, Alan Rappeport was reporting in the NY Times that Ryan and Hensarling were passing legislation to gut multiple Dodd-Frank consumer protections. Written by bank lobbyists under Hensarling's name-- and deceptively titled the Financial CHOICE Act-- it rolls back fundamental consumer and market protections painstakingly established by Dodd-Frank, including eliminating the Volcker Rule that stops banks from gambling with taxpayer money; repealing the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s (FSOC) ability to detect signs of another potential financial crisis; and destroying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) authority to hold credit card companies, banks, payday lenders, debt collectors, and other predatory financial industries accountable. Not surprisingly, Ryan and Hensarling took the opportunity to use the legislation to roll back important protections that pre-date the 2008 financial crisis-- a gigantic gift to Wall Street banksters and predatory lenders from the slimy politicians whose careers they have financed. It targets consumers, investors and real economy businesses and increases the likelihood of both another devastating financial crisis and another big bank bailout. Karl Frisch, spokesman for Allied Progress laid out a case that I see as why voters in their districts should end the careers of Ryan, Hensarling and everyone-- regardless of party-- who voted for this monstrosity:

This legislation destroys the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as an effective consumer regulator, making it impossible for it to act forcefully against unlawful practices in consumer markets. As a result, it would make it easier for predatory lenders, big banks, and other financial companies to rip people off.

• CFPB has obtained $11.8 billion in relief from financial companies that broke the law for 29 million consumers. It is putting in place rules to stop tricks and traps that cost billions of dollars a year.
• The legislation takes away key tools the CFPB needs to fulfill its mission, including its authority to supervise and bring enforcement actions against big banks; to prevent unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices; to regulate and enforce against lawbreaking by payday and car title lenders that charge sky-high interest rates; to maintain a public database of consumer complaints about financial firms; and much more.
• The bill would destroy the independence that has made it possible for the CFPB to serve the public interest. It would take away the Bureau’s dedicated funding, allowing industry lobbyists to push Congress to defund any actions they don’t like. It would also permit the President to fire the Director at any time without cause, instead of the Director serving for a fixed term like other bank regulators.

Wall Street’s CHOICE Act would tie the hands of bank regulators and make it easier for banks to again take risks that endanger our economy.

• The bill would repeal the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from acting like hedge funds by gambling with customer money.
• The legislation sharply limits the ability of regulators to ensure that banks are managed in a safe and sound manner, and have adequate funds available to absorb potential losses without turning to the taxpayer for a bailout.

          The bill exacerbates the “Too Big To Fail” problem by stripping agencies of the power to wind down megabanks without bailouts.

• It would eliminate the new authorities put in place to liquidate a bank without bailing it out or letting its failure crash the economy.
• The bankruptcy process proposed as a replacement for government liquidation authority is fundamentally unworkable, and could also immunize senior executives from responsibility for a failure, instead of holding them accountable.
• The legislation would gravely weaken the mechanisms for regulators to address emerging threats, eliminating their power to designate large non-bank financial institutions for greater supervision. A large non-bank, AIG, received the largest bailout in U.S. history.

The bill gives Wall Street a slew of new tools to overturn rules and make it harder for regulators to enforce the rules that remain.

• It requires every major rule to be approved by Congress. Political gridlock would stop regulators from ever keeping up with Wall Street shenanigans.
• It imposes dozens of additional requirements on agencies before they can take any new action, and vastly increases Wall Street’s power to stop any regulatory action in court.

The Wall Street’s CHOICE Act reduces protections for ordinary investors and the public in capital markets, and makes it easier for insiders to manipulate the system.

• The bill contains numerous provisions that weaken or eliminate laws designed to prevent fraud and abuse in capital markets. For example, it would prevent regulators from banning bad actors from financial markets and make it much more difficult to use regulatory enforcement powers when companies broke the rules.
• The bill would eliminate Dodd-Frank reforms permitting greater regulatory oversight of large private equity and hedge funds, which has thus far uncovered rampant abuse.

The bill would repeal a rule that requires retirement investment advisers to act in the best interest of their clients.

• It repeals the fiduciary rule, which could prevent Wall Street from siphoning more than $17 billion a year out of the savings of American workers and retirees.

This legislation would free up banks to charge more to use a debit card, costing more than $6 billion per year.

