Arizona’s Freshmen Reps: What’s Going On Here?

Kirkpatrick, Sinema & Barber all voted with the Republicans for CISPA

Is Steve Israel or Steny Hoyer calling the shots, or did Arizona’s three freshman reps reach these cynical heights all on their own? It’s hard to say, but my bet is on Israel or Hoyer. Or maybe it's the New Dem operation. Otherwise, it’s hard to fathom the votes we’re seeing from Kirkpatrick (AZ-01), Barber (AZ-02) and Sinema (AZ-09).

Regardless, the progressive base in Arizona (and, yes, there is one) is not amused. Blog For Arizona features a collection of progressive bloggers. At the start of the session, that group showed admirable restraint in the wake of Sandy Hook. Strangely enough, the reaction to that tragedy by Ron Barber, who took a bullet in Tucson two years earlier, was to pay homage to the Second Amendment. They could have jumped all over Barber, and few would have blamed them. Instead, they mounted a petition campaign to encourage Barber to lead the charge for sane gun laws. Barber actually responded positively for awhile, then went silent once out of the spotlight.

But the admirable patience of Arizona’s progressives has worn thin. It’s easy to understand why. Start with United Solutions, a supposedly "bi-partisan" group of freshmen reps that is about two-thirds Republican. And, no, we’re not talking moderate Republicans here. Joining the group were Arizona’s Kirkpatrick and Sinema. Here’s Sinema bragging about her membership (and lying about the composition of the group, which is far more heavily Republican than she lets on, and her role in founding the group, which was actually formed by lifelong Republican/New Dem Patrick Murphy and far right North Carolina Republican Robert Pittenger):



It was about that time that Bob Lord, posted this at Blog For Arizona: AZ Freshman Reps Sweep Gold, Silver and Bronze. Lord was referring to the Progressive Punch scores of the Democratic Freshman class. In that group, Kirkpatrick was worst, Barber was second worst, and Sinema was in a group tied for third worst.

Since then, the Arizona freshmen have continued to follow Steve Israel’s lead, or perhaps their own worst instincts, and the fire from the progressive community has grown more intense. Craig McDermott, who also posts at Blog For Arizona, wrote an open letter to the freshmen on the House Financial Services Committee, a group that includes Kyrsten Sinema, explaining that doing bad work for good reasons still is doing bad work. Donna Gratehouse at Democratic Diva expanded on McDermott’s theme, urging constituents not to be accepting of bad work, whether for good reasons or not. What had these freshmen done? Basically, they’d voted for legislation drafted almost entirely by Citigroup’s lobbyist, exempting vast swaths of trades from regulation under Dodd-Frank. A few weeks after the vote, Wall Street lackey and Democratic fundraising leader Joe Crowley led the freshmen on a tour of lower Manhattan, including receptions at both Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase.

Pamela Powers-Hannley at Blog For Arizona has been more direct in her criticism of Sinema, actually titling one post, Sinema Too Republican? Votes to Reduce Banking Regulations, in which she implored progressives to put the pressure on:

Not only has Sinema not supporting the Robin Hood Tax, her recent vote exempts many Wall Street trades from any regulation. This is the wrong direction for the American people. How many Wall Street bankers live in CD-9? How many people who would benefit from the revenue generated by the Robin Hood Tax live in CD-9? It's time for Sinema to do the math. Voting with Wall Street is a vote against her constituents in Arizona.

If you live in CD9, it's time to call Sinema and tell her you thought you were voting for that fiery State Senator-- not the banksters' handmaiden.

We see you, Rep. Sinema

Powers-Hannley’s depiction of Sinema may have been too specific. She appears to be doing her best not to be just the banksters’ handmaiden, but the handmaiden of corporate America at large. Amazingly, she and Barber voted with the Republicans for the failed Farm Bill, which would have cut $20 Billion in food stamp assistance, a huge chunk of which is going to children. Here’s E.J. Dionne, explaining the rank immorality of the legislation for which Sinema and Barber voted:

The bill the House voted down would have cut food stamps by $20.5 billion, eliminating food assistance to nearly 2 million low-income people, most of them working families with children or senior citizens.

