“It’s a huge win,” said Rep. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) said in a recent interview before Maloney’s decision was formally announced, noting that the move would open a door for our party to gain power from all parts of It.”
“The escalation and aggression against the progressive wing of the party with an explicit ‘blacklist’ pointing forward has created a lot of discouragement against candidates, even if they are considering organizing businesses,” she said.
The new policy, introduced in 2019, prohibited the committee from working for a consultant or firm with a consultant or firm that heads or recommends a sitting Democratic official. This provoked an unexpectedly strong setback – but it was popular among members who are more prone to primary challenges and do not want their party equipment, to which they pay, to enable their opponents.
The ban has long been an informal practice at the DCCC, but to codify it, progressive people have turned a blind eye. A few months after Ocasio-Cortez took down a member of the Democratic leadership in 2018, the groups that drove her to Congress claimed it was an attempt to stunt their movement.
“We have by-elections to ensure we have the best and brightest in every party,” Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.) Said, who successfully ousted a Democratic official last year, even after the new policy forced several of her consultants to abruptly quit. “Primary should therefore not be hindered by outside forces.”
Maloney overturned a policy created by his predecessor, Representative Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), In a somewhat tacit acknowledgment that it had fallen behind. It created hostility within the conference and a fierce clash with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including representatives Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) And Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), The then co-chairs. Ocasio-Cortez, a powerful force under the party’s liberal wing, was so outraged that she did not want to pay any amount to the committee and instead donated directly to candidates.
The rule was seen by Bustos as a revelation of two key constituencies in the Democratic Party: moderates who helped win the majority and fear challenges from the left; and the black and Spanish caucuses of Congress, both of which have had an influx of primary challengers in recent cycles.
In particular, the CBC made a show of collaboration to deter progressives from expelling one of their own: Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who faced a challenger, backed by a coalition of progressive groups. Beatty won, but former former Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), A CBC member whose family his St. Louis District owned for decades, lost against the current Rep. Cori Bush, an activist for Black Lives Matter.
Not everyone praised Maloney’s decision.
“I think it’s inappropriate,” Democratic Representative Jim Costa, a member of the fiscal conservative Blue Dog Coalition of Central California, said in an interview before the decision was finalized. Costa easily beat a progressive challenger in 2020.
“We are supposed to be a team,” he said. interview last week and added that members should not help other primary members. “It simply came to our notice then. We are either a team or we are not. ‘
DCCC continues to be a powerful gatekeeper and retains a significant amount of leverage. Even without an explicit rule, he can still choose to which providers he hands out millions of dollars of TV and ballot contracts for his independent expenses. And it will play a big role in managing the best challenge campaigns towards certain consultants and businesses.
“No one should look for work here if they want to run after one of our members at the same time,” Maloney told POLITICO last month. ‘But I do not think the blanket ban ever made sense. And we are replacing it with a new approach. ‘
During her tenure, Bustos included a question on a form for businesses that want to be on a DCCC-approved vendor list. Consultants had to testify that they understood that ‘DCCC will not do business with or recommend any of its purposeful campaigns, with any consultant cooperating with an opponent of a sitting member of the House Democratic Caucus.’
The 2022 version of the form, which will be taken into use on Tuesday morning, does not contain such a requirement.
Yet controversial primaries in the 2022 cycle may be inevitable. Redistribution will definitely put members in a new area and make them more vulnerable.
Primary challenges – and the amount of support they receive from top companies and strategists or not – have been a thorny issue in the caucus for many years. Some successful challengers have won with the help of prominent Democratic pollsters or media consultants, including Representative Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Who ousted incumbent John Tierney in 2014 and rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Who beat Mike. Capuano in 2018.
Part of the argument of progressives against the ban was that it led to less competition and that other candidates deprived more diversity and talent in the ecosystem of groups working with campaigns.
“I think it ultimately works against especially newer salespeople, color buyers, people who may have come up more in the business over the last decade and who have had different types of customers,” Pocan said recently. “It’s good for the process not to have arbitrary rules there.”
According to DCCC, the committee was able to increase the amount it spent on diverse vendors from $ 4 million in 2016 to $ 28.6 million in 2020. A new policy for 2022 requires approved providers to attend a diversity, equity and inclusion training offered by the committee.
Despite the ban, liberals still achieved important victories. Three Democrat incumbents were lost in the primary election; two were longtime members who succeeded their fathers in Congress. Clay loses in Missouri, and Newman falls off Rep. Dan Lipinski, a Blue Dog Democrat who opposes abortion rights and voted against Obamacare. A third, Eliot Engel (DN.Y.), chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, lost to current principal Jamaal Bowman, a high school-backed high school principal.
And Representative Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress and an outspoken supporter of the blacklist, was within 3,000 votes to lose to Jessica Cisneros, a 26-year-old lawyer backed by Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Some consultants have adopted the so-called “blacklist”. even set up a website, dcccblacklist.com, to connect candidates with businesses that were not afraid to fight the DCCC rules.
“There are just not many people who want to do Democratic consultation anymore who hold the views of Bill Clinton and Bruce Reed,” said Sean McElwee, co-founder of Data for Progress, a Liberal voter. (Reed is a former chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and currently serves as a White House assistant to President Joe Biden.)
McElwee’s firm participated in Bush’s race in Missouri and for Bowman in New York, but said that Data for Progress lost a client in Texas, Julie Oliver, who was running against GOP representative Roger Williams, thanks to the new policy of the committee. The group interviewed Oliver in June before being replaced by a DCCC-approved dealer.
“Treating progressive people as if it is something to be crushed,” he said, “rather than partners wanting to build a better party that is more sustainable, is not a sound tactic.”
Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.