• The bill would repeal the Durbin Amendment, allowing big banks to rake in higher fees while doing nothing for community banks that are not covered by the provision.

South Florida progressive Democrat Tim Canova is primarying Wall Street ally and New Dem Debbie Wasserman Schultz (AKA, "Debt-Trap Debbie, darling of the payday lenders). He was predictably appalled at what Ryan and Hensarling were up to yesterday. "As an activist law professor, I have spent my entire career opposing the deregulation of Wall Street banks and their lending standards, and the gutting of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act firewalls that have separated commercial banking from investment banking and risky securities markets for decades. And I have long supported breaking up these huge financial institutions that have become Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Manage, Too Big to Regulate, and Too Big to Jail... For far too long, families and communities still carry the devastating scars of the 2008 financial crisis-- when millions of people lost their homes to foreclosures, lost their jobs, and lost their life savings, while Wall Street banks have enjoyed trillions of dollars in government support, with no strings attached. Now is not the time to repeal major protections of the Dodd-Frank Act by letting Wall Street run wild again!"

Ryan and Mimi

In his Times article yesterday, Rappeport referred to this as the Republicans' "mission." And as far as Trump's promise to implement a "21st Century version of Glass-Steagall," that's just another in his long list of campaign lies for the rubes who voted for him. Hensarling laughed at the idea-- which was also in the GOP platform last year-- yesterday. He said Trump and Mnuchin don't even know what they mean by that and indicated he isn't taking them seriously about it. Katie Porter, a consumer advocate, UC Irvine professor and progressive Democrat running for an Orange County congressional seat currently held by Trump-Ryan rubber stamp Mimi Walters, co-authored a book with Elizabeth Warren in this area reacted immediately after the outrageous vote yesterday.

"I've seen this from my own work fighting the banks on behalf of families," she told us yesterday after the vote, "Wall Street has far too much power in Washington. And there are too many politicians like Congresswoman Walters who take Wall Streets' money and vote whichever way the banks want-- all at our families' expense. And the bill she voted for today is the biggest legislative giveaway to Wall Street since the bailouts. Walters' bill she puts our entire economy at risk once more by allowing banks to take on excessive risk, the same type of deregulation that led to the 2008 collapse. It unleashes predatory lenders that prey upon servicemembers, seniors and consumers. And Walters' bill erases key protections for consumers and guts the independent government watchdog tasked with policing Wall Street. Wall Street wrecked our economy once already. Now, Congresswoman Walters is making it easier for the big banks to destroy families' livelihoods once again."

In a note to Orange County voters, Porter wrote that "Walters voted for the Financial CHOICE Act, a bill that will effectively dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and deregulate Wall Street. I’m not just disappointed, I’m angry... I saw firsthand what happens when our leaders in Washington fail to protect consumers. The big banks put in place their cronies who looked the other way, as Wall Street banks broke the law and preyed on families-- all to boost their billion-dollar bottom lines."

Paul Ryan-- A 70 Year Old Crooked Republican Trapped In The Body Of An Adloescent Gym Bunny Who Reads Childish Ayn Rand Novels

The architect and the acolyte

Are we all getting sick of hearing about what a monster Paul Ryan is yet? On the other side, all they hear is how wonderful he is. The gay Republicans are kvelling over the idea of a vice president with a six-pack (and never you mind that he has a ZERO voting record on LGBT issues and has voted against every single bill that would advance equality for gays and lesbians). Even the media is getting all homoerotic over Ryan's "youthful vigor," pointing out how much time he's always spent at the gym and how "energetic" he is, a lame effort to appeal to young voters (and never mind that jihad against Pell Grants and the attempts to kick 18-26 year olds off their parents' health insurance policies). Yesterday, Karl Frisch tore the Ryan happy talk apart in a column worth reading, Paul Ryan's Youth Won't Slow GOP's Demo Death March.

In the hours following his announcement, Ryan was also heralded as a “gym rat” and “fitness nut” who was “almost a pro-skier.”

The political spin could not have been more blatant. For a party brimming with octogenarians but lacking in youthful appeal, the Wisconsin native is fresh, young, and even hip-- heck, he listens to Nirvana on his iPod!

