Issue #39

Surprisingly, nothing to do with impeachment this week

New Primaries

DE-Sen

Chris Coons, the junior senator from Delaware since 2010, is the worst. One day he’s voting for unbelievably corrupt, insane, and otherwise monstrous Trump executive branch nominees; the next, he’s giving fanatical conservatives lifetime posts in the federal judiciary, or questioning whether diversity ruined the Senate. When he’s not tentatively endorsing war with Iran, he’s defending Joe Biden’s past work with segregationists. When he’s not co-chairing the National Prayer Breakfast (a conservative evangelical event that doubles as a way for moneyed interests to buy influence), he’s voting to loosen restrictions on the financial industry. A primary challenge was long overdue--and he’s finally got one.

Jessica Scarane, a 34-year-old marketing professional and women’s advocate, entered the race on Monday. She pulled no punches, highlighting her support for Medicare for All and the Green New Deal while swearing off corporate PAC money — setting her apart from Coons, “the GOP’s favorite Democrat,” according to a Politico profile. Scarane also identified the Senate, specifically, as a problem, saying she wasn’t challenging Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester because the House just isn’t as bad. She’s right. A Senate with Chris Coons, John Hickenlooper, Mark Warner, and Dick Durbin representing blue states is going to pass very little in the way of good legislation even if Democrats romp in the 2020 elections; they’re to the right of our candidates in tougher Senate battlegrounds like Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas. A Senate with a couple progressives holding those seats instead could pass large portions of the legislative agenda of a President Warren or Sanders; the status quo will imperil even Joe Biden’s legislative agenda, to the small and sad extent one even exists.

NY-AD-35

Wouldn’t you think that being convicted of either domestic abuse or stealing public funds would be enough to disqualify someone from ever holding public office again? Well, the former New York State Senator and New York City Council Member from Queens Hiram Monserrate apparently begs to differ. Monserrate is guilty of not one but both of those aforementioned crimes, and yet he appears to be prepping for a run for New York State Assembly against Assembly Member Jeffrion Aubry. In 2010, while serving in the Senate, Monserrate was “charged with beating and slashing his then-girlfriend, Karla Giraldo” back in 2008, backed up by security camera footage showing him dragging Giraldo by her hair in the lobby of their building to prove it happened. Monserrate’s colleagues in the Senate voted to expel him from the chamber for being misogynist trash. The same year Monserrate was charged with domestic abuse, he was also indicted for using city funds to pay for his State Senate campaign. Monserrate was eventually sentenced to two years in prison for this crime, and a gem of a judge told him off by saying, “Using other people’s money for your own purposes is way down in the lowest circle of hell.”

Other reasons to despise Monserrate include that he voted against the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York State in 2009, pushed for a Scientologist measure in the City Council, and last but not least pulled an IDC back before the IDC even existed and started caucusing with the Senate Republicans (which lost the Democrats control of the State Senate even though they had a majority).

For all the above reasons, Monserrate gets the hardest of passes from us.

Monserrate is also already getting the heavy backlash he deserves: someone appears to have purchased the URLs VoteHiram.com and HiramForAssembly.com and made them link to the previously cited New York Times article about Monserrate’s conviction for misuse of city funds.

Assembly Member Aubry, whom Monserrate would be challenging, certainly has his issues, but this is the sort of situation where the challenger is just so abominable that we can’t in good conscience discuss Aubry’s own flaws at any length. Also, one thing Aubry has going for him is that he is a strong advocate for criminal justice reform and has been introducing and sponsoring the HALT Act, a bill that would restrict the usage of solitary confinement, for a number of years in the Assembly. So, yes, we are all set for Team Aubry.

New Developments

CA-25

Hey, remember three weeks ago when we said this?

The Democratic field in the special election to replace her already seems settled. […] We’ll keep an eye out for new developments, especially on the Democratic side, but it doesn’t look like there’ll be multiple Democrats competing on the special election ballot at this time.

That one aged well, huh? On Thursday, media personality Cenk Uygur declared his entry into the special election field. 

Uygur has left an indelible mark on the American progressive landscape. His show and media organization, The Young Turks, was originally a political radio program during the Air America era of liberals attempting to break into talk radio, but in early 2006 he and his two co-hosts made the decision to become the first daily TV show to broadcast online daily, a gutsy move in the era when online radio was in its infancy. This helped TYT ride the crest of the increasingly online progressive political scene, and grew to include more commentators and shows, in addition to investigative staff, most notably Ken Klippenstein. Along with Kyle Kulinski of similar and affiliated political Youtube show Secular Talk, Uygur co-founded Justice Democrats. Without Uygur, there’s likely no Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

However.