This alone should have been bad enough to sink the bill. But then Republicans pushed through an amendment by Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., to toughen work requirements in the program. Work requirements sound reasonable until you look at what Southerland’s amendment was actually designed to do.

As Robert Greenstein, the president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, explained, Southerland’s proposal violated “the most basic standards of human decency” because it made no effort, as other work requirements have in the past, to create employment openings for those who “want to work and would accept any job or work slot they could get, but cannot find jobs in a weak economy.”

In fact, noted Greenstein, a longtime advocate of nutrition assistance, the amendment barred states “from spending more on SNAP employment and training than they do now.” And it created incentives for states to throw people off food stamps by letting their governments keep half the SNAP savings to use for anything they wished (including, for example, tax cuts for the wealthy).

In a more rational political world, progressives and smallgovernment conservatives might join forces to slash subsidies for agribusiness and wealthy farmers while containing market distortions bred by price supports. But when Rep Jim McGovern, D-Mass., proposed an amendment to restore some of the food stamp funding by reducing spending on crop insurance, it was defeated.

And Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., exposed hypocrisy on the matter of government handouts by excoriating Republican House members who had benefited from farm subsidies but voted to cut food stamps.

The collapse of the farm bill will generally be played as a political story about Boehner’s failure to rally his own right wing. That’s true as far as it goes and should remind everyone of the current House leadership’s inability to govern. But this is above all a story about morality: There is something profoundly wrong when a legislative majority is so eager to risk leaving so many Americans hungry. That’s what the bill would have done, and why defeating it was a moral imperative.

Sinema signing on to a bill that would leave Americans, including many children, hungry, is stunning, given her background. If you heard her stump speech during her 2012, you would know about the years she spent during childhood living in an abandoned gas station. That story was the centerpiece of her speech. Based on that experience, Sinema would explain, governmental assistance is giving people in need a hand up, not a handout.

Finally, just last week, the House Financial Services Committee approved H.R. 1135, a bill to repeal the provision of the Dodd-Frank Act that requires public companies to report the ratio of their CEO pay to median worker compensation. As expected, the Republicans voted in lockstep for the amendment. But five of the twenty-eight Democrats did as well.

The pay ratio reporting requirement was a threat to the exorbitant pay CEO’s currently enjoy. Allow folks to compare the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay from one corporation to another, and CEO pay might be brought back to Earth. That’s why corporations had been working overtime to delay and dilute the regulations needed to implement the pay ratio disclosure. And they’d been successful on that front. But H.R. 1135 would solve this little “problem” for CEO’s entirely. And the argument for the amendment truly is Republican-esque. The pay ratio reporting, you see, would involve too much paperwork. Here’s committee chair Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) defending the amendment, according to Emily Chasan of the Wall Street Journal:

"I assume there is an infinite number of ratios some investors would find helpful to their decisions," Mr. Hensarling said. Companies might as well be required to calculate the ratio of workers with or without college degrees, the ratio of old versus young workers, or the ratio of office supplies purchased from big box retailers to local suppliers, he joked.

The individual votes on this atrocity were not easy to track down, but here they are. And who was among the five Democrats New Dems whoring for contributions from America’s CEOs? Why Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, of course, doing her best to make sure the great-great grandchildren of America’s CEOs never have to experience life in an abandoned gas station.

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I Got A Call From A New Dem Friday

Not the New Dem who called me... but it could have been

A congressman who I used to talk to a few years ago-- before he was a congressman-- called me Friday. He said he felt badly because of the stuff I've been writing about him. I haven't really been writing about him much-- just reporting (usually without comment and never with any pejorative language) his ghastly votes. He said he felt bad because he likes me. I told him I felt bad because I like him. I haven't even asked the DWT art director to make a clown face for him. His excuses for voting badly were so sad... just like his excuse for joining the New Dems. He said it was because the district wasn't blue enough. Obama did substantially better in the district last November-- beating Romney by 7 points-- than he had against McCain. The district is turning bluer by the day-- more than almost any district in the country. The congressional caller told me he'd join the progressive caucus if he gets reelected. Why would they even want him with the kind of record he's amassed?