...While young voters may have trouble casting ballots this fall because of obstacles put in place by Republicans, when they do head to the polls they will not be swayed by Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan. At only 42 years of age, the Republican Congressman is certainly young, but the only thing that makes him “youthful” is the year in which he was born.

If Ryan had his way, student loan interest rates would double and far fewer would be eligible for Federal Pell Grants to help pay for college. For those who do manage to qualify, such grants would be less helpful since Ryan, unlike Obama, would not allow the awards to increase with inflation.

And if young voters and independents have been put off by the Republican Party’s hostility toward lesbian and gay legal equality, they are not likely to be inspired by Ryan-- a man who voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality, supports banning adoption by same-sex couples, voted against the hate crimes law President Obama signed, and after first supporting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would forbid employers from firing someone simply because they happen to be LGBT, he joined Republicans in trying to kill it. Today, employment discrimination against LGBT Americans remains legal in more than 30 states.

Far from mirroring the young and those of his own generation, Ryan’s views are simply a mimeograph-- to borrow a term familiar to the average conservative-- of the stodgy, largely white, and old folks running, funding, and supporting today’s Republican Party.

Paul Ryan is a 70 year old man trapped in the body of young man. He’s the Benjamin Button of American politics and just as Brad Pitt’s portrayal of the character came up short after clinching an Oscar nomination, Ryan’s nomination for Vice President will suffer the same fate.

And as for the "crook" part of the equation, it certainly goes beyond his shady relationship to Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff and his unprosectured bribery case involving Dennis Troha. His entire relationship with Wall Street-- taking millions from the sector while pushing their anti-family agenda-- should have ended his repulsive career in politics long ago. But over the weekend the Richmonder reported on how Ryan managed to use inside information to avoid the consequences of the 2008 financial crash his policies caused. Isn't that illegal?

It should probably come as no surprise to anyone that someone like Paul Ryan would trade on inside information gained through his position as a congressman to line his pockets, but this particular instance is especially egregious. Ryan attended a closed meeting with congressional leaders, Bush's Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on September 18, 2008. The purpose of the meeting was to disclose the coming economic meltdown and beg Congress to pass legislation to help collapsing banks.

 Instead of doing anything to help, Ryan left the meeting and on that very same day Paul Ryan sold shares of stock he owned in several troubled banks and reinvested the proceeds in Goldman Sachs, a bank that the meeting had disclosed was not in trouble. This is the guy Republicans want one heartbeat away from the presidency? He seems more than a little shady to me.

If you want to read through Ryan's 2008 financial disclosures that show the specific insider trades, here's the link. Keep in mind, Romney's VP vetting team saw all this and decided he was just fine for the ticket. Supposedly Romney just told him he had a lot more deductions he could have used and showed him how he could have saved another couple million dollars. And next time someone who spends too much time uncritically listening to the media, tells you Ryan is just a wonk reveling in minutiae, remind him that Ryan's first budget had no numbers nor any details at all. And if they claim he'll appeal to the Midwest, remind them that his three signature policies, killing Medicare, big Wall Street bailouts and shipping U.S. jobs overseas, are particularly unpopular in that part of the country. And when they say he's not driven by social policy, stop laughing, pick yourself up off the ground and ask him if he's ever heard of Sam Brownback, who gave Ryan his start in DC politics.

What Would Happen If Voters Actually Know Not Just What "G.O.P." Stands For But What The Republican Party Stands For?

When I read about how Republican Establishment conservative Frank Wolf (VA) had decided to blame Grover Norquist for Congress' historic-- and disintegrating-- popularity and its inability to get anything done, the first thing that popped into mind was an R.E.M. song from 1987 (which happens to have been inspired by Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, the song we featured on Tuesday).

{{Frank Wolf}} has a lifetime ProgressivePunch score of 7.17, the 54th "most progressive" among Republican congressman. (That's very conservative, but not crossing over into the domestic fascism camp of most of the GOP caucus these days. And he is one of only sic Republicans who never did sign Norquist's ironclad no-taxes/drown the government in a bathtub pledge. Saying he was compelled by his conscience, Wolf got up on the floor of the House Tuesday and let loose on ole Grover. No one does that... and lives to tell. He reminded Members of Congress that Norquist is, bottom line, nothing but a crooked lobbyist who has been "working with 'unsavory characters' (terrorists and money launderers) and pushing a pledge that makes it harder for Congress to achieve meaningful deficit reduction and tax reform."

