Issue #35

It's been a busy, busy week

New Developments

CA-SD-07

Way back in April we talked about the worst Democrat in California, bar none:

SD-07 is a deeply blue Bay Area district, voting 61-37 for Obama and 64-30 for Clinton. However, it’s represented by the most unreliable, pain-in-the-ass ConservaDem flake in the state. Steve Glazer first won a low turnout special election in 2015, because Republicans coalesced around him instead of the liberal Democratic state representatives that were seen as the frontrunners. The lone Republican in that race even dropped out to endorse him. He was an anti-union centrist then, and he’s only gotten worse since. He’s opposed many important progressive bills, and most egregiously, was the lone Democratic opponent of the recent gas tax increase in the state senate, forcing vulnerable senator Josh Newman to take the risky vote. Newman got booted in a recall election because of the gas tax, meaning Glazer’s antics cost Democrats a seat in the state senate for nearly 3 years. The icing on top of that particular knifing of his party? Glazer’s district supported the gas tax and Newman’s didn’t.

Back then we were talking about the Glazer challenger who was entering the race: a local teacher by the name of Evan Branning. He has since been largely superseded in the race by Marisol Rubio, a 2016 Bernie Sanders Delegate, longtime organizer, and SEIU member running on a progressive platform. In the pre-endorsement voting, Rubio beat Glazer 52-34, meaning only she is eligible for the party endorsement. Now she has also picked up the endorsement of the Tri-Valley Democratic Club and the ILWU which are perhaps not surprising given the more activist reputations of those groups, but also the Alameda Building and Construction Trades Council and the North California Carpenters Regional Council. It shouldn’t be difficult for a moderate incumbent Democrat to get the support of the trade unions, which goes to show just how antagonistic to unions Glazer has been. For advancing progressive priorities, this race will be worth just as much as flipping a Republican district.

HI-02

Are you Very Online? Do you spend far too much time on Twitter reading about people who you don’t like saying things that make you angry? If you do, then you already know about the dumbest part of the presidential primary so far: Hillary Clinton gave an interview where she said that Jill Stein was probably a Russian asset and that Tulsi Gabbard was being groomed to run third party by the Russians. The New York Times mangled those statements and quoted her as saying she called Tulsi Gabbard a Russian asset.

This prompted a Twitter thread from Tulsi that started off with more normal attacks on Clinton’s record, but quickly veered into saying Clinton was behind all the attacks on her and should join the presidential primary herself, and has spent the last week talking mostly about Clinton. The tedious back and forth between Tulsi and Clinton supporters has continued for days, even after the NYT corrected themselves FIVE DAYS LATER. Kahele has capitalized on this controversy, saying he had his best day of fundraising in his entire campaign on the day of Tulsi’s Twitter thread. Gabbard also said she’ll be taking her presidential campaign to the convention. The DNC convention is in mid-July and the Hawaii candidate filing deadline is June 2. She can of course file for both, but it’s still something to note.

MA-Sen

Sen. Ed Markey received another slew of endorsements this week. Decarceral Boston District Attorney Rachael Rollins; the Newton, MA delegation of the Massachusetts State Legislature; local politicians from Northampton, MA; and Association of Flight Attendants Union president Sara Nelson all threw their weight behind Markey, joining the likes of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and the environmental group Sunrise Movement. These new endorsements continue to show the breadth of Markey’s support: from established politicians to progressive firebrands, from environmental groups to labor unions. Now, if only the polls would reflect that…

Also this week, there were some allegations that Markey’s campaign hasn’t been sticking to its finance pledges on corporate PACs and fossil fuel money. The first issue has to do with donations he’s taken from trade association PACs. Trade associations are organizations that advocate for businesses in a certain industry. They make up a bit of a grey area because they are not directly connected with a corporation and can include non-corporate members in addition to industry executives. Many Democrats who take a corporate PAC pledge don’t count trade associations under this pledge, and Markey’s campaign made it clear that’s where they fall as well. Markey’s other finance issue had to do with fossil fuel money. Apparently, Markey has been taking money from lobbyists who work for firms that represent fossil fuel companies. The campaign is justifying this by saying that they’re only taking lobbyist money from people they have vetted to be not primarily working with the fossil fuel industry, but that doesn’t seem to be completely true, or at least his standard doesn’t screen out multiple people who have recently lobbied for fracking companies. Not sure what Markey’s doing here exactly, but he is still the Senate sponsor of the Green New Deal, so we’d take him over Kennedy.

