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Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar are boosting a petition against Joe Biden nominating his former chief of staff to a new role in his administration, calling Bruce Reed a "deficit hawk and criticizing his past support for Social Security and Medicare cuts.

Why it matters: Progressives are mounting their pressure campaign after the president-elect did not include any of their favored candidates in his first slate of Cabinet nominees, and they are serious about installing some of their allies, blocking anyone who doesn't pass their smell test and making noise if they are not heard.

Driving the news: Some progressives have privately said the order of Biden's announcements was important to send an early signal the incoming administration took them seriously. So far, theyre suspicious of some of the people being named or rumored for jobs but happy with John Kerry, Janet Yellen, Alejandro Mayorkas and Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Omar (D-Minn.) and fellow Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) are the first sitting members of Congress to sign the petition, which objects to Reed potentially serving as head of the Office of Management and Budget. It was launched by Justice Democrats.

What they're saying: Omar told Axios she's "proud to join Justice Democrats and our progressive coalition in saying no to deficit hawks.

The backdrop: Incoming Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush who are also backing the petition attended a protest last week outside the Democratic National Committee urging Biden to keep his promise to pass a $2 trillion climate policy.

Between the lines: Progressive groups and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party have been in communication with staff on the Biden-Harris transition team, discussing personnel and policy, according to people involved in those discussions.

Progressives scored a win this week when the transition team said it will name a "high-level White House Climate Policy Coordinator" next month.

The bottom line: While left-wing Democrats have had a seat at the table, they dont want Biden-Harris administration to morph into a third Obama term.

Original post:
AOC and Ilhan Omar want to block Bidens former chief of staff - Axios

Progressives have had a mixed reaction to President-elect Joe Biden's early administration announcements as they seek to gain influence in the coming Democratic administration.

Biden sought to ally himself with the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., after a contentious primary fight and formed a task force to forge a more progressive platform for his administration. Sanders and Warren are not expectedto receive administration appointments, however, both due to concerns that Republican senators would derail their nominations and that Republican governors in their states would then appoint GOP replacements.

Biden's early West Wing hires and Cabinet nominees have been greeted by progressives with a mix of praise and consternation about their corporate ties. Some leftists express concernthat the Biden administration, like the Obama administration, would be guided by "corporatists"who prioritize business interests. But they've also stressed that there is no question Biden's team is light years ahead of PresidentTrump's administration, which has featureda revolving door of lobbyistsand executives who undermined their agenciesand sought to funnel taxpayer money to their corporate pals.

"Trump's government run by the corporate lobbyists, for the corporate lobbyists has devastated programs and rules that help working people," Warren said earlier this month. "Americans have made it clear: the last thing they want is for Washington to again hand over the keys to giant corporations and lobbyists."

Biden's selections have prioritized experience, diversityand coalition-building, a far cry from the Trump administration's war against the very agencies it leads.

Biden's team on Monday announcedthat he would name Antony Blinken, his former national security adviser and deputy secretary of state, as his secretary of state. Matt Duss, Sanders' foreign policy adviser, said Blinken was a "good choice"and praised Biden for selecting a diplomat who has "regularly engaged with progressive grassroots." Former Sanders adviser Faiz Shakir agreed that Blinken was a "solid choice."

But Blinken's corporate ties have drawn some handwringing from the left. Blinken, along with Michle Flournoy, a former top Pentagon official and defense contractor executive, who isrumored to be the frontrunner to become Biden's defense secretary, founded WestExec Advisors after their time in the Obama administration. Thatconsulting firm, which includes numerous Obama alums, aims to help companies win Pentagon contracts and has extensive ties to a variety of defense contractors, The American Prospectreported. WestExechas also helped a number of Silicon Valley firms pitch the Pentagon for defense contracts, according to The Intercept.

Little else is known about the clients of the firm, which keeps its client roster secret and does not have to disclose their names as lobbying firm would. Watchdog groups have raised concerns over potential conflicts of interest arising from the firm's secret client list.

"It's a company that sells influence and connections," Mandy Smithberger of the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight told ABC News. "Particularly for those who are going to go through the confirmation process, it's important to know who they were working for and the kind of work they were doing."

