Archive for the ‘Democrats’ Category

Democrats launch scorched-earth strategy against Trump – Politico

What began as a high-minded discussion about how to position the Democratic Party against President Donald Trump appears to be nearing its conclusion. The bulk of the party has settled on a scorched-earth, not-now-not-ever model of opposition.

In legislative proposals, campaign promises, donor pitches and even in some Senate hearings, Democrats have opted for a hard-line, give-no-quarter posture, a reflection of a seething party base that will have it no other way.

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According to interviews with roughly two dozen party leaders and elected officeholders, the internal debate over whether to take the conciliatory path to pursue a high-road approach as a contrast to Trumps deeply polarizing and norm-violating style is largely settled, cemented in place by a transition and first week in office that has confirmed the lefts worst fears about Trumps temperament.

They were entitled to a grace period, but it was midnight the night of the inauguration to 8 o'clock the next morning, when the administration sent out people to lie about numerous significant things. And the damage to the credibility of the presidency has already been profound, said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. They were entitled to a grace period and they blew it. Its been worse than I could have imagined, the first few days."

That conclusion comes after two months of intraparty debates about how to outwardly treat the Trump White House, a process which played out not only in public but also in private meetings and conference calls between leading party operatives, elected officials and message crafters.

I predict the coming divide in the Democratic Party wont be ideological so much as it will be between those who resist and oppose and those who accommodate and appease, strategist David Brock told roughly 120 donors gathered in Florida over the weekend to plot a path forward.

That mind-set has permeated every outpost of the party from governors' mansions to Congress. Whether its in statehouses or the offices of state attorneys general, the Democratic National Committee or the constellation of outside left-leaning political groups, Trumps benefit of the doubt is gone.

At a forum this week for candidates running to be the next DNC chair, the very idea that the party should try to work with the new president was dismissed as absurd.

Thats a question thats absolutely ridiculous, said New Hampshire party Chairman Raymond Buckley, when asked whether the Democratic Party should try to work with Trump where it can find opportunities.

Television commentator Jehmu Greene offered: If you saw the millions of people who marched in the streets this weekend and participated in it, they are looking to the Democratic Party. We have an opportunity as a party to be that place of resistance. So we have to form a solid resistance as a party. And no, it is not about working with Donald Trump. .

Some party leaders are wary of the implications of teeth-baring, no-holds-barred opposition. They worry about the difficult position in which it puts vulnerable Democratic senators 10 of them will be up for reelection in 2018 in states that Trump carried.

There are also concerns about the dangers of appearing overly obstructionist, and the possible blowback it could create for party officeholders up and down the ballot in 2018. An explicitly aggressive approach also stands to shape the 2020 presidential field, incentivizing potential candidates to compete in expressing their level of anti-Trump vitriol.

We need to remember that one of the reasons young voters, especially, were uninspired is you cant have a message of, Im not him, cautioned DNC vice chairman R.T. Rybak, the former Minneapolis mayor.

Focusing too much on what he says every absurdity, every misrepresentation of fact, every lie that comes out of his mouth or his tweets makes no sense to me, said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a candidate for California governor. "The best way to fight Trump is to chart what represents the values, the priorities that were for. I dont think it makes sense to spend all of our time responding to every tweet, I think that will just reinforce a notion that many people have in our country that we put party before country."

Brocks Florida conference outlined some of the philosophical fault lines. In one closed-door session, Chicago mayor and former Barack Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel advocated a measured approach to Trump opposition, one in which Democrats choose only specific fights with a tight game plan. Sitting opposite Emanuel, former Joe Biden chief of staff Ron Klain shared his rules for a 100 Day Fight Club a battle royal he advocated to mark Trumps opening stretch, according to people in the room.

Other sessions detailed a massive pushback operation that featured expansive litigation plans and opposition research efforts.

Three days ago, Donald Trump went from being a private citizen who tweets and criticizes to the establishment, said Ted Lieu, a Los Angeles-area congressman who has been vocally anti-Trump, to the point of introducing legislation to stop the new president from launching a nuclear first strike without passing it by Congress. He and the Republicans have unified control, and they own it. It is Trumps foreign policy, Trumps economy, Trumps health care plan. So he has to govern, and in less than two years voters will go to the polls, and he has to own it.