Anyway, he told me that he voted for the Republican Farm Bill because his district has farmers, although he agreed it's a terrible bill. What courage! He also said he offered to rescind his vote and vote against it but that Hoyer told him not to. Steny!

Coincidentally, right after we spoke, I got an e-mail from another New Dem, Ron Barber, who votes very much like the congressional caller. Here's the e-mail:

U.S. Rep. Ron Barber today issued a statement after the House voted 234-to-195 to reject the Farm Bill.

Barber was one of 24 Democrats who joined 171 Republicans in an effort to pass legislation that would have set the course for U.S. agriculture and food policy for the next five years.

Barber’s statement:

Today I voted for the Farm Bill. It’s a far-from-perfect bill, but it would have moved this process forward and toward a compromise. It would have extended national agricultural and nutrition programs for the next five years. These programs are important to Southern Arizona and my constituents.

This is unfortunately another example of how Congress is broken. We must come together to pass a bipartisan Farm Bill. We need to give certainty to American farmers and consumers by ensuring steady, dependable prices at the grocery store, relief for drought-stricken farms and critical investments in food assistance programs for those most in need.

I strongly oppose the proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and voted to restore those cuts. In Arizona, more than 1.1 million people-- 1 of every 6-- receive aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. More than 75 percent of those recipients are in families with children and nearly half are in working families.

I call on leadership in Congress to work together and bring a bipartisan Farm Bill to the floor that can pass the House and Senate and be signed into law for the betterment of the American people and southern Arizona. The American people are calling on us to get something done. We need to take action now.

Wow, that was the exact same stuff my congressional caller told me. Did the New Dems tell them all to use those points? Or was it Hoyer? Steve Israel? I wonder if either of these guys ever met Alan Grayson. If not, they should. Neither was at Netroots Nation Friday, so they missed Grayson's and Digby's panel on Weak Democrats vs Strong Progressives. USW Blogger tweeted some of it though:

Adam Green's top 10 lessons learned in the fight to save Social Security from the Obama-Boehner Grand Bargain:

10- We cannot depend on party leadership, caucus leadership, or any others to lead. We need to invest in leaders who are willing to lead.

9- Sometimes outsiders are more strategic than insiders. Don't instinctively trust the experts.

8- Competent, progressive staffers inside Congress, matter immensely.

7- Activists having personal bonds with Members of Congress matters immensely.

6- A Member of Congress being truly bold in a partnership and talking to their colleagues on the House or Senate floor, matters immensely.

5- Many Democrats in Congress hide behind an "I don't take pledges" stance to avoid making promises that our country, our movement and their constituents need them to take. Debunking this stance is a strategic imperative for our movement.

4- In the Grayson-Takano push, progressives proved an inside/outside partnership model that works and can be replicated.

3- Progressives rewarded and invested in bold leaders, making them more powerful for the next fight.

2- The coalition built around the Grayson-Takano letter... provides the foundation for the next fight, expanding Social Security benefits, coming soon.

1- Progressives are perilously dependent on the Tea Party being batshitcrazy. Progressives in Congress have the ability to be an enormously powerful bloc if they are strategic and unified and our movement needs to help them build that power.

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The Lamest Ducks In The House-- A Beltway-Eyed View

Accidental Congressman Gary Miller, California's Confederate sympathizer

This week, Roll Call points to California Republican Gary Miller and Tennessee date rape drug doctor Scott DesJarlais as being the two incumbents most likely to lose their seats in 2014. Close behind are detestable Blue Dog reactionaries Jim Matheson (UT) and Mike McIntyre (NC), New Dem Ron Barber (AZ) and GOP fringe loon Mike Coffman (CO). The retirements of these four characters by their constituents who be steps in the right direction for making Capitol Hill a better place-- even if we would need 2-300 retirements like this for it to actually make Congress function on behalf of the American people.

