Progressives Every Day: Now we're making some progress
Progressives Every Day: Now we're making some progress
But will it be enough?
It was strange to lead the newsletter Monday with good news from the Supreme Court. Doing so for a second time in a week is just downright bizarre, but here we are, with another major reason to celebrate courtesy of the black robe brigade.
Today, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump Administration could not roll back DACA, the Obama-era program that gives permanent residence and federal benefits to 700,000+ immigrants who were brought to the United States as young children. It’s an unbelievable relief to millions of Americans, a major blow to the Trump administration’s concentrated attack on people of color, and as a bonus, really pissed off Donald himself. (I can only fantasize about how Stephen Miller reacted.)
That said, unlike this week’s more overwhelming 6-3 decision on LGBTQ rights, this decision was less a moral victory than a technical one with allusions to a shared humanity. You’ll take them any way you can get them at this point, but in this case, Chief Justice John Roberts blocked the rollback based on the Trump administration’s rushed legal process, which did not consider the impact of the policy reversal, not some belief in a more welcoming America. The then-acting Secretary of Homeland Security “acted in an unlawfully arbitrary and capricious way,” Roberts wrote.
Still, it’s a moment to savor for those who made it happen. Because they’ve so often been forced to live in the shadows, the sacrifice and selflessness of generations of immigrants and activists will go largely unmentioned and unappreciated. But they made today’s DACA victory at the Supreme Court possible with their hard work and tirelessness, and that embodies the American ideal more than anything I’ve ever seen.
Things are awful right now, but if the most conservative Supreme Court in generations is ruling in favor of LGBTQ people and immigrant children, it proves once again that activism, protests, and dedication can change this country.
Insurgent progressive Senate candidates are surging
For the most part, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee likes to recruit moderate candidates with access to lots of money. Chuck Schumer, who ran the DSCC in 2006 and as Senate Minority Leader still serves as a de facto boss, tends to prefer candidates who don’t need financial help, won’t cause a stir on the campaign trail or in his caucus, and will appeal to suburban white voters. The DSCC tends to endorse early in an effort to clear the field, and sometimes, it works very well — Mark Kelly in Arizona, for example, is wiping the floor with Sen. Martha McSally.
Other times, however, the DSCC’s candidates are so tepid and milquetoast that they excite absolutely no one, which puts them in danger of succumbing to more engaging candidates running to their left. Such is the case right now in both Kentucky and Colorado, where DSCC’s picks are suffering late meltdowns and losing ground to populist progressives who are channeling the energy of the national moment.
In Kentucky, former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath got the early blessing from the DSCC after she came close to pulling off an upset in a House of Representatives race in 2018. A white woman with a distinguished military record and enough polish to offer meaningless platitudes with conviction, she seemed like a pretty ideal candidate to take on Mitch McConnell. She’s had no trouble raising money — at $41 million in her coffers, she’s raised $9 million more than McConnell — but McGrath has failed to inspire anyone at all. Most of the money came from outside Kentucky, from Democrats frustrated with the GOP and told that McGrath was the candidate who was definitely going to go up against McConnell in November. I know this because a fair amount of that came in through one of our ActBlue pages.
McGrath talks as if she’s crafting each sentence based on the feedback of a focus group consisting solely of the many wealthy PTA moms played by Reese Witherspoon and their fund manager husbands. She winds up saying a whole lot of nothing and milquetoast promises to “fight” just aren’t enough now that COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have fired up Democrats and progressive activists.
If McGrath continues to limp toward the finish line, she may well be passed by Charles Booker, the dynamic State Representative who has become a late internet sensation. He is fiery and passionate and relatable, especially as he’s been out protesting the police murder of Breonna Taylor in his hometown of Louisville. More generally, his impromptu speeches railing against police violence and income inequality perfectly fit this moment. Booker’s fundraising is surging and he’s racking up the endorsements from politicians and organizations who suddenly see this as a real race, including Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
It doesn’t hurt that Booker is very willing to call out McGrath, as you can see below:
A new poll today put Booker in the lead by eight points, an astonishing number considering where they were just last week when Booker himself released a poll that showed him trailing McGrath by seven points.
Whether that’s an anomaly is unclear, but the momentum is obvious. The only thing standing in Booker’s way is timing — early voting has already started in Kentucky and nearly 900,000 people requested absentee ballots. If enough of them cast their votes before Booker’s momentum began, it could mean that McGrath survives this primary by the skin of her teeth.
If Booker does complete the underdog comeback, McGrath will be under a lot of pressure to help him compete against Mitch McConnell, who must be happily watching this primary play out.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, Hickenlooper, who is as wooden and corny and frustratingly centrist as they get, has gone from competent governor/businessman figure to running a “hot mess” of a campaign. He’s become embroiled in several financial and ethics scandals over the last month, stemming from his acceptance of free plane travel while governor, and the style that made him successful in a moderate Colorado now seems out of touch in a state that is quickly moving left. A few own goals, on issues like Black Lives Matter, haven’t helped much, either.