Added Zac Petkanas, director of the DNCs anti-Trump war room: We are very wary that this administration is trying to flood the zone with a whole lot of stuff that is very objectionable all at once, and make it very difficult by creating a cacophony of terribleness so that not one thing gets through. Its a tactic that they used on the campaign, and they were fairly successful at doing so, so in a lot of ways we look at our jobs as focusing in on what we think are the most objectionable things." The DNC war room is currently taking on Trump's Cabinet nominees, ties to Russia and potential conflicts of interest.

Even so, strident anti-Trump Democrats worry that deal-makers like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will try to find agreements with the new president concerns that have been heightened by the Cabinet confirmation process, in which Schumer has prioritized eight nominees rather than trying to gum up all the picks at once.

In their view, a true opposition party in the Senate should grind all Republican movement to a halt. But that creates a problem for the senators leading the charge, who insist choosing their battles is the most effective way to kneecap Trumps agenda.

Opposing every nominee was not seriously on the table; it never has been. Thats not a test of whether or not youre resistant," said Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, noting that the party simply doesnt have the votes to stop many of them.

Democratic lawmakers have still found ways to embarrass Trump, by pushing to get Trumps nominees to disagree with the president and introducing legislation aimed at disempowering him or forcing him to disclose personal information like tax returns. And by letting some of Trumps less objectionable picks through without a fight, like Housing and Urban Development Secretary nominee Ben Carson, senators believe they can inoculate themselves from the criticism of obstructionism often leveled at McConnell during Obamas presidency.

Weve spoken from our collective gut, and that has rung true with a lot of our supporters because they see us finding our spine, and likewise we see millions of Americans spontaneously marching and we find courage and strength, said Schatz, speaking of Senate Democrats strategy to consider Trumps nominees. "So what I like about whats happening out there across the country and within the Senate is its not centrally planned, its not run by a communications shop. This is the 48 of us doing our job because we understand that for a lot of people who are terrified by whats happening in the country, for them were the tip of the spear."

While some building unions a small element of the traditional Democratic coalition have shown particular willingness to collaborate with Trump due to his talk about infrastructure investment, for the most part there are few cracks in the Democratic facade.

I havent slept a good night since Nov. 8, but the things that dont keep me up at night are: Will Trump offer up things that Democrats will be tempted to support? said Klain, a top adviser to Hillary Clinton.

Something we see is the question, Is Donald Trump going to propose reasonable policies that people can get behind? That doesnt feel like a problem were going to have, said Jessica Mackler, president of American Bridge, Democrats main opposition research group. So far weve seen no evidence that this is a choice were going to have to make."

Even governors, the realistic executives who understand the challenges of governance and management, are lining up to insist they won't fall for Trump's enticements in the form of infrastructure investments.

Ive never been a proponent of cutting off your nose to spite your face. There are going to be some things we can agree on, said Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy. Im not precluding the possibility, but were not going to agree to discriminate, were not going to agree to make poor people poorer, were not going to agree to turn our back on our international obligations."

Added Inslee: Early in our resistance to his potential damage to our states, were going to be vocal. In the middle, were going to be persistent, and at the end, were going to be resistant. If the federal government wants to send several billion dollars to my office to help infrastructure, you cant say no, added Inslee. But we will say no very loudly, very vocally, very consistently to the idea thats going to be some leverage for not protecting people based on race or ethnicity."

By delivering a massive slight to the president on the first day of the Trump era roughly a third of the House Democratic Caucus refused to attend his inauguration Democrats sent a strong signal about their intentions both to the White House and to the American public.

Although few in the party took issue with the inaugural strategy, leading party strategists and officials caution that an oppose-at-all costs strategy may not leave enough room for the flexibility Democrats may need at some point.

After all, they're dealing with a singularly mercurial president.

Weve never seen anything like him. This isnt ideological. Hes taken this to places weve never been. Hes said things weve never heard from a commander in chief, said Villaraigosa. So all I can tell you is any game plan you have for Donald Trump should have a fair amount of audibles."

