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Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com.

ByLarry Roberts

This is the final installment in a series of columns about how Arlington progressives and 8thCongressional District (Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church and parts of Fairfax) Democrats responded from a policy perspective to the 2016 Presidential election.

I am providing again without editorial comment the progressive agenda as defined by resolutions adopted by the 8thCongressional District Democratic Convention delegates. This is a window into the views of progressive voters entering a gubernatorial election year with an outcome that will have a dramatic effect on progressives, Arlington County and the Commonwealths future.

Support for Local Moderate Income Down Payment Assistance Programs. We support Virginia developing local down payment assistance programs for well qualified first-time homebuyers; income limits for those who can qualify should consider multiple independent income earners in conjunction with or rather than total household size; and adding minimum annual student loan payments to the formula for determining income limits.

Thanking Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) for His Service to Virginia. McAuliffe has served as Virginias Governor with distinction. He restored public trust and confidence in the office in the wake of conflict of interest scandals surrounding his predecessor. On his first day in office, the Governor signed an executive order imposing a $100 gift ban on himself, his family and members of his administration and their families.

Under his leadership, Virginia has announced 926 projects, created 189,200 new jobs and attracted $15.86 billion in new capital investment. McAuliffe has worked to prepare the Commonwealth for the effects of climate changes and to reduce Virginias contribution to its causes. To promote Virginias State Park System, he will visit every state park.

In addition to positive leadership on important policy issues, the Governor has been an essential bulwark against the mean-spirited attempts of the Republican-controlled General Assembly to take Virginia backwards on many social and economic issues. He has vetoed 91 bills and has amended many additional ones. Absent his actions, Virginia would be far less welcoming to many of its residents.

Therefore, the Convention congratulates McAuliffe on a job well done and urges voters to elect a Democratic successor to continue his efforts to curb the excesses of the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Title IX. Protections for transgender students should be reinstated and guidance issued, and investigations commenced by the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education should be continued per the current standards. Additionally, the OCR should be fully funded to ensure that all students in Virginia are protected so that they can attend public schools and universities safely and free of discrimination. All K-12 and Virginia higher education institutions should advance and enforce the principles and legal standards of equality promulgated under Title IX.

Title X. Title X of the Population Research and Voluntary Family Planning Program provides significant and critical health and economic benefits for individuals, families and society. Millions of low income men and women in the United States rely on publicly funded services through Title X, family planning services, and other health care services including early detection and treatment of STIs and cervical cancer.

Without adequate funding to Title X to pay for these services, many men and women in Virginia will have no access to these lifesaving and family planning services. Sufficient funding should be provided to adequately meet the needs of the residents of Virginia who rely on services funded through Title X. The Federal government should prohibit discrimination against Title X providers that perform abortions with non-federal funds.

Voting Rights. We condemn any measure that seeks to gain political advantage by hindering citizens from exercising their fundamental right to vote; urge Congress to act promptly to fix Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act so that states with a recent history of discrimination will once again be subject to pre-clearance review by the Department of Justice; urge the General Assembly to enact a no-excuse in-person early (absentee) voting procedures, repeal the recently-enacted voter ID laws, and streamline voter registration procedures; and commend McAuliffes actions to restore voting rights to convicted felons who have served their time without the unnecessary and time consuming application process previously imposed.

The General Assembly must amend Article II, Section I of the State Constitution to remove Jim Crow-era felon disenfranchisement provisions. The Virginia Parole Board and other government organizations should actively educate Virginians on their restored voting rights and assist them in registering to vote.

Larry Roberts is an attorney in private practice who has previously served in the state Cabinet as Counselor to Governor Tim Kaine and as Arlington County Democratic Committee Chair. He has been Chair for three successful statewide political campaigns, including Justin Fairfaxs campaign to be the Democratic nominee for Lt. Governor in 2017.

