Archive for the ‘Progressives’ Category

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

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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.

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

Progressives Wish List for Biden Starts With Warren and Sanders – The New York Times

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.

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

Progressives Suffered Big Losses on California Ballot Issues – New York Magazine

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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Progressives Suffered Big Losses on California Ballot Issues - New York Magazine

Progressives Are an Asset for the Democratic Party. It Should Treat Them That Way. – The Nation

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at the third Annual Women's Rally and March in New York. (Lev Radin / Shutterstock)

EDITORS NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvels column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrinas column here.

Join the Nation Festival for four days of essential conversation and commentary in the wake of the 2020 election.

Join the Nation Festival for four days of essential conversation and commentary in the wake of the 2020 election.

Is the growing progressive wing of the Democratic Party an asset or a liability? Do the largest citizen mobilizations in historygalvanized by the Black Lives Matter demonstrationsalienate more US voters than they bring to the polls? Before the presidential election was called on Saturday, and even as citizens filled the streets celebrating Joe Bidens projected victory over President Trump, recriminations were flying among Democrats distraught over the unexpected loss of House seats and their narrowed hopes of winning a Senate majority.

First-term Representative Abigail Spanberger (Va.), a former CIA analyst considered by many a centrist Democrat, reportedly blamed liberals who talked about socialism and defunding the police for losses in contested suburban districts. Veteran Representative James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking Democrat in the House, reportedly cautioned against running on Medicare for All or socialized medicine.

Before Democrats continue down this road, they should consider: Many of the progressive wings big ideas enjoy greater support than most Democratic candidates.

Read the full text of Katrinas column here.

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Progressives Are an Asset for the Democratic Party. It Should Treat Them That Way. - The Nation

Progressives praise Biden’s picks for economic transition team | TheHill – The Hill

President-elect Joe BidenJoe BidenFeds charge Staten Island man over threat to Schumer, FBI Pence cancels vacation in Florida: report Romney shoots down serving in Biden Cabinet MORE is earning praise from progressives for tapping a wide range of government veterans and academics to help form an economic team that will be tasked with trying to advance Democratic policies in a deeply divided Washington.

While Biden has not announced any Cabinet nominees, the scholars and economists he picked to lead agency review teams included familiar names in progressive circles.

Progressives abound on the teams that Biden has named to lead the transition process, but they, much like Biden himself, are institutionalists, not anti-establishment progressives, wrote Beacon Policy Advisors, a Washington, D.C., research firm, in a Wednesday research note.

Progressives hailed Bidens decision to tap Gary Gensler, the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to lead the transitions review of banking and securities regulators. Despite his tenure at Goldman Sachs, Genslers advocacy for tougher rules on complex financial trades has endeared him to industry skeptics.

Other members of the transition team who are favorites among progressives include AFL-CIO policy director Damon Silvers, former Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr and former Deputy Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Leandra English.

Biden has also enlisted leading experts on racial economic disparities and discrimination within the financial system for his agency review teams, a welcome sign for progressives who have called on Washington to play a greater role in creating a more equitable economy.

University of California Irvine law professor Mehrsa Baradaran, an expert on financial inclusion and discrimination, has joined the review teams for Treasury and banking and securities regulators. Michigan State University economics professor Lisa Cook, who has extensively studied the economic effects of racism, is also a member of the banking and securities regulation team.

I think some of this reflects that this administration, for the next two years, will likely rely heavily on administrative reform to help redirect the priorities of the nation and push more fairness and more economic reach for working families and families of color, said Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending.

But intraparty battles could flare up once Biden starts nominating key members of his administration.

The plum post will be Treasury secretary.

Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenSenate Democrats reelect Schumer as leader by acclamation Ocasio-Cortez says Rahm Emanuel would be a 'divisive pick' for Biden Cabinet Six people whose election wins made history MORE (D-Mass.) had been the dream choice among progressives ever since she dropped her presidential bid and endorsed Biden. While she has reportedly privately expressed interest in the job, Warrens hard-line views and the deep animosity she evokes from Republicans make her unlikely to be confirmed without a substantial Democratic majority.

Instead, Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, the sole Democrat on the central banks board, is expected to be a front-runner for the top Treasury post. As a former Treasury undersecretary in the Obama administration and economic adviser to former President Clinton, Brainards deep institutional ties and public resistance to the Feds regulatory rollbacks could temper some Republican opposition without alienating Democrats.

Brainard could face competition from other potential nominees like former Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson, former deputy Treasury secretary and Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic and Ariel Investments co-CEO Mellody Hobson.

During the Democratic primary, Biden did not emphasize financial regulatory issues as much as some of his more liberal challengers particularly Warren and Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersSenate Democrats reelect Schumer as leader by acclamation Ocasio-Cortez says Rahm Emanuel would be a 'divisive pick' for Biden Cabinet Six people whose election wins made history MORE (I-Vt.), who expressed interest Wednesday in being Labor secretary.

As Bidens opponents sought to paint him as insufficiently tough on Wall Street, the former vice president touted his work securing passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, the sweeping post-crisis financial reform law signed by former President Obama in 2010.

Biden sought to bridge divides within the Democratic Party between moderates and progressives and created a task force with Sanders to negotiate a set of shared principles many of which marked a significant step to the left for the party consensus on financial regulations.

That task force called for the creation of a government-run banking system set up through the Federal Reserve and Postal Service, strengthening Dodd-Frank regulations, and imposing greater separation between commercial and investment banking services.

Accomplishing some of those goals will be nearly impossible without sturdy Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. But Biden has already earned a small victory among progressives in the party with his picks to lay groundwork for that mission.

It's good news, but its not stunning that there's a lot of labor and progressive economists across the board, said Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project.

Hauser said that despite Bidens reputation as a moderate, he has been open to input from the left.

The progressive tilt of his transition team is now troubling some financial sector lobbyists who enjoyed steady regulatory rollbacks under the Trump administration.

The industry is bracing for Biden to appoint a Warren acolyte to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, meaning an exit for Trump-appointed Director Kathy Kraninger.

The most frequently mentioned and feared choices among financial sector advocates include Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), COVID-19Congressional Oversight Commission member Bharat Ramamurti and Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin.

What he has to do is appoint someone who is fair and balanced across the board, understands how banking works, understands how consumers need certain priced products to make ends meet," said Richard Hunt, president and CEO of the Consumer Bankers Association.

You should not appoint a director who believes a bank may be guilty before any examination ever occurred, he added.

When asked if he trusted Biden to do so, Hunt demurred.

My guess is he just wants to make it sensible and an industry that works and not hindered by over-regulation, he said. We're anxiously awaiting his appointments.

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Progressives praise Biden's picks for economic transition team | TheHill - The Hill