Biden also tapped Jake Sullivan, an ex-adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ashis national security adviser. Sullivan has been praised as "brilliant"and an "all-star"but has his own corporate ties. Since 2017, Sullivan has worked for Macro Advisory Partners, a consulting firm that works with mining companies and sovereign wealth funds, among others, according to the American Prospect. Earlier this year, Sullivan worked with Uber to try to restrict contract workers from being entitled to benefits, according to the report.

Biden's team on Monday announced that Avril Haines, the former deputy national security adviser and deputy CIA director under Obama, would be his director of national intelligence. She has also served in the State Department and worked for Biden when he was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A Cuban-American immigrant, Haines would be the first woman to serve in the position.

Haines also previously worked as a consultant for the controversial data-mining firm Palantir, a fact that was scrapped from her bio when she joined the Biden campaign, according to The Intercept. "Co-founded by a far-right, Trump-supporting tech billionaire, Palantir, whose business has benefited from a slew of government contracts, has been accused of aiding in the Trump administration's immigration detention programs in the U.S. and helping the Trump administration build out its surveillance state," the Intercept reported.

Biden has picked former Deputy Homeland Security Secretary and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Alejandro Mayorkas as his nominee to besecretary of Homeland Security. Former HUD Secretary Julin Castro praised Mayorkas, who would be the first Latino to lead DHS, as a "historic and experienced choice." A former federal prosecutor, Mayorkas has also worked as a private attorney representing Fortune 100 clients and other high-profile companies. He was investigated in 2015for intervening in visa cases on behalf of companies owned by Clinton's brother Anthony Rodham and longtime Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia.

Biden also tapped Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the longtime former top diplomat to Africa and head of the U.S. Foreign Service, as his ambassador to the United Nations. Thomas-Greenfield has been widely praised for her experience and commitment to the Foreign Service, though The New York Times' Ken Vogelnoted that she also served assenior vice president of a firm "that represented embattled Swiss-based mining giant Glencore," which is facing allegations of corruptionin the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Biden's early selections also include former Secretary of State John Kerry, who has served as an adviser to Bank of America, as a climate czar; longtime aide Ron Klain, a venture capital executive, as White House chief of staff; longtime health care lobbyistSteve Ricchetti as a senior counselor; Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., a top recipient ofoil and gas money, as senior adviser; and former campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon, the co-founder of Precision Strategies, which represents pharmaceutical and private equity firms, as deputy chief of staff.

Klain has largely drawn praise from progressives like Warren and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., but progressive groups have called Richmond's selection a "betrayal"and "really disappointing." Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the Revolving Door Project, told The New York Timesthat Ricchetti was"a figure so paradigmatically swampy that the writers of 'House of Cards' might reject his biography as overly stereotypical."

Progressives have also warned Biden against selecting "divisive"former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to his Cabinet and haveexpressed concerns about Biden's transition team, which includes executives from Amazon, Lyft, Facebookand other tech firms. A variety of progressive groups, includingDemos, MoveOn, Our Revolution, Sunrise Movementand the Working Families Party,sent a letter to Bidencalling for him to avoid nominating "corporate executives, lobbyists, and prominent corporate consultants" to top positions. Many others have called for Biden to bar officials from working on issues on which they had lobbied in the past two years, as Obama did. Biden has not been nearly as averse to lobbyists as Obama, and has resisted calls for a lobbyist ban.

Some House Democrats have also pressed the party leadership to push back on corporate influence within the coming Biden administration.

"If the C.E.O. of a fossil fuel corporation should not be put in charge of U.S. diplomacy or an oil lobbyist should not be put in charge of the Interior Department under a Republican administration, there is no reason to believe that an officer or lobbyist at a major bank or financial firm should be put in charge of financial policy under a Democratic administration," a group of Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ral Grijalva, D-Ariz., Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Katie Porter, D-Calif., said in a letter to Senate leaders.

Other progressives have cautioned against litmus tests for administration picks.

