Today, 54 members of Congress signed a letter urging President Obama to put pressure on Israel to lift the siege of Gaza.
None of these Congresspersons was from Illinois. This is shameful. Perhaps some of the so-called progressives in the Illinois delegation can explain their failure to support human rights. Perhaps some of the members of the Black Caucus from Illinois can explain their failure to condemn the actions of a racist state.
Happy Nominating Petition Filing Period Opening Day!
After dithering over whether to run for his US Congressional seat, or for Cook County Board President, Danny Davis today submitted his petition to run for the later. In fact, he said that his "mind is made up." Kinda. BEZ has the exact quote. You decide what that means.
Perhaps to no one's surprise, but to the continuing disappointment of millions of progressives who busted their rears and emptied their wallets in 2006 to elect a Democratic Congress with a mandate to end the war, and who contributed with even greater fervor to elect in 2008 a president whose principal early distinction from his primary opponents was his opposition to the war, the House of Representatives yesterday approved a supplemental appropriations bill that continues to fund and arguably escalates the war in the Middle East and Central Asia. The final vote was 368-60, with 9 Republicans joining 51 Democrats in opposition. Some of the reasons to vote no are articulated by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) in her floor speech:
For most campaigns, today (Friday) marks the end of the persuasion/identification phase of the campaign and begins the mobilization phase. All the indicators available to me suggest that this race ends pretty much where it began. There has been very little movement in the race, in part because no campaign seems to have broken out of the mold, and the short time frame was diminished by the major media's virtual black-out on the race. (The New York Times has given more coverage of the special election in Buffalo than the local papers combined.) So I won't be at all surprised if this race concludes just as it began where the first benchmark polls had it.
But this special election tests some prominent theories about what is effective in campaigns and elections. Each of the major campaigns (and more than one of the second tier campaigns) have pursued a different emphasis among the basket of tactics available to campaigns. The Feigenholtz campaign has gambled on television driving turnout (or lack thereof). The Quigley campaign has put all it's eggs in the direct mail basket. The Fritchey campaign has blanketed the district with signs -- and I've seen more large signs than yard signs on his behalf. The Geoghegan campaign is counting on the netroots. The Forys campaign is betting that microtargeting ethnics will prove decisive. O'Connor seems to be betting that he has tight control over his ward (and a neighboring one), and that his ward organization is sufficient to pull out victory.
Because everyone has been knocking on doors and running their phone banks, these tactics seem to be what separates the campaigns in this special election. One of them will win on Tuesday (although I'm not counting on that fact necessarily being known on Tuesday -- or even Wednesday). What I do think is that we are going to be surprised. I have severe doubts that the most obvious choice will wind up the winner. That may depend on who you think is the obvious choice.
I previously wrote a long, technical post on problems with the 110-page bailout bill, analyzing it as if a client had brought me a contract to review. When the Senate passed the 451-page amended version, I drafted another critique, but did not post til now out of respect for giving space to other voices; also the sands seemed in perpetual shift, with the "crisis" being given a new label daily: mortgage crisis, credit crisis, liquidity crisis, stock-value crisis...Some fact-checking was really necessary. Also, my initial draft was just way too friggin' long!
Having slept on it, still being convinced that the White House shredding operation prior to new occupancy may include a shredding of the economy, and having made attempts to pare down, this (below the fold) is as good a place as any to post the floor speech I would have liked to hear, rather than the many statements in "reluctant support" of the bailout bill:
I saw a new TV ad for Aaron Schock's Congressional campaign this week. This one features pictures of Illinois waterways and wetlands. Aaron poses next to a river while he promises to "keep fighting" for clean water.
So, does Schock have a strong record of protecting Illinois rivers and wetlands? I decided to ask some Sierra Club leaders who watch environmental issues in the Illinois General Assembly about major clean water bills in the last few years. There was an important bill on wetlands protection the year before Schock took office, so he doesn't have a voting record on that.
There were two bills about regulating surface discharge from septic systems included in the Illinois Environmental Council's 2007 legislative scorecard that environmental groups lobbied on. Schock voted against protecting waterways in both cases.
18th District Congressional candidate Aaron Schock is currently running ads that repeat the national Republican Party talking points about energy policy complete with pictures of windmills.
At a recent press conference announcing his rumored energy plan he parroted language that's often used by industry special interests who want large public subsidies for polluting sources of power, while making token efforts for renewable energy and efficiency projects. He specifically mentioned several items at the top of the agenda for pro-pollution lobbyists, including drilling in ANWR and off-shore. They would have us believe that this will lower gas prices but the minor increase in supply won't come close to matching the increase in demand from China and India.
Is Aaron Schock's plan any different than what's being offered by the polluting industries?
Unlike an assault on the environment, choice, or a sovereign foreign country, where we'd all know who to call, and be bombarded with reams of Urgent Action e-mails, readily apparent organized resistance to something like the $700 billion bailout proposal is murkier. There's no well-heeled netroots battalion of mortgage foreclosure victims, about-to-be-laid-off lower-echelon Wall Streeters, or for that matter Future Taxpayers (many of whom aren't yet old enough to vote). The Left tends not to be organized around issues of finance; in fact, coziness with the folks who brought us this debacle tends to be a bipartisan effort. So, in one respect, the backlash against the proposal ought to be seen as the most instantaneous uprising of ordinary taxpayers we've seen in maybe our lifetime.
But there are groups working on these issues, and coalitions are forming, and they are urging action.
Below is a series of questions for members of Congress on the proposed Bush administration bailout package of the financial sector.