Continued here:
Progressive Voice: A Progressive Agenda Part 5 | ARLnow.com - ARL now

DNC Chair Tom Perez. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In May 2017, the Democratic National Committee (DNC)postedits worst fundraising month since 2003, and April 2017 was its worst since 2009. Its abysmal fundraising turnout has continued into June, during which it only raised$5.5 millionand added $200,000 to the organizations debt of $3.3 million. The DNC has $7.5 million in cash on hand. For comparison, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has over $44 million and no debt. The DNCs lack of cash doesnt bode well forDemocratshoping to recoup their losses in 2018.

While the DNC has repelled progressives, voters, and even the wealthy donors that new DNC Chair Tom Perez was instilled to appease, theDemocraticCongressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is abandoning progressivesto shift the party further to the right. The DCCC receivedcriticismfor pouring funds and resources into Georgia special election congressional candidate Jon Ossoff while ignoring Bernie Sanders-backed candidates in special elections in Montana and Kansas. Ossoffs campaign received over $23 million in campaign funds, making it the most expensive congressional election in history. His election was supposed to prove that fiscally conservative neo-liberals running in wealthy suburbs was the key toDemocrats recovery. Even though Ossoff came up short, the DCCC is doubling down on running Republican-lite candidates.

IBTimesreportedon July 20, To the scorn of progressives,Democratstrying to win back the U.S. House next year are relying on the conservative wing of the party. TheDemocraticCongressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the Houses primary campaign group, is coordinating with the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 18 moderateDemocratsthat has shriveled in numbers and power in recent years, BloombergreportedMonday. The Blue Dog Coalition and the DCCC have widely favored courting Wall Street donors and appeasing them by propping up candidates who dont engage in rhetoric perceived as anti-Wall Street. By relying on moderate candidates, the DCCC is doubling down the faction thatran the party into the ground during theObamaadministration.

These people are the absolute last ones theDemocratsneed. Not only have the tectonic plates of politics fundamentally shifted from 2008, when the Blue Dogs peaked, the caucus ideology is bad and political poison, wrote Ryan Cooper in an op-ed for The Week. It may still be possible to win a race or two with a Blue Dog candidate. But their knee-jerk fiscal conservatism during a huge recession was politically catastrophic for the party as a whole (in addition to being stunningly economically illiterate).

The enthusiasm and energy within theDemocratic Partyis with the progressive wing, which champions policies like Medicare for All. TheDemocraticestablishmentresists progressives, and their failure to harness their energy ultimately benefits Trump and the Republican Party. Democratshave provided a pathetic opposition to Trumpand Republicans so far, and its likely these weaknesses will translate into losses come election season.

Steven ThrasherexplainedhowDemocratshave built the foundation for this weak opposition in a recent op-ed in The Guardian,TheDNCsinability to be an effective opposition party has been almost a decade in the making, exacerbated by their loss of over900 legislative seats since Obama took office in 2009; Obamas failure toprosecute Wall Street bankersafter they stolenearly half the black wealthin the country; the partys failure to develop an economic vision that waslittle more than Republican Lite(or, as Obamaput it, 1980s moderate Republicanism); and,unfairly helpingHillaryClintonduring the 2016 primaries, even though Bernie Sandersconsistently polled betterthan Clinton and the political winds (fanned by Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter) haveclearly moved onfrom neoliberal Clintonomics. Rather than harness progressives enthusiasm, which has gained strength withBernie Sanderspollingas the most popular politician in the country, Democratsto their detrimentare trying to revive past ideologies and strategies.

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Fundraising Trouble for DNC, DCCC Ignores Progressives for Wall ... - Observer

Progressive groups across the nation are launching their 2018 campaign efforts this weekend.

Their goal?Turn the 2018 midterms into a single-issue election that focuses solely on President Donald Trumps efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

The Health Care Voter campaign will kick off at more than 125 planned health care protests around the country. Voters will be asked to fill out a pledge cardvowingto vote out members of Congress who voteto get rid of Obamacare. The campaign will then use the collected contact information to alert voters about planned protests and town hall meetings.