Gary Miller, of these four, is the most likely to be working as a lobbyist after 2014. He is an accidental congressman-- as well as an extremist crackpot, a crook and a confederate Civil War reenactor. So how did Miller come to represent a district, CA-31, where Romney only managed to get 40.6% of the vote? The district, which includes Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino, Colton, Redlands, Loma Linda and Rialto, is a minority majority district (44% Hispanic and 11% African American) and should have gone to a Democrat in 2012. The DCCC and California Democratic Party botched it up and 4 Democratic contenders in the open primary split the vote so badly that two Republicans, Miller, who represented a neighboring district previously, and state Senator Bob Dutton wound up with the most votes and went on to the general election. Redlands Mayor Peter Aguilar, the heavy favorite, didn't get a chance to compete in the general, where Miller beat Dutton 82,212 (55%) to 66,603 (45%).

So Aguilar is running again and it should be a slam dunk, right? Sure... because everything in politics goes just as its planned. Meet defeated Blue Dog Joe Baca, who was hounded out of office in 2012 by Mike Bloomfield. Baca is an NRA stalwart and Bloomfield, in effect, bought the seat for another conservative Democrat-- although an anti-NRA one-- then state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod. Her voting record, in terms of progressive issues, has been at least as bad as Baca's, if not worse. And now Baca says he wants to run in the open primary against Aguilar and Miller. Oh, dandy.

DesJarlais, a physician who was having sex with multiple patients-- some who he gave drugs and one who he encouraged to get an abortion-- is widely viewed as an embarrassment and he's likely to lose a primary... unless there are multiple candidates. State Reps Joe Carr and Kevin Brooks will probably run but right now state Senator Jim Tracy is the favorite and he outraised DesJarlais 4 to 1 this quarter. Obama won just under a third of the district in 2012, down from 35.8% in 2008 and TN-04 (Murfreesboro, Shelbyville, Winchester, Cleveland and Smyrna) is not a good fit for Democrats. In 2012 DesJarlais-- even under the cloud of scandal-- beat Democrat state Sen. Eric Stewart 128,500 (56%) to 101,944 (44%). So far this year, no Democrat has emerged as a candidate. So this will just be replacing one wingnut with another wingnut.

Ron Barber, a right-wing Democrat, has a pitiful voting record that is sure to deflate Democratic voters. He's foolishly banking on attracting Republicans with his Republican voting record, but the GOP candidate, Martha McSally, he just managed to beat by a nose (143,173- 141,771) in 2012 is probably running again-- and this time Obama won't be on the ticket to draw Democrats to the polls.

Mike Coffman also just scraped by in 2012 (47.8% to 45.8%) but this year he'll be facing popular former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff in a blue-leaning district. (Obama won CO-06-- which includes Littleton and Centennial south of Denver, Aurora east of Denver and Brighton north of Denver-- 51.6%- 46.5%.) The DCCC is all in on Romanoff and this is considered a "must win" top priority race for them.

As for the two nearly extinct Blue Dogs, this is what Stuart Rothenberg had to say in his report for Roll Call:

Two incumbents who were almost given up for dead (politically, that is) last cycle but survived-- Democratic Reps. Jim Matheson of Utah and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina-- are likely to face stiff challenges again. Either or both could move to the top of the vulnerability list next year.

Democratic partisans may pooh-pooh the danger to both incumbents in 2014, noting that we have heard reports of their problems before and saying that if the two Democratic congressmen won with an unpopular (in their districts) president on the ballot, they certainly can win again against the same opponents in 2014.

Republicans can counter that unsuccessful 2012 Utah Republican nominee Mia Love didn’t run nearly as good a race as GOP strategists had hoped, and she’ll likely have a better campaign-- and be a better candidate-- in a rerun.

The same, of course, could hold for the unsuccessful GOP nominee against McIntyre last year, David Rouzer. Rouzer, then a member of the state Senate, lost to McIntyre by a mere 654 votes in 2012.

Both McIntyre and Matheson vote with the Republicans on crucial issues as a default position. Matheson has the single worst voting record of any Democrat in Congress this year-- a ProgressivePunch score of 21.05, tied with right-wing GOP freaks like Matt Salmon (R-AZ) and Tom McClintock (R-CA) and worse than 14 other Republicans, including... crackpots Louie Gohmert (TX) and Phil Gingrey (GA) and Staten Island Mafia figure Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm! McIntyre scores a 38.89, also worse than Grimm! The sooner these two are gone from the Democratic House caucus, the better off the Democrats will be.

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