MA-04

Dave Cavell, former Obama speechwriter and senior advisor to Maura Healey, and Brookline resident who had filed to run a couple weeks ago, has launched his campaign. Cavell (who we misspelled as “Carrell” last time, sorry about that) emphasized the opioid epidemic and his work with Healey reigning in the Trump administration, as well as his Jewish faith. MA-04 has one of the 20 highest concentrations of Jewish residents in the country at 11%. Cavell hasn’t held office before and isn’t taking any firm stands on issues yet, but he seems similar ideologically to his old bosses, Obama and Healey, which is to say pretty average for a Democrat. He does have a worrying connection to a group called New Politics, one of those recent Seth Moulton-esque “taking the politics out of politics” organization that seeks to put, in Cavell’s words #CountryOverParty by what appears to be endorsing a series of moderate Democrats and few standard Republicans. He’s also a former roommate of Dan Crenshaw who vouched for him on a personal level.

Also this week, long serving state Rep. and Speaker pro tem Patricia Haddad, who had expressed interest in the seat, is staying out of the race. Haddad was the biggest name in consideration who had not yet made a decision, and was as well the only major candidate from outside of Newton and Brookline looking at the race. MA-04 stretches from the inner Boston suburbs of Newton (pop 89,000) and Brookline (pop 59,000) down to the Rhode Island border and ends only one town from the shore. While Brookline and Newton are the largest and most Democratic municipalities in the district, they are also at the far end of the district. Massachusetts primaries are known for some pretty intense geographical favoritism, so the fact that about ¾ of the district is both pretty far from Brookline and Newton, and also pretty different in character (small towns and older industrial cities as opposed to high-density suburban cites) mean that a lot of the vote in the primary will be up for grabs in a way it wouldn’t if someone like Haddad had gotten in.

MD-05

Steny Hoyer is the #2 Democrat in the House, and he’s awful. Thankfully, he has a challenger in Mckayla Wilkes; however, Wilkes has had some trouble getting progressive groups to coalesce around her, due to suboptimal fundraising and the presence of a spoiler candidate in the race, attorney Briana Urbina. That’s begun to change, with the Metro DC DSA endorsing her on Tuesday. Metro DC DSA is a fairly well-organized chapter, counting three recently-elected state legislators in their ranks (Virginia Del. Lee Carter and Maryland Dels. Vaughn Stewart and Gabriel Acevero) as well as Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, in what was a stunning upset for such a powerful role. You may also remember them for disrupting then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s dinner at a Mexican restaurant, protesting her constant lies on behalf of a department and an administration systematically violating human rights at the border. The majority of Hoyer’s district is in the suburban DC counties of Charles and Prince George’s, meaning DC DSA can bring members to knock doors and make calls for Wilkes, which is the real value of a DSA chapter’s endorsement.

NY-16

We already knew that Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, faced a credible primary threat. Justice Democrats endorsee Jamaal Bowman, a local school principal, raised six figures and got some early media attention. Now we have a poll to back it up, courtesy of our benevolent overlords at Data for Progress. In the poll, which surveyed 578 registered Democrats, Engel had the support of a measly 29% of respondents, while Bowman had 10%. (A third candidate, Andom Ghebreghiorgis, had only 1%.) This leaves 60% of voters undecided — a weak showing for any incumbent, much less one who’s been in Congress since 1989 (and in elected office since 1977.) DFP are newish to the polling game, but the track record they have is pretty good. While it’s not exactly a primary, their recent poll for the Louisiana governor preliminary round was the closest of the public polling available, pegging what turned out to be a 47 Edwards - 27 Rispone - 24 Abrahams - 2 other race at 48-26-22-3.

