Tag Archives: House of Representatives

Political Rants

Getting the most out of your five minutes

As anyone reading this blog knows, I come from a history of relative privilege. My parents weren’t rich; they were white working class during a time when being that meant a measure of disposable income that’s practically unheard of for working class people today. Dad worked, and his income was the only money we had coming in, whereas Mom ran the household and basically did all the menial work of cleaning, cooking, washing clothes, etc., etc.

One thing they always made time for was voting. And again, being white, working class in those days meant voting was relatively easy. I inherited that state of ease from them, apparently, because I seldom if ever have to spend more than five minutes on voting. I walk in, sign a paper, get my ballot, fill it out, and drop it in the machine. Easy as fuck, particularly since my employer is fine with me taking the time to do it. For lots of other folks, though, not so easy.

Calling all white people

Okay, so, if you’re like me, you’ve got even more of an obligation to vote in a way that counteracts rampant suppression of voters of color. Our congressional district has shifted significantly, as I’ve mentioned before, so my old classmate Claudia Tenney is moving on to a newly reddened 23rd district to avoid what would almost certainly be a crushing defeat in the 22nd, which she currently represents. She has been going through some wild political gesticulations, ensuring that she stays on Trump’s good side by underwriting his “stolen election” theory and various other bridges-too-far. Not pretty.

That’s not to say that the Republican contenders for the 22nd district aren’t as crazy as Claudia. There’s this dude Steven Wells, for instance, who’s been running about a million ads. Kevin McCarthy’s PAC dropped $300,000 in TV spending into his campaign at the last minute, according to Syracuse.com. He’s doing the full Trump Monty, crowing about Biden’s border crisis, the price of gas, inflation, crime, did I mention gas? He’s also trying to pull the businessman piece of it – only he can fix it. The dude is a tremendous waste of space.

Primary choices

I’ve wondered this year if people in the new 22nd district understand the character of this race. They settled on the lines very late in the game, and it’s more than possible that a lot of people don’t know what district they’re in let alone who’s vying for the House seat. Some Democrats may not know that there’s even an opportunity to win the 22nd. That opportunity existed before, of course – the two elections Claudia won even within the old district lines were real squeakers. That was when the district leaned Republican; now it leans more Democrat.

While there are more progressives in this district than before, like many other districts they were unable to settle on a single candidate. Sarah Klee Hood was a good candidate, but she was massively outspent by a more centrist Dem named Francis Conole, who took the race by about three or four points (less than a thousand votes). Trouble is, there were two other candidates who were more or less to the left of Conole, who between them took another 25 points. A similar thing happened downstate, in the 10th, where rich boy Dan Goldman very narrowly beat out Yuh-Line Niou, a sold progressive. It was another crowded field of leftists, including Mondaire Jones, Carlina Rivera, and freaking Liz Holtzman, all of whom took a substantial piece.

Organize, people

The only way to beat people like Goldman and Conole is for progressives to settle on a single candidate, if possible. That takes organizing, and that means spending more than five minutes on politics. Some have the bandwidth to do it, but at the very least, white people, take five to vote when it comes up. With margins this slim, it can really make a difference.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Taking a chance on the twenty third

My mind has been a piece of shit all week, so I apologize in advance for this column. About all I can manage is a trash-talk session about my member of the House of Representatives, the honorable Claudia Tenney, who announced her re-election bid this week.

It’s not surprising that she wants to return to Congress. After all, it’s the best way she can serve vol … I mean, her liege lord Trump, king-in-waiting of the future imperial autocracy formerly known as America. The twist is that she has just been gerrymandered out of her district (NY-22) by the New York State legislature, run by majority Democrats who apparently recall Claudia’s tenure as a state senator.

We go way back

I mentioned at one point that Claudia and I are from the same small town (New Hartford) in upstate New York and that we went to high school together for about 4 months. I graduated in January, and was two years ahead of her, so I remember her not at all, though as I said in that previous column, I knew her brother fairly well.

Well, when she serves in Congress, Claudia of course represents the whole sprawling 22nd House district, and as per custom, her home town appears next to her name. However, the NY legislature saw fit to sever her town from the rump of the 22nd district, which will now encompass Syracuse and will be a hard win for any republican, particularly an autocrat like Claudia. Revenge is a bitch.