"I understand the desire to have people that are ideologically aligned," Meredith McGehee, the head of IssueOne, a group seeking to limit money in politics, told The New York Times. "But when you start doing litmus tests on appointees it can backfire. You need to have appointees in the administration who can work with a range of people in Congress or you are not likely to get much done."

Moderate Democratic groups have also argued that a litmus test "makes it harder to get the diverse Cabinet"Biden and progressives want.

Others have argued that competency and experience are more important traits in administration appointments than ideological purity, particularly after Trump spent years crippling federal agencies.

"I need a team ready on Day 1 to help me reclaim America's seat at the head of the table, rally the world to meet the biggest challenges we face and advance our security, prosperity and values," Biden said in a statement on Monday after announcing his national security team."These individuals are equally as experienced and crisis-tested as they are innovative and imaginative. Their accomplishments in diplomacy are unmatched, but they also reflect the idea that we cannot meet the profound challenges of this new moment with old thinking and unchanged habits or without diversity of background and perspective. It's why I've selected them."

As the left debates how much or how little to push the incoming administration, Washington lobbying firms are celebrating a return to normal after the Trump administration limited influence to a small number of well-connected firms, according to The New York Times. Some firms have hired officials close to Biden while others stand to benefit from longstanding connections to the administration.

Amid the battle between the left and the more corporate-friendly wing of the Democratic Party, progressives have vowed to continue organizing to push the Biden administration to keep its campaign promises.

"We're going to organize and demand that this administration which I believe is decent and kind and honorable keep their promise," Ocasio-Cortez told a group of activists last week. "Keeps its promise to young people. Keeps its promise to the movement for Black lives. Keeps its promise to working-class people across the United States."

See the rest here:
Progressives praise early Biden picks but worry his team is stacked with corporatists - Salon

Courtesy of mollyktadams via Creative Commons

This year even more progressive Democrats have been elected to Congress, joining the ranks of representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pramila Jayapal and Ayanna Pressley, to name a few. However, these newcomers have been met with the same resistance that other progressive congress people have received from Democratic leaders. Following the recent election, moderate Democrats were quick to blame the left side of the partys flank for close races in swing districts as well as lost seats. Rep. Abigail Spanberger blamed the American boogeyman of socialism for her close race, stating We need to not ever use the word socialist or socialism ever again.

Democratic Party leaders are weary of progressive policy ideas, even though they helped candidates win many House races. Senator Bernie Sanders pointed out on Twitter that all 112 co-sponsors of Medicare for All won reelection, as did 98 of the 99 co-sponsors of the Green New Deal. In an interview with New York Times, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez also emphasized that some progressives who retained their seats did so in swing districts like Rep. Mike Levin, a co-sponsor and advocate of the Green New Deal. Its clear Americans believe in these policies. Now, the Democratic Party needs to fulfill its image as the Big Tent Party by making room for progressive ideals and caucus members especially because they win.

Since the 2020 election, progressives have been belittled by their caucus and blamed for party losses in the House of Representatives, but this isnt the first time ranking Democratic Party members have brushed aside progressive ideals. Take the Green New Deal, for example. In 2019, Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed it as the green dream or whatever. Similarly, Senator Dianne Feinstein ridiculed elementary school children associated with the Sunrise Movement and replied to their demands with the age-old excuse, Theres no way to pay for it. But these leaders fail to acknowledge that the slogans they blame for Democratic incumbents defeat, such as defund the police, came from activist groups and not progressive congressional campaigns. Using their further-left peers as scapegoats is not helpful in realizing the ideal of the big tent the Democratic Party claims to be.

When it comes to the Green New Deal in particular, centrists moves to distance themselves from progressive plans are also unproductive for their personal careers. 49% of swing district voters are actually in favor of the climate action plan. Of the 99 co-sponsors of the Green New Deal, only one member from a swing district lost their seat. In fact, campaigning on it helped incumbents like Rep. Levin, who penned an op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune in support of the Green New Deal. The ambitious plan is not the Achilles heel moderate Democrats frame it to be. Both Democratic voters and young Republicans are demanding government action to mitigate the climate crisis. The Green New Deal would not only fulfill that demand but also create jobs and stimulate the economy. So how could it be at fault for Democratic losses?