Engel, who voted for the Iraq War and the 1994 crime bill, faces vulnerabilities both ideological—this is a solidly Democratic district, and half of the Democrats polled described themselves as “liberal” or “very liberal” — and demographic; he’s a 72-year-old white man in a majority-minority district with a median age of 40.5. His vulnerability is further proven by this poll, and this is a race to watch. Engel is clearly scared by the primary and recently sent out a fundraising email accusing the Justice Democrats of having the goal of making Democrats less able to oust Trump.

NY-17

On Monday, State Senator David Carlucci officially announced his candidacy for NY-17. Carlucci represents most of Rockland County, along with the town of Ossining in Westchester County. Carlucci is best known as one of the one of the earliest members of the Independent Democratic Caucus. As we explained last week, 

For those unaware of one of the most infuriating chapters of New York Democratic history, in 2008 Democrats flipped the state senate. There was a leadership battle, and then shortly thereafter the loser and some of his allies jumped ship and started caucusing with the Republicans, letting them continue to run the chamber. They maintained their Democratic registration to keep winning elections, calling themselves the Independent Democratic Caucus (IDC), In 2010, governor and huge asshole Andrew Cuomo saw their utility in preventing anything progressive from getting to his desk, and allied himself with the project, signing off on their gerrymander and campaigning for them in the primaries. In 2018, facing a wave of primaries, Cuomo “negotiated” a “deal” where they would come back to the Democratic caucus...after all major legislation was signed, and Republicans would keep the Senate anyway. Most IDCers lost their primaries in 2018, but Carlucci eked out a narrow win.

Carlucci’s entry video touts his work on reproductive health care and gun control, which is rich coming from one of the biggest reasons those bills couldn’t even come up for a vote until this year. Mondaire Jones greeted the news of his impending entry by attacking him for being a “Trump Democrat” and detailing the legislation he blocked. That’s a question we hope a reporter asks Carlucci at some point, by the way - shortly after Trump was elected, when he voted to give Republicans control of the NY senate, did he do so to prevent the state from protecting immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ+ community from Trump’s attacks, or was that just something incidental he was okay with? 

While Carlucci did make it through 2018, it’s hard to say he wasn’t damaged by his IDC membership. He won by less than 8% that year, to a challenger who spent only $50,000 to his nearly $300,000. Carlucci might be able to consolidate strength in Rockland, but hopefully as long as progressives put up a united front against him, we can win.

Carlucci, as of publication time, has not specified whether he would caucus with Republicans or Democrats in Congress

New Primaries

DE-HD-27

State Rep. Earl Jaques represents a safely Democratic district around Newark, Delaware (not to be confused with the much larger city of Newark, New Jersey.) The Democratic Party is at least nominally supportive of both LGBT rights and abortion rights; Democratic politicians who govern differently are huge outliers unless they hail from very red constituencies. Jaques is one of those outliers.

Jaques faces a primary from LGBT activist Eric Morrison, who is also a drag performer. Jaques criticized Morrison for hosting a drag show as a fundraiser for his campaign, saying, “That is so far off-base for our district, it’s unbelievable...You can have fundraisers, I don’t care about that. But dressing in drag? Really?”

He then cited the presence of churches in his district as a reason the fundraiser was, as he put it, “off-base.” It’s not hard to find queer-affirming churches in liberal areas, so it’s safe to assume Rep. Jaques is just hiding behind religion to cover up his own anti-LGBT bigotry. When we saw this earlier today, we looked at Jaques’s record, and we found that he voted against the codification of Roe v. Wade into law. So he sucks all around.

In a statement on Twitter, Morrison said, “As someone who has worked hard for Delaware’s LGBT community for 27 years, I find my opponent’s stance on LGBT equality unacceptable.” We agree.