Wolf said the Taxpayer Protection Pledge created by Norquist and ATR has had the effect of “paralyzing Congress” and making it impossible to even discuss ways to reform the tax code:

WOLF: Everything must be on the table, and I believe how the pledge is interpreted and enforced by Mr. Norquist is a roadblock to realistically reforming our tax code. When Senator Tom Coburn recently fought to eliminate the special interest ethanol tax subsidy, who led the opposition? Mr. Norquist. [...]
Have we really reached the point where one person’s demand for ideological purity is paralyzing Congress to the point that even a discussion of tax reform is viewed as breaking a no-tax pledge?

...Wolf is, unfortunately, correct that Norquist’s pledge has paralyzed the GOP, as Republicans remain shackled to the no-taxes platform and continue to oppose any measure that would reduce the nation’s deficit by raising tax revenues, whether through tax increases or by ending expensive subsidies. That intransigence is what took the nation to the brink of default in August and caused the first downgrade of the nation’s credit rating in American history.

Norquist is at the heart of the Republican obstructionism that has been behind the disintegration of, not just Obama's presidency and American governance in general, but the economy and financial well-being of America in particular.

Hackish New Jersey career politician Leonard Lance is one of the Republicans who did sign Norquist's venal pledge and who sits by fearfully-- and idly-- as New Jersey families in his own district see the middle class American dream disappearing before their eyes. This morning we asked his opponent, Blue-America endorsed Ed Potosnak how Lance could be so disconnected from the interests of the voters in central Jersey.

Rep. Lance consistently takes his cues from others, whether it is the Norquist pledge, repeal of the discriminatory Don't ask Don't Tell policy, or how to cut spending... he is following the wrong crowd. Abdicating leadership to megadonors, big banks, the oil and gas industry and right wing extremists is destroying our chances of a recovery and ruining opportunities for the families and businesses in our communities to grow our economy. When elected, I will lead us out of this recession through sensible policies based on data, science, and reason which stands in stark contrast to my opponent's approach of letting special interests dictate his stances.

Yesterday Karl Frisch addressed a twin phenomena-- governmental paralysis by the rise of the faux Constitutional Conservative. He calls it a virus and a plague and points out just how these right-wing zealots are trying to destroy and undermine the parts of the Constitution they don't like.

Take the 14th Amendment for example. For my conservative friends reading at home, I’ll save you the time of retrieving that illustrated pocket-Constitution you picked up at your first John Birch Society meeting. This Amendment zeros in on citizenship, due process, and equal protection among other things.

Appealing to their xenophobic, nationalist base, many Republicans appear to have abandoned efforts to transform their party into a big-tent large enough to include naturalized immigrants. Instead, they’ve advocated a repeal of the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.

Then there’s the 16th Amendment-- this one gives Congress explicit permission to levy taxes on income. Deep-sixing this one is a no brainer for tea party Republicans like Texas Governor Rick Perry. Common among his ilk is the notion that Libertarian magic dust can defend our country, pave our roads, educate our children, provide for our poor, and attend to our sick and elderly.

Perhaps most perplexing of all is attacks made by Republican Senators on the 17th Amendment-- the very Amendment that provides for their direct election by voters. Prior to this Amendment, every day Americans had little say in who would represent them in the Senate.

Leading the charge on this front has been Mike Lee, the Senate’s foremost “constitutional delusional.” Voters elected Lee just last year but as far as I’m concerned, if he doesn’t think “we the people” should elect Senators, he should resign his seat.

What these “constitutional conservatives” are advocating is no less than a full-scale retreat on the 20th century.

The story of our constitutional progress should be an inspiration. As members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus recently pointed out to their colleagues, that progress has “eliminated slavery, expanded the right to vote, protected liberty and equality, and given the federal government important new powers and resources.”

For 223 years, Americans have sought a “more perfect union” improving through Amendment on the best form of government the world has ever seen. The arc of constitutional progress has made us a stronger, freer nation.

Our elected representatives take an oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution-- all of it.  They don’t get to pick and choose and perhaps that is the fundamental difference confronting us when is comes to our most cherished document.