Despite centrist Democrats complaints and criticism, Medicare for All also did not hurt incumbents who ran on it nor is it an unpopular policy in public opinion. A 2020 Hill-HarrisX poll found that 69% of voters favor Medicare for All. Rep. Katie Porter flipped her district in 2018 while running on the policy and held on to her swing district in 2020 as well. Other pro-Medicare for All candidates, like Rep. Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania and Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, also retained their seats in districts that Trump won in 2020. It makes absolutely no sense to blame Democratic losses on Medicare for All when the 112 incumbent co-sponsors of the bill won their 2020 races. It deflects responsibility from the national party, whose poor campaign strategies cost Alabama Senator Doug Jones and other well-funded Democratic hopefuls their races. These losses didnt happen because of Medicare for All or any other progressive policy mission. They happened because the Democratic campaign committees for both the House and Senate are failing to engage with voters in the right ways.

The Green New Deal and Medicare for All are the best known progressive policy proposals, but Americans want similar changes across the board. For example, 67% of Americans support raising the federal minimum wage. When the House passed a bill to do so in the summer of 2019, three Republican representatives crossed party lines in support of the measure. Americans across the political spectrum support this progressive policy, signaling that progressives offer something new and necessary that centrist Democrats are missing.

The branches of the Democratic Party have defeated Donald Trump, their common enemy, but failed to reach the 2020 blue wave for which theyd hoped. Now they are becoming a divided tent, once again scapegoating the progressive branch of the party. Instead of demonizing the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, centrist Democrats should listen to progressives. People want the real, robust action on climate change, healthcare and the economy that progressive policies deliver and in the next election cycles, I expect many progressives to retain their seats and more to join their ranks in Congress. If the old guard of Democratic leadership has any wisdom left, they will recognize the advantages progressive policies and candidates bring to the table rather than work against their own peers to the nations detriment.

[emailprotected]

@theisaacreese

Link:
Reese: Progressives Are Winning And Centrist Democrats Need to Stop Scapegoating Them - Daily Utah Chronicle

Still, some of the people on the list are sure to cause consternation in the partys moderate wing.

Among the leaders the groups are pressing Mr. Biden to appoint, for instance, are Ms. Warren as Treasury secretary and Mr. Sanders as labor secretary both standard-bearers of the progressive movement whose policies are viewed by some Democrats as too extreme.

Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are both said to be interested in the jobs. But appointing them to top government posts would be complicated by the fact that the states they represent, Massachusetts and Vermont, are led by Republican governors, and Democrats would want to make sure that any replacements would caucus with them to keep the balance of the Senate intact.

Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont said last month that if Mr. Sanders were appointed to the cabinet, he would choose an independent who would caucus with the Democrats as a replacement. And progressives have argued that the Democratic-controlled legislature in Massachusetts could try to change state law to ensure a Democrat would temporarily replace Ms. Warren.

Also on the groups list are:

Representative Barbara Lee of California for secretary of state

Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, for attorney general

Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, one of the four congresswomen known as the Squad, for secretary of housing and urban development

Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, for secretary of health and human services

Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico for secretary of the interior

Representative Chuy Garca of Illinois for secretary of transportation

Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine for secretary of agriculture

The economist Joseph E. Stiglitz for director of the National Economic Council

Darrick Hamilton, an economist and the executive director of the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University, for chair of the Council of Economic Advisers

Mustafa Ali, vice president of environmental justice, climate and community revitalization for the National Wildlife Federation, for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

As part of their list of recommendations, the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats are also urging Mr. Biden to create a new White House Office of Climate Mobilization to coordinate climate efforts across the government, and to appoint as its leader either Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, whose presidential campaign last year centered on climate change; Gina McCarthy, an E.P.A. administrator under President Barack Obama; or John Podesta, the founder of the Center for American Progress who was an adviser to Mr. Obama on climate change. The proposal for the office was part of a sweeping set of recommendations put forth by Biden-Sanders joint policy task forces over the summer.

In addition to their top choices for each high-level position, the groups also provided alternative options, including Sarah Bloom Raskin, who served as deputy secretary of the Treasury under Mr. Obama, for Treasury secretary; Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey for secretary of agriculture; Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants union, for secretary of transportation; and Representative Ro Khanna for secretary of state.

