A Note From DCCC Chairman Steve Israel: "Top Race In The Country"

I shuddered to think which corrupt conservative shill he had decided was the "top race in the country." Since Israel was a member of the reactionary Blue Dog caucus himself before making a play for House leadership, I figured it would be one of the broken down, struggling, remaining Blue Dogs who are facing defeat next year: Barrow (GA), McIntyre (NC) or Matheson (UT). Those 3 vote far more frequently in concert with Boehner and Cantor than they do with Democrats. But when I opened the e-mail, I realized that Israel too had moved on from the wretched Blue Dogs in favor of the revitalized-- albeit basically the same ideologically-- New Dems. His pick, the worst New Dem of all: Patrick Murphy of Florida, a lifelong conservative Republican and opportunist who switched parties so he could run against Allen West. His rich daddy did the rest. Apparently daddy doesn't want to pay for junior's career anymore and Murphy sends out more campaign spam than any other member of Congress. And now he has Israel signing one for him:

TOP RACE IN THE COUNTRY

Howard --

As chairman of the committee charged with electing House Democrats, I want to tell you about one of the top races to watch in the entire country: Patrick Murphy in Florida's 18th district.

Republicans and outside groups have named Patrick as a top target and circled this district as a race they must win.

And I’ve seen what Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers are capable of: spending over a million dollars on deceitful ads in a single House race.

If we want to be successful in 2014, we have to make sure Patrick hits his grassroots goal. Here’s why: as soon as the fundraising numbers are released, the pundits will scour over reports and make a determination on whether or not Patrick's campaign has what it takes to win.

Please donate to Patrick's campaign before Sunday’s midnight deadline. Remember, every last dollar counts for his grassroots campaign.

I hope you’ll do your part.

Thanks,

Steve

OK, Steve, here's my part. Aside from founding a caucus to bring a horde of far right Republican freshmen like domestic terrorist Steve Stockman (R-TX), militia nut Kerry Bentovolio (R-MI) and hate Talk Radio host Trey Radel (R-FL) together with a tiny handful of the weakest-minded, cowardly and most naive Democratic freshmen-- people like Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Eric Swalwell (CA), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), and Scott Peters (CA)-- Murphy has one of the most reactionary voting records of any Democratic freshman... or, for that matter, of any Democrat, period. His overall ProgressivePunch score is a dismal 43.64 (out of 100). Only 10 Democrats have worse scores, rotgut Blue Dogs like John Barrow, Jim Matheson, Collin Peterson, Henry Cuellar, Mike McIntyre... the real dreck of the caucus. But let's get specific.

Hoyer and Israel, sensing that Murphy is among the most corrupt freshmen, immediately put him on the House Financial Services Committee, one of Congress's top corridors of bribery from Wall Street. And on that committee, Murphy has been a reliable vote for the Republicans as they voted to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. Here's an example; "Mr. Murphy" is Patrick Murphy and this committee vote was nicely explained by Too Much Online:

This particular piece of legislation speaks to an ongoing frustration in America's body politic: the supersized paychecks that go to America’s top corporate executives. Average Americans, in overwhelming numbers, want something done to bring some common-sense back to CEO pay.

But the House Financial Services Committee, this past Wednesday, opted to do the exact reverse. By a 36-21 margin, committee members voted to repeal the only statutory provision now on the books that puts real heat on overpaid CEOs. The full House, observers expect, will shortly endorse this repeal.

The specific provision 31 Republicans and five Democrats voted to repeal-- section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act-- imposes a new disclosure mandate on America’s major corporations. Under Dodd-Frank, corporations must annually reveal the ratio between what they pay their CEO and what they pay their median-- most typical-- workers.

Corporations have had to disclose what they pay their CEOs ever since the Great Depression. But they’ve never had to disclose, until Dodd-Frank became law in 2010, their CEO pay as a multiple of what their average workers are earning.

Executive pay reformers consider this ratio information crucial to the struggle against executive excess. If Americans could see-- and compare-- the exact CEO-worker pay ratio from one corporation to another, the resulting negative publicity on those corporations with the widest pay gaps might help discourage excessive executive compensation in the future.

And if corporations should choose to ignore this negative publicity-- and charge ahead with lavish executive compensation-- the Dodd-Frank pay ratio disclosure mandate could serve as a stepping stone to tougher reform action.

Lawmakers could, for instance, set a specific CEO-worker pay multiple as the nation’s preferred corporate compensation standard and deny government contracts, tax breaks, and subsidies to any corporations that pay their execs over and above that standard.

The Dodd-Frank pay ratio disclosure mandate has the potential, in other words, to help extinguish what Forbes magazine recently dubbed “the out of control wildfire” that executive pay has become. But the mandate hasn’t extinguished anything yet because the mandate hasn’t yet gone into effect.

Corporate lobbyists have seen to that. They've been pressuring the Securities and Exchange Commission, the top federal watchdog over Corporate America, to gut the Dodd-Frank pay ratio provision.

This lobbying blitz has paid off. The SEC has to issue regulations before any newly legislated mandate over corporate behavior can be enforced. The agency has so far issued no regulations on CEO-worker pay disclosure-- and nearly three years have gone by since Dodd-Frank initially worked its way into law.

But America’s corporate leaders don’t want to have to rely solely on their ability to intimidate the SEC. They’ve also orchestrated a congressional drive to simply repeal the Dodd-Frank pay disclosure mandate outright.

How can lawmakers who carry Corporate America's water possibly defend repealing a measure as publicly popular as pay ratio disclosure? Easy. They simply paint corporations as the victims of overzealous government bureaucrats who want to drown them in burdensome-- and meaningless-- paperwork.

So... of course a crook like Steve Israel is excited about Murphy. Some of Patrick Murphy's greatest hits on the House floor, aside from voting against all the Democratic alternatives to the Ryan budget:

• Voted with the Republicans for the Keystone XL Pipeline

• Voted with Republicans for CISPA

• Voted with Republicans to penalize workers who get overtime pay

• Voted for GOP Farm bill that took billions from food stamp program

• Voted with the GOP to make sure there are no limits to the amount of subsidies wealthy farmers get

• Only Democrat voting to undermine America's Farmers Markets