The campaigns launch comes after the Senate votedto debate,predominantly alongparty lines, the GOP bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.

This vote is an attack against the most vulnerable people in the nation, a statement from the Womens March said in a tweet. Millions of families will now lose their health care coverage as a result of the GOPs vicious and dangerous actions.

Other progressive groups jumpedat the opportunity to wage attacks on Republican senators.

Republicans like Sens. Dean Heller and Rob Portman should be ashamed of themselves for ignoring the floods of people calling, protesting, and fighting like hell to keep their health care coverage,NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Houge said in a statement. The senators who voted to advance this bill yet again demonstrated that they will cast the health and well-being of women and families to the side in order to score points with the fringe elements of their base.

The American people will not sit by and be taken back to a time where people with pre-existing conditions died of easily treatable diseases, and people paid more for less comprehensive health care, Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of the pro-womens equality group UltraViolet, told CNN. Our lives depend on it, and our senators promised to protect us now we promise to make sure their constituents know how they voted.

Organizers and participants include:

One of the groups, Save My Care, launched radio attack ads targeting Republican Sens.Dean Heller (Nev.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) andCory Gardner (Colo.).

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Progressives launch massive campaign targeting Republicans who favor Obamacare repeal - TheBlaze.com

Attorney General Jeff Sessions looks during a press conference at the Department of Justice, in Washington, on July 13.

Aaron Bernstein/Reuters

All week, people have been making jokes on social media about how horrified they are to find themselves rooting for Jeff Sessions. With Sessions being publicly taunted and humiliated by Donald Trump every day in the press and on Twitter, even those who stand against everything he represents seem to be feeling protective of the attorney general. For many progressives, its a disorienting stance: Even as they condemn Sessions for all the policies hes pursued as the nations most powerful law enforcement officialon immigration, on police reform, on prison sentencingtheyve been put in the awkward position of hoping he keeps his job.

Leon Neyfakh is a Slate staff writer.

Theres no question that the attorney general has been a very detrimental force to civil rights progress and has undermined civil rights for so many communities even in the short time hes been attorney general, said Vanita Gupta, the former head of the Civil Rights Division and the president of theLeadership Conferenceon Civil and Human Rights. [But] I think it is really alarming that a president is attacking the Justice Departments independence and its institutional mandate to ensure that no one is above the law. Gupta called Trumps attacks on Sessions and DOJ a move toward autocracy, adding that while no one in the civil rights community is championing the attorney general, theres a sense that something fundamental is at stake here. I think the concern for civil rights advocates is the way in which this fundamentally undermines the rule of law.

Jonathan Smith, a civil rights attorney who spent four years working on police reform in the Obama Justice Department, took a similar position, telling me that in the absence of any good options, making sure Trump isnt allowed to overpower DOJ is of paramount importance. The attorney general should go, but not at the price of placing Trump above the law, he said in an email. The nation faces a terrible Hobsons choice, and Trump is a threat to the democracy.

I am not a Sessions fan (of course) but I find myself rooting for him to stay the course, said Richard Ugelow, an employment rights specialist who served in the Civil Rights Division for almost 30 years before leaving in 2004. The integrity and independence of DOJ is at issue.

This point of view makes intuitive sense to me. By making it clear that his anger at Sessions is almost entirely rooted in the attorney generals decision to give up oversight of the FBIs Russia investigation, Trump has effectively promised that hed try to replace Sessions with someone more obedient. Rudy Giuliani? Ted Cruz? A guy named John Huber from Utah? Whoever got the job, it seems obvious that this person would be tasked with making it easier for Trump to get rid of special counsel Robert Mueller and generally put the Justice Department under White House control. Under such extraordinary circumstances, rooting for Sessions feels like rooting for the rule of law and the continued independence of the Justice Department.

On Tuesday, some alumni of the department told me that this is nonsense. Sessions remains a villain, they said, and whatever the causes and consequences of his departure, it would be better if he wasnt the attorney general anymore.