His opponent, former State House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, is much more progressive, but to this point, hadn’t been considered much of a threat. He lost a Democratic primary for Senate in 2010 to Michael Bennet and then fell short in a Congressional bid in 2014, and isn’t exactly the smoothest campaigner himself. But his message is starting to resonate, as he portrays Hickenlooper as an out-of-touch multimillionaire in bed with business interests during a time when so many people are suffering. Hickenlooper’s refusal to fully oppose fracking or Medicare for All isn’t playing well with Democratic primary voters, either.
Hickenlooper is still winning, but his advantage has fallen to 12 points from a whopping 49 points last December, when it’s likely that few people were really paying attention. This is a seat Democrats have to win come November, but it’d be nice to have someone with some backbone in there.
Daily COVID-19 update:
Spoiler alert: Things are continuing to get worse in the states in which Republicans governors decided to cater to far-right protestors and President Trump instead of protecting their citizens.
Cases continue to skyrocket in Texas, Florida, and Arizona, to the point that their respective governors are starting to retreat on their most obstinately dangerous and pig-headed policies. Yesterday, I noted that Texas Gov. Ken Abbott said that counties and cities could require businesses to enforce mask-wearing rules on employees and customers. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey made a similar reversal, saying that cities were now allowed to require people to wear masks, as well.
Meanwhile, in Florida:
This is no surprise:
A lot of my time these past few weeks has gone to raising money for bail funds in order to help Black Lives Matters protestors unfairly arrested by police at demonstrations. I’m proud that we’ve raised over $1.5 million, but at the same time, I’m pissed that all that money is going to sit in government escrow instead of toward constructive grassroots organizing and communities in need.
Cash bail is an abomination, a racist policy that disproportionately impacts people of color. Very frequently, families are faced with choosing between becoming indebted to snake bail bond lenders or seeing someone they love waste away in jail for months or even years. It’s a corrupt, inhumane system that needs to be fully eliminated, as it has in Washington DC and, to a lesser degree, Philadelphia.
With that in mind, statistics emerging from the violent police crackdown on protestors are enraging but not at all shocking. Of the 2,000 protestors arrested in New York, a vast majority have been people of color. And on average, those POC protestors have been forced to spend a lot more time behind bars than their white counterparts.
Legal Aid’s Rebecca Heinsen handled arraignments for six protesters in Manhattan; they were all people of color. Chelsey Amelkin was set to arraign seven protesters last week in Manhattan; six were people of color. Omar Fortune arraigned five protesters in Manhattan, all of whom were Black or Latinx.
“Few and far between did you see white people being arraigned,” said Janie Williams, a criminal defense attorney with Bronx Defenders who offered aid to people as they left police custody in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. “White people didn’t have to see the judges that much. It was Black and brown people who were brought through the arraignment process and not given a ticket, not given a summons. They had to sit in jail.”
Again, not surprising, but infuriating nonetheless. And I bet none of those protestors were served milkshakes or Egg McMuffins in county lockup.
Cuomo feels the heat:
Even as he was being hailed as a tough-talking coronavirus hero, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo was moving to make deep cuts to the state’s Medicaid program. The guy has gotten away with a lot of regressive policy choices because he fights dirty and talks a big game, but with the state headed for a full-blown budget disaster, a growing number of Democratic legislators are beginning to challenge him on some of his most dogmatic beliefs.
Throughout his ten years in office, Cuomo has refused to raise taxes on the richest New Yorkers. During his first two terms, IDC’s caucusing with Republicans in the State Senate meant that it was never really an issue for him, but now Democrats control the entire State House and don’t particularly feel like explaining to constituents why school funding and healthcare support was slashed while billionaires with giant glass condos in Manhattan and sprawling beach complexes in the Hamptons continue to live the high life.
Democratic legislators were already making noise about a millionaires tax before the coronavirus hit, and now, facing a once-unthinkable budget gap, they’re taking a formal stand. On Thursday, 100 Democrats in Albany announced a pledge to refuse any budget cuts that did not come coupled with tax increases on the ultra-wealthy.
The overwhelming majority of New Yorkers will not be affected by our proposals to raise taxes on high wealth. Working and poor New Yorkers rely heavily on public services to help them survive day to day. They are overtaxed and under-served because our tax system does not demand enough from ultra-wealthy New Yorkers.
Times like these require shared sacrifice. In every economic downturn for the last 90 years, our state government has asked the wealthiest to pay more in taxes in order to meet the needs of all the people.
This sets up a bit of a juicy battle, especially after progressives defeated Cuomo in 2018 and sent a new generation of young, left-leaning activist legislators to Albany.
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