Uygur is no longer with the Justice Democrats since being pushed out shortly after the group’s formation, due to sexist comments that were uncovered from his blog posts in the early 2000s.  Assemblywoman Christy Smith, his Democratic opponent and the more establishment candidate in the race, has already made the comments an issue. Uygur apologized for the comments in 2017, when they were first uncovered, but has been quiet about them in the campaign so far. He has also long been criticized for his denial of the Armenian genocide. He made these statements in his late twenties and early thirties, hardly comments from a dumb kid, and his first attempt to walk back those comments in 2016 consisted of him saying he didn’t know enough about history comment on whether the Armenian genocide was real. He didn’t admit it was until 2017. Uncomfortably, the actual historical group the Young Turks were the ones who committed the Armenian genocide. Also, Uygur unleashed Dave Rubin on the world. Not as bad a genocide denial, but something we just had to mention.

It’s not clear how seriously Uygur is taking the campaign so far. His campaign website is sparse and rushed, with an issues page that is, quite frankly, mostly vague platitudes. More establishment politicians can get away with that, but he isn’t the kind of celebrity who most voters are going to know, and if you’re a politician courting the progressive lane in a primary, you should probably stake out a few issues you differ from your opponent on, such as Medicare for All or the Green New Deal (both unmentioned on the site). It also has copyediting issues. Additionally, Uygur is running for CA-25, which is in the Simi Valley, while living in Newport Beach, which is on the other side of the sprawling Los Angeles metro. It’s the California equivalent of running for Congress in Long Island while living in White Plains. Still, he’s raised over $300,000 at this point. While Cenk’s obviously in a different tier of recognition as the owner, two TYT alums have run for office before, and both barely registered. Nomiki Konst took 2.3% in the crowded 2019 NYC Public Advocate Special election, and Dylan Ratigan, who is probably better known as a former MSNBC host, came in third with 11.8% in the 2018 NY-21 primary that Tedra Cobb won with 55.3%.

The California establishment, including Kamala Harris, has pretty thoroughly coalesced around Assemblymember Christy Smith, and the LA County Democratic Party, which covers about ⅘ of the district, has released a statement saying Uygur’s comments were “disqualifying” and that he “does not belong in Congress”. Uygur has the endorsement of Rep. Ro Khanna. Los Angeles is also known for its large Armenian population, the largest outside of Armenia, and the entire area has a larger-than-average population of residents with that heritage.

IL-03

Dan Lipinski only survived his 2018 primary because of Republican support in Illinois’s open primary, which allows Republicans to cast a Democratic ballot (and vice versa.) The viability of such a strategy is more tenuous in 2020, when Democratic turnout will surely soar for the presidential primaries, and when Republicans will have the chance to cast a primary vote for their sweaty, senescent savior, Donald Trump. So Lipinski, rather than moving left to accommodate the voters of the party whose nomination he is actually seeking, is ramping up his efforts to win Republican votes in the Democratic primary. (He can’t just switch parties, because this district is solidly Democratic; a party switch would surely result in an embarrassing reelection defeat for Lipinski, who has held this seat since 2005.)

A leaked campaign strategy memo revealed that while Lipinski intends to misrepresent himself to independents and Democrats as a reliable Democratic vote, he’ll also advertise his vote against the Affordable Care Act and his support for ICE human rights abuses in messaging targeted towards Republicans. He’ll also be reaching out to Republican officeholders and attempting to win their endorsements. We’ll give Lipinski credit for knowing who his voters are; Democrats in the district voted to replace him with Marie Newman in 2018, and they’ll do it again in 2020. He needs a repeat of his 2018 strategy, perhaps aided by a split progressive vote between Newman and lesser-known activist Rush Darwish.

Even Dan Lipinski knows he’s not welcome in the Democratic Party. We wish DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos would get the message.

IN-01

Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr and his wife, Lake Circuit Judge Marissa McDermott, have landed in hot water with the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications over a $94,225 loan from Thomas’s campaign account to Marissa’s. The Commission to issue with a contribution of such size from a licensed attorney to a judge. They agreed with the Commission to return $50,000 to Thomas’s campaign account, which they expect to do in the coming months. While speaking publicly about this issue was McDermott’s choice, It’s a pretty bad story to get in the opening week of your campaign.

Meanwhile, the field continues to grow. State Representative Mara Candelaria Reardon, who we discussed last week, has said she will be making an announcement related to the district this week, and has filed with the FEC to run. She’s all but officially running at this point. Another potential entry to the field is Michael Griffin, who is currently serving his eighth term as clerk-treasurer for the town of Highland (pop. 23,000). Griffin and Visclosky go way back — he was an intern in the office of IN-01 congressman Adam Benjamin while Visclosky worked there, in 1979. He has said he will decide soon whether to run.