MD-07

Longtime Rep. and House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, one of the House’s most prominent and respected members, passed away early Thursday morning. We encourage you to read the obituaries of Cummings published by the Baltimore Sun and the New York Times. His death is a great loss for Baltimore and for the country, and we offer our condolences to his family, his colleagues, his constituents, and his city.

A special election will be held next year, likely in the spring for this Baltimore City and County based district. His wife, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, is chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, and other candidates are expected to defer to her as she grieves. According to a report from the Washington Examiner, she will be running for the seat. Considering the source, however, we’ll wait until she says anything to be certain. We’ll also link to subsequent reporting instead of the Examiner, although all reports are based on the Examiner’s initial story at the moment. While some other names have been dropped, it’s mostly wild speculation at this point.

Queens Borough President

Still bummed over the Queens District Attorney race? We are too.

After Queens Borough President Melinda Katz snatched primary victory out of Public Defender Tiffany Cabán’s hands by 55 fucking votes, it’s likely that Katz will win in November and vacate her Queens Borough President seat, triggering a special election likely in January 2020. Borough Presidents have few official roles, but they do have the ability to designate land use and to appoint community board members, both of which responsibilities can play a large part in the gentrification of a borough.

New York City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer filed back in April to run for Queens Borough President in 2021, before Katz had won the Democratic nomination for District Attorney, but he launched an official campaign video for the 2020 race this week. The video details Van Bramer’s experience growing up as an openly gay kid and compares Donald Trump and the Queens machine to the playground bullies he used to deal with as a gay kid. Notably, former progressive New York Gubernatorial challenger Cynthia Nixon retweeted the video with a message of support.

Van Bramer has a mostly positive record: he backed Cabán for DA, helped get Amazon out of Queens, voted against opening new borough jails in exchange for closing Rikers, and has pledged to reject real estate money. His platform, which focuses on transportation, housing, money in politics, and immigrants’ rights, seems promising as well. Despite Van Bramer’s no-real-estate-money pledge, though, it took an investigation into his campaign finances to come out for Van Bramer to actually return money that had been donated to his campaign by real estate developers. Additionally, Van Bramer has sometimes taken too much time for his constituents’ liking on deciding to oppose problematic rezoning plans. Van Bramer plans to seek an endorsement from the DSA, which was instrumental in Cabán’s near victory.

The other candidates in the race currently include Council Members Elizabeth Crowley, Donovan Richards, Costa Constantinides, and Assembly Member Alcia Hyndman. Richards and Crowley are not really worth our time — Richards supported the Amazon giveaway deal, and Crowley is so tied to the Queens machine that she’s literally former Rep. Joe Crowley’s cousin. Hyndman seems promising on paper as the only woman of color in the race, but when you look into her record, you see that she backed Katz for DA and didn’t support the 2019 rent reform package enough to cosponsor it, which might be a sign that she’s not willing to be a leader against the real estate industry.

Besides Van Bramer, Constandinides seems to be the only other promising candidate in this race. He is focusing his candidacy on the climate crisis and he has the record to back up his dedication to this issue, as the sponsor of the main bill of New York City’s version of the Green New Deal requiring large buildings to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030.

RI-Legislature

Rhode Island has long had a truly terrible political culture. Democrats have nearly total single-party dominance over the state, but Rhode Island Democrats are not what Democrats are in the rest of the country. As we noted in an early issue:

What gives is the bizarrely conservative class of old-school Democrats running the show at the state legislative levels since the 1990s. The House Speaker is Nick Mattiello, who has an A+ from the NRA, is completely anti-choice, and has lead the charge for massive tax cuts for the rich (before denying they ever existed). The Senate President is Dominick J. Ruggerio, who’s every bit as bad as Mattiello, and a homophobe to boot. In any other state, it would be truly bizarre to imagine these leaders as Democrats, but not in Rhode Island.

(boy we’re quoting ourselves a lot this week, huh?)