I dont hope for one second that Jeff Sessions stays in his job, said University of Michigan Law School professor Sam Bagenstos, who began his career at DOJ in 1994 and later served as a political appointee under Obama. If Trump fires Sessions in an effort to interfere with Muellers investigation, that will be an abuse of power that I will criticize. And I will do what little I can effectively do to oppose Sessions replacement with someone who seems likely to abuse the power of the office.But I dont see how any of that would make me hope that Sessions stays.

Bagenstos argued that the premise that Sessions can be expected to protect the DOJs independence is incorrect. Sure, he recused himself from the Russia investigation, but he did that only because he was legally required to, and theres no reason to interpret it as a sign that Sessions will stand up for the DOJ in the future. Matthew Miller, an Obama-era spokesman for the DOJ, echoed this point: Sessions already demonstrated his lack of independence, Miller said, when he signed off on James Comeys firing in May, and he confirmed his status as a yes-man by staying silent in the face of Trumps outrageous tweets about the DOJ being weak on Hillary Clinton.

Its possible that Sessions successor would be less effective at making Trumps dreams come true.

He has refused to stand up and defend the department against the vicious assaults on it by the president, Miller told me in an email. He added, Sessions should be out publicly telling the president to back offto stop trying to meddle in DOJs investigationsand if hes not willing to do that, he might as well leave.

Several former DOJ officials, including Bagenstos and his one-time Civil Rights Division colleague Roy L. Austin, suggested that I shouldnt overthink the question of whether the country is better or worse off with Sessions as AG. What ought to matter most is his agenda, they said, and the fact that he has already made tremendous progress toward fulfilling it is reason enough to want him out.

He has just done so much other damage to DOJ that I dont want to see him there anymore and it does not particularly matter to me how he leaves, Austin said in an email. Pretty much everything about this presidents Cabinet picks has been a disaster, so it is not like the next pick could be much worse and I will hold out some hope for a little better.

Bagenstos framed Sessions potential departure as urgent harm reduction. Sessions is actively doing a lot of harm right now, on vote suppression, on civil rights generally, on drug and forfeiture policy, he said. He is as extreme an appointee as one can imagine on these issues.And that has to weigh in the calculus here.

Is there really any chance that after ousting one extremist, the Trump administration would bring in someone less extreme? The answer is we dont know, but one thing that can be said about Sessions six months into this presidency is that he has made extremely quick work of advancing his policy goals. As an arch-right attorney general who has been described as the presidents ideological twin, Sessions has demonstrated a tremendous aptitude for the work of policymaking in the Trump era. Its possible that Sessions successor would lack that aptitude and be less effective at making Trumps dreams come true.

Its also possible that Sessions replacement would be less ideological than he is, a former DOJ official told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity. I think his departure will lift a significant barrier from the administration that will allow it to eventually take more moderate tones on a host of issues, the official said. This particular individual is such a roadblock to anything positive going on. That is why Breitbart is siding with Sessions over Trump.

These are thought-provoking arguments. It seems at least possible that 1) with Sessions out of the picture, Trumps ability to do bad things would be crippled because hed be forced to operate without his most effective lieutenant; and 2) Sessions is the last guy anyone should count on to protect the DOJs independence.

And yet, for many peoplemyself includeda scenario in which Sessions gets fired or resigns feels somehow more dangerous and dislocating than the alternative. Why? Because if Sessions were to leave now under pressure from Trump, it could end up proving that this president really can do whatever he wants, up to and including taming the Department of Justice. It would be yet another test for elected officials who have so far failed all of them: If it happens and theres no more reaction from Congress than there was after the Comey firing, it would feel like decisive evidence that nothing will ever change. Trump would be in good shape, autocracy-wise, if firing his attorney general for failing to protect him from the FBI doesnt cross a red line for law-and-order conservatives on Capitol Hill.

No one knows exactly what would happen if Trump fires Sessions or the attorney general resigns. But the mere fact of it happening would demonstrate that Trump is able and willing to do a lot more than just talk about bringing the DOJ to heel. This is a scary thought.