Finding a new home

So Claudia’s district no longer exists, in essence. Strangely, Nate Silver lists her as an incumbent in the new 23rd district, which covers the southern tier all the way to freaking Ohio, but that just includes a corner of her current 22nd district. Nevertheless, she has just announced her intention to run for the nomination to win that seat, which Silver calls an R+26 district – literally the reddest district in New York.

I’d say she stands a fair chance against Tom Reed, who currently holds the 23rd. Claudia is about as right-wing as a New York House member can get. She’s a full-on Trump acolyte, constantly obsessing over immigration, enthusiastic second amendment absolutist, and so on. On the other hand, she doesn’t live in the new 23rd district, so people might hold that against her. (Fellow New Hartford native Luke Radel has some thoughts on this – check out his latest installment of Elected News.)

Either way works

There are those who deplore the practice of gerrymandering, and who accuse people on the left of hypocrisy when they applaud partisan redistricting in blue states. I’m of the opinion that representation is a national problem, and until it’s handled on a national basis, the opposition to the autocratic party shouldn’t unilaterally disarm.

I say this, even though nonpartisan redistricting commissions often come up with positive results from a Democratic standpoint largely because the maps end up reflecting demographic shifts that generally favor the left. In all honesty, though, as much as I can’t stand Claudia and think she’s an embarrassment at best, I honestly don’t care whether or not she’s in Congress, so long as the autocratic party she belongs to loses two or three seats in New York. That’s my bottom line.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

There’s nothing new under the gun

There’s a real sense of frustration in center-left circles in the United States. It’s understandable why. The president has proposed a massive bill that will fund a host of badly needed programs. These are priorities the progressive wing of the party has long championed, so in that respect alone, the very fact of this reconciliation bill is a kind of victory.

Now passage of this landmark legislation depends on approval by a 50-50 Senate, which means somehow convincing the likes of Joe Manchin and Kirsten Synema to vote for it. It is aggravating to watch two self-aggrandizing senators block a bill that has the support of a vast majority of Americans. But that aggravation is nothing new. And I think, despite the drawbacks, we have come a long way over the decades.

The majority that wasn’t

It’s best to remember that we’ve been in worse places before. Back in January 2009, when the financial crisis was in full swing, the Democrats had just sworn-in huge majorities in both houses of Congress. They had a filibuster-proof 60 Senators (for a brief time) and 255 members of the House. So, the sky was the limit, right?

Wrong. Somehow they managed to negotiate the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act down to a ridiculously small size, even though they needed not a single Republican vote to pass it. The final bill was nearly 1/3 tax cuts and far smaller than was needed to put the economy back on track. In other words, they negotiated themselves out of an effective stimulus and reconstruction package.

Barry and the half-nelson

Then there was the Affordable Care Act marathon. That was thousands of hours of committee work, whittling down the legislation to meet an arbitrary cost standard set by the GOP. So the best we could do on health care was whatever policy we could squeeze through the little tin horn that was Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, the Joe Manchin of his day.

Now, you may ask yourself, with 60 or near-60 votes in the Senate, why did they need to observe these restrictions? I think the answer is pretty simple: the Democratic Party was a lot farther to the right in those days, on balance. They and their president were happy to settle for glorified RomneyCare. They were happy to contemplate a “Grand Bargain” that would have gutted Social Security.

The new way to be

Honestly, the overwhelmingly Democratic 111th Congress would never have even contemplated some of the provisions in the current Reconciliation bill. Opposition to the Child Tax Credit, paid family leave, etc., would have been larger than two senators. That’s because progressives have, in essence, won many of these arguments, thanks to the determined efforts of Senator Sanders and others on the inside, and movements like Occupy Wall Street, BLM, and others on the outside.

Think about it: we are really just a whisker away from some of the most progressive policy changes since the start of the neoliberal era. The whole thing could still go up in smoke, but this is closer than we’ve ever been, and it’s not only tremendously popular but backed by 96% of the Democratic caucus AND the president.

So, we’re making progress. Slower than we like, but progress none the less.

lu u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.