I request you make suggestions improving the list of questions. I also request that members of the community help get members of Congress and congressional candidates to answer these questions.
Spending $700 billion is a big deal. I hope to use blogs to engage our members of Congress. Insiders got us into this mess. And if John Q. Taxpayer is going to provide the credit card for this project, it would be considerate if members of Congress engaged people besides insiders on this matter.
It is a political campaign maxim, particularly for non-incumbents, that campaigns must jealously focus on their own race to win - and that any 'distraction' from their campaign comes at great or even unbearable cost. While examples may exist, how often have you heard of an underdog congressional campaign taking their volunteers to canvass for a neighboring congressional candidate? Perhaps more uncommon, how often have you heard of a congressional candidate taking their volunteers out of state to canvass for a presidential candidate in a party primary? It may be unconventional strategy, but 13th Congressional District Democrat Scott Harper has taken campaign volunteers to support neighboring 14th District Congressman Bill Foster in his historic win, and just last weekend was canvassing for Barack Obama in Lafayette, Indiana with his volunteers.
207 to 206 with 17 not voting. It doesn't get any closer than that. As Todd Beeton says at MyDD, we all know how Hastert or Oberweiss would have voted. We just need to look at Democrats Costello, Hill, Dingell, Clay and Skelton to see how "easy" it was for Democrats to vote the wrong way. Hats off to Bean too here. Johnson too is adding more fuel to his "Red Dog" status. Only this time it really counted.
QUESTION: On Ordering the Previous Question
H RES 1031 YEA-AND-NAY 11-Mar-2008 9:59 PM
BILL TITLE: Providing for the adoption of the resolution (H. Res. 895) establishing within the House of Representatives an Office of Congressional Ethics, and for other purposes
Update (wegerje) And here's his first vote:
H R 2082 23 YEA-AND-NAY 11-Mar-2008 7:01 PM
QUESTION: Passage, Objections of the President Not Withstanding
BILL TITLE: The Intelligence Authorization Act of 2008
Override Bush veto of anti-torture bill. Democrats
I will be working on Bill Foster's race full-time starting tomorrow (Wednesday) until the election. I'm totally excited to help out! Who else is going?
My friend from Ohio is coming out, too.
Post here if you're planning on helping so I'll know to look for you!
Progressive Donna Edwardsshows Bush dog Al Wynn the door in district MD-4. Edwards was supported by PDA, DFA, and many other progressive groups and communities.
SEIU executive director Terry Cavanagh put the contest in context, recounting his conversation with a member of Congress who wondered "Why are you doing this to Al Wynn? There are worse Democrats than Al Wynn."
(I usually like to do the table for these. This one got past me, sorry. Pretty straight party line this one. Anyway, here's the table, FYI. - promoted by wegerje)
The House recently passed a bill funding the CIA and other intel agencies, but banning waterboarding. (The actual language restricted them to interrogation methods permitted by the military manual.)
Voting against were:
Davis, Biggert, Kirk, LaHood, Manzullo, Rosjkam, Shimkus, and Weller.
Presumably, Davis's vote was against funding spying at that level.
Presumably, the Republican votes were for waterboarding.
Really, someone should ask.
The votes are reported by The Washington Post
*H R 2082* RECORDED VOTE 13-Dec-2007 1:27 PM
*QUESTION:* On Agreeing to the Conference Report
*BILL TITLE:* Intelligence Authorization Act
Bill Foster will file 1,832 signatures this morning for the special election in IL-14. They like to point out that's after a week with two ice storms and 8 inches of snow. I like to point out that it's a perfectly sufficient number to avoid a challenge.
I think they needed 870 or so, so 1,832 pads their total nicely and they were still able to do other stuff the past week.
I was out helping the Foster campaign in IL-14 yesterday. I was struck by a few things.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERAGE *************************************
Col. Morgenthaler's campaign plays a weird game of "will she or won't she"after having already announced that she will to local Democratic activists and party leaders. This leaves those of us in the trenches scratching out heads, then shrugging our shoulders, then thinking "whatever, at least someone seemingly credible is running". Perhaps we're thrown for a bit of a loop due to how a last minute candidacy was handled the last time around. None of us knew until she was in, while this time we knew Jill was in before she was. I think that may have been the appearance the Morgenthaler campaign was going for, anyway.
A coalition of progressive organizations has put together a Progressive Agenda for candidates for President and Congress. This agenda is pasted below the fold.
Questions for discussion:
1) Is this a good platform for our federal office candidates to adopt? If not, what would you change?
2) How can we get our federal candidates to sign on?
3) Could we come up with something similar at the state or county level?
Update: And he's out... That may have been the shortest campaign ever.
The Peoria Journal Star tells us that Richard Grawey is the first Democrat to enter the race to replace Ray LaHood in Congress.
"For people who know me well, it's probably not that much of a surprise," Grawey said recently, adding he worked on Capitol Hill from 1975 to 1982 as counsel for a congressional subcommittee before moving back to Peoria. "I've had, pretty much since my adult life, an interest in how as a society we make decisions."
Grawey entered private practice in 1982 and came to the bench in 1990, filling a spot vacated by Judge Richard Eagleton.
He's pretty unknown in the Springfield area. Anyone have thoughts about this guy?
For those who missed it, Ray LaHood's son decided not to run for the seat. It looks like the Republican field is clearing for Aaron Schock.
As a blogging side note, IL-18 should be added to the scroll down menu of Diary Topics because this is an open seat that Democrats have a good chance of winning with the right candidate.