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Democrats launch scorched-earth strategy against Trump - Politico

Senators Warren and Booker try to answer Democratic anger at votes for Trump nominees – Washington Post

This week, in a video message to his 800,000-plus Facebook followers, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) promised to keep resisting the Trump administration, in solidarity with the people in the streets.

Dont let this stuff become normal so were just becoming numb to it, Booker said. We have got to stay in the trenches and keep fighting.

Below that video and below an image of Booker testifying against Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) this month the senator was deluged with people asking for more.

You are my senator, said Eileen Mary Kenny. I voted for you enthusiastically. Id like you and the Democrats to be MUCH tougher on this administration. Please block these terrible Cabinet nominees. Obstruct in every way you can.

Im not overwhelmed, I am pissed! said Alice Carney. YOU, Cory, need to obstruct everything they are doing.

Senator you need to truly represent our state, said Brenda Santos. Please do not vote for ANY Cabinet picks.

Nearly every Democrat has been hearing the same this week; the partys embrace of mass protests has happened in tandem with votes to approve the first batch of President Trumps Cabinet picks, from CIA Director Mike Pompeo to all-but-certain HUD Secretary Ben Carson. On Twitter and other social media, Democrats are excoriated for the votes; there are fitful suggestions of primary challenges for senators who go off the reservation. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who, like Booker, is considered a potential presidential candidate, won praise for opposing every nominee; she then voted for Nikki Haley to become ambassador to the United Nations.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the lefts most popular figures, attempted to quell protests about her vote for Carson with a Facebook post. With palpable frustration okay, lets talk about Ben Carson Warren said that she and every Democrat was faced not with choices between opposition and appeasement, but bad and worse.

In his written responses to me, he made good, detailed promises, on everything from protecting anti-homelessness programs to enforcing fair housing laws, Warren wrote. Promises that if theyre honored would help a lot of working families. Can we count on Dr. Carson to keep those promises? I dont know. People are right to be skeptical; I am. But a man who makes written promises gives us a toehold on accountability. If President Trump goes to his second choice, I dont think we will get another HUD nominee who will even make these promises much less follow through on them.

The wild-swinging criticism of Democrats has not focused on a particular way to slow down nominees. The Democrats have fewer tools available to them than any opposition party in history, thanks to their 2013 reform of filibuster rules that allowed blocked nominees like the CFPBs Richard Cordray and former secretary oflabor Tom Perez to be confirmed.

The filibuster does apply to Supreme Court nominees, meaning that, without a change to current rules, Republicans will need eight Democrats to vote for cloture on whomever Trump nominates next week. Several Democratic senators are on record characterizing the open seat as stolen, because Republicans refused to hold hearings on former president Barack Obamas nominee, Merrick Garland.

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Senators Warren and Booker try to answer Democratic anger at votes for Trump nominees - Washington Post

Connecticut Democrats Push for $15 Hourly Minimum Wage – Wall Street Journal


Wall Street Journal
Connecticut Democrats Push for $15 Hourly Minimum Wage
Wall Street Journal
Democratic lawmakers in Connecticut are pushing to raise the state's hourly minimum wage to $15, but they face a tougher fight to get it through as the state Senate is now evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. The state's minimum wage, ...

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Connecticut Democrats Push for $15 Hourly Minimum Wage - Wall Street Journal

Democrats Face Backlash After Approving Ben Carson For Cabinet Role – Patch.com


Patch.com
Democrats Face Backlash After Approving Ben Carson For Cabinet Role
Patch.com
Senate Democrats continue to face a backlash from their base after the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs unanimously approved Ben Carson to serve as secretary of housing and urban development. On Tuesday night, the 11 ...
Any Democrat Who Votes for Jeff Sessions Should Be Excommunicated from the PartyEsquire.com

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Democrats Face Backlash After Approving Ben Carson For Cabinet Role - Patch.com

Democrats’ Crusade Against Betsy DeVos Only Discredits Them – Reason (blog)

President Donald Trump's pugnacious and divisive inaugural address confirmed that there are going to be many, many things to fear over the next four years. But hisfiredoglake via Foter.com choice of Betsy DeVos for secretary of education is not one of them.