In that issue we were talking about the brightest glimmer of hope in the extremely nascent progressive organizing in the state, the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats of America. Now an even more comprehensive progressive slate and organizing team has announced itself to the world. The Rhode Island Political Cooperate is led by former Secretary of State and 2018 progressive gubernatorial candidate Matt Brown who finished with a respectable 57-34 loss. The RIPC is going to be running a slate of 25 candidates, 15 of whom they’ve already announced.

We spoke to progressive senator Sam Bell, who came to the body through a primary of a conservative incumbent in 2018. He told us, “It's so exciting to see so many progressive challengers coming forwards.  It's a sign that Rhode Islanders are waking up to the reality of a right-wing machine running our Democratic Party.  We need to break the machine and return core Democratic values to our state. That means repealing the tax cuts for the rich, repealing the Medicaid cuts, and reinvesting in our crumbling schools.”

He also let us know that he likely will be supporting many of the candidates, but as of now the only candidates he’s publicly backing are the incumbents on the list: Rep. Billy Conley and Sen. Maryellen Goodwin. Most of these names are known in political circles, and Bell expressed confidence in many of them.

TX-28

On the heels of an impressive $310,000 raised in the third quarter of 2019, Jessica Cisneros announced two major endorsements in her challenge to conservative Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar: EMILY’s List and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

EMILY’s List backs pro-choice Democratic women, so Cisneros may seem like a natural choice; however, EMILY generally doesn’t back primary challengers to Democratic incumbents, and is often establishment-friendly with its endorsements. Cuellar, however, isn’t just any Democratic incumbent. He’s one of the few remaining anti-abortion Democrats in the House of Representatives, and most of the others are in red districts (like Collin Peterson of Minnesota’s 7th and Ben McAdams of Utah’s 4th.) The only other staunchly anti-abortion Democrat in the House is Dan Lipinski; EMILY has already endorsed Lipinski’s primary challenger, Marie Newman, and they endorsed her when she first challenged Lipinski in 2018. The endorsement of Cisneros, who was recruited by the left-wing, AOC-affiliated group Justice Democrats, shows that some of the more progressive side of the Democratic establishment is so fed up with Cuellar’s conservatism that they’re willing to back an anti-establishment outsider.

Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement may seem unsurprising, but she held off on endorsing Cisneros, who entered the race in June, for months; getting off the sidelines here is a welcome development. She also tweeted out a link to Cisneros’s ActBlue donation page; given her huge following, that tweet has to be bringing in good money for Cisneros.

A clarification:

Two weeks ago, we missed some details of the California Democratic Party’s endorsement process. We said Fresno City Councilwoman Esmeralda Soria had held Rep. Jim Costa below 50% at the party’s convention; it was the pre-endorsement conference, where delegates to the state party from the district, county committee members, and representatives of local Democratic clubs meet. In this case, the difference has no effect on the outcome; candidates who fail to clear 50% at the pre-endorsing conference cannot receive the party’s endorsement, and since no candidate got 50% or more, no candidate will receive the endorsement of the California Democratic Party. However, if Costa had received between 50 and 70 percent of the vote at the pre-endorsing conference, a second vote would have been held (called the endorsing caucus), this time with only the delegates voting.

We said that Costa’s failure to clear 60% at the pre-endorsing conference was the reason he did not get the party endorsement. The 60% threshold applies during the endorsing caucus, not the pre-endorsing conference. Clearing 70% at the pre-endorsing conference, or 60% at the endorsing caucus if a candidate gets between 50% and 70% at the pre-endorsing conference, gets the candidate added to the consent calendar, to be voted on by the whole convention. A reader with knowledge of the California Democratic Party’s endorsement process flagged the error for us, and we have verified the information via the California Democratic Party’s 2020 endorsement process materials.

This is still quite embarrassing for a longtime fixture of California politics like Costa; there are two, sometimes three rounds to the endorsement process, and a primary challenger shut him down in the first round. Progressive groups should take this race very seriously. Costa’s in trouble.