The Brutal Politics for House Progressives

If you read nothing else today, this article is the one you should settle in with.

Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney at the Huffington Post write one of the best articles I have seen in a long time surveying a political landscape — but this time for House Progressives. Ranging from details on the financial extractions by the House Committees from Progressives, to the role they played in trying to keep the Public Option open to some of their own internal fractiousness, this article paints a pretty tough picture of the politics of being in the Progressive Caucus. The close look at how the Public Option never got to a vote is very informative.

And that picture is largely one of covering for Blue Dogs and New Democrats — financially as well as politically. This seems to be a structural problem, but one largely built by the House Leadership. This is a tough article to excerpt — it is long and detailed, but this stands out for me:

Since 1995, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have collectively given $6.3 million directly to members of the Blue Dog and New Democrat coalitions, according to an analysis by the Huffington Post of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s not an overwhelming sum when the average winning campaign nowadays costs more than $1 million, but it represents one-sixth of all giving from one faction within the party to another. It doesn’t include the millions that progressives have given to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — rank-and-file members are supposed to cough up $150,000 every two years (though many miss that mark), committee chairmen $250,000 and up. The DCCC turns around and funnels that money to conservative Democrats in close races. Add to that the millions spent by organized labor and outside groups such as MoveOn.org, and it’s clear that progressive donors have become major financial benefactors of the conservative Democrats who battled to undermine their agenda. “That tension exists a lot,” George Miller says about the party’s demand that progressives fund their intramural rivals. “That tension exists a lot. And it’s real.”

So not only are Progressives being asked to stand down on their own goals, they are being asked to finance the highly attenuated ones of the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats. I don’t think I knew this before. But here is something that I did know, which the loudest champions of the Public Option completely missed:

The first sign that Blue Dogs would have their way came last summer, on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, when Henry Waxman agreed to their demand for a “weak” public option, where rates could not be tied to Medicare. Progressives reacted furiously, and sent a letter announcing that more than 50 progressive Democrats would vote against the bill. After several weeks during which the Blue Dogs were hailed by the media for successfully leveraging the size of their bloc to get what they wanted, it seemed progressives might be able to do the same. But they didn’t; when it came time to vote, the “robust” public option had not been revived, and all but two CPC members voted for it.

When alot of us got energized by Howard Dean to get back involved with Democratic politics, one of the guiding mantras was “more and better Democrats”. This was a useful shorthand for recognizing the strengths of the Democratic Big Tent, while keeping in mind that a more progressive Big Tent would be a thing in progress — building on that Big Tent. It was a great reminder of how much work — and lengthy work — would need to be done to minimize the influence of the Blue Dogs or new Democrats. The end of this article talks about the efforts by group and individuals to go outside of the Party to identify and support progressive candidates. (As an aside — I used to be a be a Democracy Bond subscriber and now I pledge a similar amount of money monthly to the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. So should you.)

It seems to me that the Progressive problem can be seen in a couple of ways. The Big Tent is the Big Tent. Donna Edwards would not be able to win in every single congressional district held by Democrats. There are places where you have to run people who can win and Democrats have been willing to give up on key platform ideals for a win. And in this case, the win doesn’t get you alot of legislation which meets the progressive ideal. But you do get the ball moved down the field some towards that ideal. Changing the complexion of the Big Tent (and get better at throwing your weight around) solves some of this. For instance, the Progressive Caucus could stop contributing to the House Committees that keep funding these Blue Dogs. That would piss off Speaker Pelosi, which is not a thing I would do lightly.

The other way to look at this is a failure of the two party system. When politics is this polarized, it seems to me that this is the place where other parties — ones with respectable constituencies — could be power brokers. If a third or fourth party denies either of the two major parties a clear majority, then the effort at polarization becomes less urgent and the effort to compromise for a governing majority might get you closer a progressive caucus. But then again, you could end up with a worse set of compromises.

But enough from me — there is alot to get from this article (pdf it to keep for reference, it is worth it) and am interested in what you think.