People Party vs. Money Party: Who's Who Among the Democrats
By David Sirota, AlterNet
The fact that our nation's politics is divided not between Democrats
and Republicans but between the People Party and the Money Party is
obvious to anyone who looks at the political system honestly (which is
to say, not most journalists or Washington political hacks). Calls for
“bipartisanship” and faux “centrism” that has nothing to do with the
actual center of American public opinion are most often moves to prevent the political debate from analyzing the People vs. Money divide
that actually fuels our politics. We already have plenty of
“bipartisanship” — Republicans and a faction of Democrats who
regularly join hands to screw over the vast majority of Americans.
Many
people ask me who? Who are the leading members of both sides of the
actual divide? The answer is that there is no official list because no
one is forced to formally declare their allegiance to the People Party
or the Money Party. But it is fairly obvious which lawmakers in the new
majority have specifically defined themselves on economic justice
issues.
Though this is by no means a comprehensive list, here are the ones to watch in the coming Congress:
People Party Leaders
Freshman Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA):
This is the core group of economic populists who defined the larger
populist trend in the 2006 election. Brown has a long record in the
House as an economic justice champion, as has Sanders (who I worked for
years ago). Tester (pictured above from an event he did here in Helena
last night) made his campaign about cleaning up K Street corruption,
and Webb has declared that his top issue is going to be addressing the
taboo issue of economic inequality.
Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL): Dorgan has been one of the strongest voices against profiteering by the energy and pharmaceutical companies, and has recently written a book called “Take This Job and Ship It,”
which is one of the strongest declarations against lobbyist-written
trade deals from any sitting Senator in recent memory. Similarly, Feingold has voted against every major lobbyist-written trade deal
that has come through the Senate, even airing campaign ads on the issue
well before that kind of message became more popular. Kennedy, as the
incoming chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
(HELP) Committee is expected to continue his rabid support for the
People Party on nearly every economic issue. And Durbin, now the number
two Democrat in the Senate, has also had a solid record on trade, and
is additionally talking about pushing public financing of elections —
the most effective way to cut off K Street's ability to manipulate
Congress.
House Chairpeople George Miller (D-CA), David Obey (D-WI), John Conyers (D-MI), Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Henry Waxman (D-CA):
Miller will now head the Education and Workforce Committee where he is
expected to turn his longtime leadership on pension security, wage
protection and union organizing rights into legislative action. Obey,
who will head the Appropriations Committee (and who I worked for a few
years back), will make sure that any budget submitted by the White
House that slashes health care, education and labor law enforcement
will be dead on arrival, and replaced with a real spending plan that
protects people (Obey was the guy who famously authored amendments to
slash tax cuts for millionaires in order to better fund these
priorities). Conyers will head the Judiciary Committee, which oversees
all sorts of regulatory affairs where his pro-consumer record will
finally have a chance to shine. Slaughter will chair the powerful Rules
Committee — the panel that governs how the entire chamber operates.
She has been an outspoken leader against media consolidation — one of
the toughest issues to champion because the broadcasting industry is so
powerful. And finally Waxman will head the Government Reform Committee,
where we will now have a chairman who is serious about rooting out the
waste, fraud and corruption that has plagued the no-bid Iraq contracts
given to President Bush's cronies.
Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Tim Ryan (D-OH), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) Nancy Boyda (D-KS), and Bruce Braley (D-IA):
Ohio's trio of Kaptur, Ryan and Kucinich have been among the staunchest
critics of lobbyist-written trade pacts and advocates for the
middle-class agenda in the House. Freshmen Boyda and Braley both ran
their campaigns almost exclusively on the trade issue. In Braley's
case, the Wall Street Journal noted
that he made opposition to the Bush administration's free-trade agenda
a centerpiece of his campaign” urging “more focus on labor rights in
national trade policy and talked of using economic sanctions to keep
America competitive.”
Money Party Leaders
Sen. Chuck Schumer and Reps. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD):
All three of these men, now in leadership positions, have made very
little effort to conceal that they answer to Big Money interests.
Schumer, for instance, recently trumpeted a new report calling for post-Enron corporate reforms to be gutted. Emanuel was the architect of NAFTA who used the prospect of his being in the majority on the Ways and Means Committee to suck corporate cash out of Wall Street. Hoyer bragged on his website about starting his own K Street Project, and, as I documented in Hostile Takeover,
one of his top legislative staffers serves simultaneously as an
official for his corporate fundraising operation — 'nuff said.
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