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It's really all a matter of gauging the odds. What is the likelihood that his replacement will be significantly better on voting rights, domestic surveillance, asset forfeiture, and drug policy? More...

While Sessions replacement would probably be less conservative, thats not what matters now, said Eric Columbus, who served in the deputy attorney generals office from 2009 to 2014.Trump wants to fire Sessions because Sessions upheld the rule of law. That alone is reason to hope Sessions sticks it out. Quitting would set a dangerous precedent for the next time an official ponders whether following the law is worth the cost of enraging Trump.

Columbus continued, During the campaign I found myself nodding in bewildered agreement with principled conservatives who bucked Trump. I never expected Sessions would join that crowd, but here we are.

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Should He Stay or Should He Go? - Slate Magazine

Once people got over the shock of the November election, tens of thousands in Maryland joined groups under such banners as "indivisible" or "resistance" or "progressive." I'll refer to them all as "progressive" here.

Until recently these groups did not know how to effectively collaborate on issues they shared. But this is about to change.

A new player has emerged that will work to bring these movements together and dramatically change the 2018 legislative session and elections. The Maryland Progressive Caucus will be working with all these groups to develop clear communications, hammer out priorities given limited resources and encourage attendance at public events.

The group's first formal meeting was in June in Howard County, with about 95 leaders representing organizations from as far as Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore discussing strategy.

Progressives had already worked together and had some success moving toward shared goals during the 2017 General Assembly session. The fracking ban was a fantastic lesson on the power of broad coalitions to bring about change.

Chase Cook

Angered by President Trump, new groups are forming to resist his agenda

Angered by President Trump, new groups are forming to resist his agenda (Chase Cook)

Kathleen Matthews, the current Maryland Democratic Party chairwoman, created an executive committee position for a progressive representative after meeting with the group in May.

An early goal for the new group is to concentrate progressive power while strengthening connections with public-interest groups like the Sierra Club, faith-based organizations like interfaithchesapeake.org and established groups like the Democrats, the Republicans and the NAACP.

To a certain extent, groups in the Annapolis area have already been doing this informally, Action Annapolis agreed to concentrate on city elections, while Anne Arundel Indivisible focuses more on county and state issues and Annapolis Indivisible works on how to combine our efforts with other groups. WISE Women of Severna Park have shown they can hold effective town halls and focus on garnering more bipartisan support for county, state and national issues.

Our local groups are now more seasoned when it comes to working with the legislature and the political process.

All groups agreed at the June meeting that the most important initial task is to develop and support candidates at all levels of government to change the current nature of politics in the state and, ultimately, the nation. The problem is how to maintain an objective presence without necessarily endorsing candidates. Methods are being developed to do just this.

Another key element will be to build diversity among progressive leadership and to make more connections with different groups. The Maryland Progressive Caucus will be reaching out to bring in new leaders and to share resources, aiming to increase not just racial and ethnic but also political and social diversity. Everyone is needed for the work to come!

As a local indivisible group leader, I have to admit I was skeptical when I first heard of this "all state" meeting. But the beauty of the indivisible movement is that people just step up and say, "Let's do it."

I believe this group will unify progressive and indivisible coalitions into a statewide force both parties will need to reckon with in the future. Among the extremely bright and enthusiastic participants at that meeting, I saw lots of intense interaction between young and old, experienced and new.

"The first meeting was all about making connections, establishing trust and discussing ideas and issues at a high level," said Sheila Ruth, one of the new group's leaders. "The next step is to make concrete plans for how we can work effectively together, while still respecting each group's autonomy."

Based on what I've seen so far, I think this is going to happen. Yes, it is going to take leadership and determination, but these seem to be in abundance these days among these determined new political participants.

J. Nelson Wells and his wife co-founded the Annapolis Traditional Dance Society. Contact him at jnw.wells@gmail.com.

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J. Nelson Wells: Progressives, indivisibles begin to unite - CapitalGazette.com