HI-02

Bernard Carvalho Jr, former mayor of Kauai has endorsed State Sen. Kai Kahele. This is an important endorsement for Kahele in two ways. Kauai is about a tenth of the district, so getting support from a popular local politician is helpful. More importantly, Carvalho was being mentioned as a potential candidate for HI-02. This not only means that Kahele will have one competitor fewer, but will also be the only Native Hawaiian candidate in the race.

MD-07

Two candidates are looking to enter this already crowded field, and one other potential candidate has taken herself out of contention

• Harry Spikes Jr. has filed to run. Spikes was the Deputy District Director for Elijah Cummings, had worked for the Congressman for 14 years, and spoke at Cummings’s wake. Spikes ran for a seat in the House of Delegates in 2014. He did poorly, coming in 7th with 4.9% of the vote of a Top 3 primary. One of the winners was incumbent and potential MD-07 candidate Talmadge Branch.

• Terri Lynn Hill, Delegate in the state house since 2015 and a plastic surgeon in private practice in Ellicott City has also filed. While she’s been a quieter member of the body, she’s remained active in her district, and plastic surgeons tend to both make a lot of money and know a lot of other people who make a lot of money, so she could probably fundraise her way into being a serious candidate if nothing else.

• Former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie-Rawlings Blake has decided not to run in the special election. As the only mayor of Baltimore since Martin O’Malley to not be forced out of the office mid-term amid criminal scandal, she was probably the biggest name who had not yet declared her intentions in this race.

MA-04

Former Massachusetts Comptroller and Brookline resident Thomas Shack has announced that he has opened an exploratory committee and will be launching a listening tour of sorts in anticipation of a possible run for Congress. Shack is another barely distinguishable centrist to add to this field which already has too many of them. He voted in the Republican Presidential and state primaries in 2008, according to voter records, and he was appointed to his position in 2015 by Republican governor Charlie Baker. His campaign announcement was also full of the kind of mushy meaningless language that called Donald Trump “greatest threat to our democracy in a generation” one sentence, and then soon after talked about “bridging the divides” with the Party that supports him unquestioningly every step of the way.

Also this week, two endorsements were made. Longtime state Rep. Ruth Balser endorsed fellow Newton politician Becky Grossman, and Diane Patrick, wife of former governor and current presidential candidate Deval Patrick, has endorsed Jesse Mermell.

MA-08

Another challenger has jumped into the race — Robbie Goldstein, a doctor and the director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Transgender Health Program, announced his candidacy Monday morning. Informed by his medical background and history of LGBTQ+ advocacy and care, Goldstein is running on Medicare for All and a larger progressive platform. Goldstein is the second queer candidate in the race (the other being Brianna Wu), and while Victory Fund hasn’t made an endorsement, they’ve recently started getting involved in competitive Democratic primaries, so it’ll be interesting to see if they make a decision.

It’s good for progressives to have options in this race provided we go into the actual primary election unified around one of the two, and there’s still plenty of time for that - the primary isn’t until September. As a reminder, Stephen Lynch is one of the worst Democrats in Congress, and is gunning for committee leadership next year, so either of them would be infinitely better than what we have now.

NY-17

Two new candidates announced their candidacy for the open seat in NY-17. On Thursday, activist and former NARAL chair Allison Fine announced and then on Monday, former Obama Pentagon official Evelyn Farkas jumped in too.

As a candidate, Fine is only, well, fine (sorry not sorry). She has mentioned reproductive rights as one of her top issues, and given her history working for NARAL, it’s probably safe to say that she means it. She has also sworn off corporate money. On the other hand, she supports a public health care option rather than Medicare for All, and sounds ready to continue Lowey’s hawkish stances on Israel (although, this position might earn her some votes from Westchester County’s large Jewish population).

Farkas served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and neighboring countries under President Obama until 2015. Farkas gained media in 2017 when during an MSNBC interview she mentioned concern over election interference from Russia and that she had urged her colleagues to investigate as much as possible before leaving office. Her comments led to Republicans to spread the lie that the Obama administration was spying on Trump. As someone who has a lot of experience dealing with Russia and Ukraine, Farkas could make an interesting Congress Member, especially with the contrast of the ongoing impeachment inquiry focusing heavily on Ukraine and Russia. Though, Farkas’ connections to Obama’s foreign policy make her more iffy. We’ll hold off final judgement until she releases more specific platform positions.

Fine and Farkas are joining a number of previously announced candidates, including State Senator David Carlucci, who sucks, and Mondaire Jones, whom we actually like. There are now three pro-choice women in this race, which means that EMILY’S LIST may choose not to endorse here.