Despite what you may have heard from hyperventilating liberals, DeVos is among Trump's more sober Cabinet choices. She never joined his cheerleading squad like Housing and Urban Development nominee Ben Carson. And she was certainly not part of his inner circle hatching plans to court white voters by demonizing immigrants and minorities, like Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for attorney general. In fact, she declared relatively early that Trump did not "represent the Republican Party" and never retracted that statement.

Yet Democrats are treating her nomination like the ultimate scandal simply because she is an ardent proponent of school choice. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) seemingly avoided even shaking her hand. But if Democrats can't do business with DeVos, then is there any intellectual opponent with whom they can?

Now, to be sure, DeVos did not distinguish herself during her confirmation hearing with her knowledge of the finer points of education policy (she didn't seem to know about the debate between proficiency and growth metrics to measure student performance, for one thing). She was often tongue-tied and crumbled under questioning. But that's at least partly because Democratic senators came turbo-charged to play gotcha.

DeVos' final confirmation vote has been delayed to Jan. 31 pending a full ethics review. However, it is highly unlikely that she won't get confirmed given that she needs only a simple majority in the Senate. So Democrats should have used this occasion to understand and engage her views honestly. Instead they decided to grandstand.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) demanded to know if she had advocated conversion therapy for gays. She hasn't so what was the point of this question except to portray her as a religious zealot hell-bent on bringing her "overtly Christian agenda to Washington" as per a 20-page screed by Politico and besmirch her passion for school choice as a ploy to turn over schools to Christian churches? Evidently, it did not occur to Sen. Franken that her voucher plan would empower secular, Muslim, and Buddhist parents really, parents of every religious persuasion just as much as Christian ones.

Likewise, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) all but accused DeVos of buying her way to the secretary's position. "Do you think that if you were not a multi-billionaire, if your family had not made hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions, that you would be sitting here today?," he asked as if her advocacy of school choice was just a ruse to buy political influence rather than the other way around.

Not to be outdone, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) asked her if guns should be allowed in schools never mind that a gun ban within 1,000 feet of a school has existed since 1996 and yet couldn't prevent the Newton massacre in his state. It was a pointless question given that an education secretary can't unilaterally overturn the ban and isn't responsible for enforcing it. DeVos' answer that the matter is probably best left to local schools able to make individualized assessment of threat levels was essentially correct, even if her grizzly bear example was somewhat clumsy. But why did Murphy feel the need to ask this question at all? No doubt to indulge his own anti-gun hobbyhorse! But, hey, DeVos is the ideologue.

And then there was Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who demanded that DeVos pledge that she wouldn't "cut a penny from public education" or use her perch at the department to privatize public schools. DeVos assured her that she would support all great schools, including public ones which implied that failing ones may be shut down. This, too, was a perfectly sensible response that should be cheered by anyone interested in children instead of teachers' unions. But not Murray, who also wasn't placated by DeVos' guarantee that she wouldn't force states to adopt voucher programs either through federal regulations or legislation. Instead, DeVos said, states should get to decide whether they want to embrace private school choice. Murray's response? A pout: "I take that as not be willing to commit to not privatizing public schools or cutting money from education."

What was most galling about the confirmation charade was the conceit of Murray and her gang that their positions are based on hard evidence and science while DeVos' are simply a reflection of her ideological fanaticism. But the fact of the matter is that there are two education paradigms in this country the old one that favors public accountability via the political process and the new one that favors parental accountability via the market process. Democrats are wedded to the first one for ideological reasons despite its 200-year history of failing poor kids and simply won't give the second a chance. That's why they also declared war on DeVos for shielding Detroit's charter schools from being taken over by politicians. Incidentally, these charters, while far from perfect, have shown much better results than comparable public schools, as three independent studies, including by Stanford's CREDO, have shown.

If the DeVos confirmation hearing exposed anything at all, it is that the Democratic Party is now the Dogmatic Party. And that will not position it to fight the genuine threats to vulnerable minorities that the Trump presidency will almost certainly bring.

This column originally appearead in The Week

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Democrats' Crusade Against Betsy DeVos Only Discredits Them - Reason (blog)