That the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats, the two groups that perhaps most represent the next generation of left-wing activists, have publicly offered their recommendations just days after Mr. Biden was declared the president-elect with a victory in Pennsylvania reflects the urgency with which progressives are now approaching the soon-to-be Biden administration.

Also on Wednesday, the Human Rights Campaign, one of the nations largest advocacy organizations for L.G.B.T.Q. people, is releasing a 24-page blueprint for administrative action.

Read more:
Progressives Wish List for Biden Starts With Warren and Sanders - The New York Times

Prop 16, aimed at restoring affirmative-action programs, lost decisively. Photo: Allison Zaucha for The Washington Post via Getty Images

California progressives entered the 2020 election cycle with high hopes for success in the states famously expensive and complex landscapes for ballot initiatives. It would be, after all, a high-turnout presidential year with no major statewide races to distract voters and presumably the effort to eject Californias least-favorite politician, Donald Trump, would drive Democratic participation. So progressives chose 2020 as the right time to push a number of high-priority initiatives they knew would be a tough sell, particularly a long-planned effort to remove commercial property from the assessment and rate protection of the ancient and untouchable Proposition 13 and a drive to revoke an earlier initiative banning affirmative-action preferences in college admissions and state employment and contracting. At the same time, progressives were trying to ward off conservative ballot initiatives cracking down on criminal-justice reforms and, in the most expensive campaign in national ballot-initiative history, exempting gig workers from protections and benefits extended to employees.

As it happened, both the split roll initiative on commercial property taxes, Prop 15, and the affirmative-action initiative, Prop 16, went down to defeat, as did progressive initiatives expanding local-government rent-control authority, abolishing cash bail, and allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primaries prior to general elections for which they are qualified to vote. Meanwhile, the gig worker initiative, Prop 22 massively financed by Uber, Lyft, Instacart, DoorDash, and other companies utilizing cheap drivers and services comfortably passed on a wave of misleading ads. All in all, seven of 12 ballot initiatives went down to defeat, with two others still too close to call. And its entirely possible a generally negative climate driven by COVID-19 and wildfires alongside voter confusion spiked no votes regardless of party or ideology.

But excuses aside, it was a disappointing result for the progressives who in recent years helped Democrats gain supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature (which they retained on November 3). Perhaps a leading indicator was the surprising failure of a state bond initiative to benefit both K-12 and higher education, which was on the ballot in this years March 3 primary, just before the pandemic really hit. But COVID-19 certainly didnt help: One of the most effective arguments made against Prop 15 was that it was absolutely the wrong time for California to raise taxes on businesses that were generally struggling during a partial shutdown of the economy.

And the general atmosphere of crisis probably did boost no votes across the board. Prop 14, authorizing bond proceeds to fund a state institute on stem-cell research, sounded pretty innocuous, but the results are too close to call. The same is true of Prop 19, a veritable Christmas tree of an initiative that hands out real-estate-tax goodies to seniors while closing loopholes benefiting nonresident rich people and also cutting in victims of wildfires. A narrower initiative just focused on seniors barely lost in 2018, without the sweeteners, but this year Prop 19 is too close to call.

The no trend helped progressives, however, stop Prop 20, aimed at reclassifying certain criminal sentences as felonies rather than misdemeanors, and didnt stop passage of Prop 17, restoring voting rights to felons on parole.

Its unclear at this point whether some of the defeated progressive causes will make a comeback in the near term. Some, like the reinstitution of affirmative-action programs, seem to simply represent a consistently unpopular position.

No one should interpret the 2020 California elections as some sort of triumph for conservatism. Yes, Republicans may claw back a couple of the U.S. House seats they lost in 2018. But Democratic power in the state legislature will be undiminished in 2021. Most important, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump here by better than 30 points, which is why the junior U.S. senator from California is about to become vice-president. But what might have been will haunt Golden State progressives for years to come.

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Read more here:
Progressives Suffered Big Losses on California Ballot Issues - New York Magazine