Swordsmyth
08-20-2019, 12:46 AM
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is surrounded. The left side of her conference, run by the so-called “Squad” of socialist Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) is ascendant as Pelosi’s top deputies–several committee chairs–face primary challenges similar to one Ocasio-Cortez used to wipe out longtime Pelosi ally, former Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) on her path to power.
In fact, at least seven of Pelosi’s top confidantes–committee chairs–potentiallly face the same fate as Crowley, as primary challengers have announced campaigns against them.
One powerful Pelosi deputy who faces a primary, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY)–the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee–has not faced an internal party challenge since 1988.
Roll Call’s Jennifer Schutt wrote (https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/lowey-faces-primary-challenge-her-first-in-three-decades) on Monday:
The year was 1988. Def Leppard topped the charts and stonewashed jeans were all the rage. It was also the last time powerful House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey faced a primary challenge. That’s all changed now with the decision by Mondaire Jones, a former Obama administration Justice Department staffer and attorney for Westchester County’s Law Department, to challenge Lowey in next June’s primary. The 32-year-old political novice plans to take on the New York Democratic incumbent over her positions on issues ranging from climate change to student debt forgiveness to oversight of the Trump administration.
Schutt continued her piece by quoting Jones, who compared the race against Lowey to Ocasio-Cortez’s victory over another Pelosi confidante:
Jones hopes the same sentiment that propelled young progressives to victory in the last election cycle — with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s defeat of longtime New York Democrat Joseph Crowley the most famous example — will resonate with voters throughout New York’s Rockland and Westchester counties.
“The conventional wisdom dictated that people like me — young people, people of color — had to wait their turn, that they had to accept the opportunities that were given to them instead of putting themselves out there and letting the voters decide,” Jones said in an interview.
While Lowey has her hands full fighting off the primary challenge back home, she is hardly the only one of Pelosi’s close allies–members of Congress do not become committee chairs unless they are loyal foot soldiers for the Speaker’s agenda–under fire from the left facing primary challenges in their districts. Schutt continued her piece by noting several other committee chairs in Pelosi’s majority are facing primaries too. Schutt wrote:
Lowey arrived on Capitol Hill after the 1988 elections alongside Ways and Means Chairman Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts; Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot L. Engel of New York; and Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, who took office in late 1988 after a special election. All are facing primary challengers this year. The same goes for Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, first elected in 1986; Agriculture Chairman Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, first elected in 1990; and even Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York, the party’s point man on impeachment proceedings, who came to Congress after a 1992 special election.”
If even one of these seven committee chairs falls to a primary challenger, it would be cataclysmic in official Washington. People this close to the power of a House Speaker are theoretically supposed to be safe from such things, at least in their own parties, but with the rise of the anti-establishment left inside the Democrat conference–led by the “Squad” but followed by many others, including in particular the broader Congressional Progressive Caucus–the leadership has been caught off guard by surging leftist activism pushing political and policy priorities far outside the American mainstream.
The swift takeover of the Democrat Party that Ocasio-Cortez and her comrades have engineered may have deep consequences for the party nationally. President Donald Trump has sought to accelerate her rise inside the Democrat Party, to great success, in order to force the party further to the left and away from solutions on issues voters care about like healthcare, infrastructure, immigration, family leave, the economy, and more.
More at: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/08/19/surrounded-left-corners-pelosis-deputies-lines-up-primaries-against-democrat-committee-chairs/
In fact, at least seven of Pelosi’s top confidantes–committee chairs–potentiallly face the same fate as Crowley, as primary challengers have announced campaigns against them.
One powerful Pelosi deputy who faces a primary, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY)–the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee–has not faced an internal party challenge since 1988.
Roll Call’s Jennifer Schutt wrote (https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/lowey-faces-primary-challenge-her-first-in-three-decades) on Monday:
The year was 1988. Def Leppard topped the charts and stonewashed jeans were all the rage. It was also the last time powerful House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey faced a primary challenge. That’s all changed now with the decision by Mondaire Jones, a former Obama administration Justice Department staffer and attorney for Westchester County’s Law Department, to challenge Lowey in next June’s primary. The 32-year-old political novice plans to take on the New York Democratic incumbent over her positions on issues ranging from climate change to student debt forgiveness to oversight of the Trump administration.
Schutt continued her piece by quoting Jones, who compared the race against Lowey to Ocasio-Cortez’s victory over another Pelosi confidante:
Jones hopes the same sentiment that propelled young progressives to victory in the last election cycle — with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s defeat of longtime New York Democrat Joseph Crowley the most famous example — will resonate with voters throughout New York’s Rockland and Westchester counties.
“The conventional wisdom dictated that people like me — young people, people of color — had to wait their turn, that they had to accept the opportunities that were given to them instead of putting themselves out there and letting the voters decide,” Jones said in an interview.
While Lowey has her hands full fighting off the primary challenge back home, she is hardly the only one of Pelosi’s close allies–members of Congress do not become committee chairs unless they are loyal foot soldiers for the Speaker’s agenda–under fire from the left facing primary challenges in their districts. Schutt continued her piece by noting several other committee chairs in Pelosi’s majority are facing primaries too. Schutt wrote:
Lowey arrived on Capitol Hill after the 1988 elections alongside Ways and Means Chairman Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts; Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot L. Engel of New York; and Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, who took office in late 1988 after a special election. All are facing primary challengers this year. The same goes for Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, first elected in 1986; Agriculture Chairman Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, first elected in 1990; and even Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York, the party’s point man on impeachment proceedings, who came to Congress after a 1992 special election.”
If even one of these seven committee chairs falls to a primary challenger, it would be cataclysmic in official Washington. People this close to the power of a House Speaker are theoretically supposed to be safe from such things, at least in their own parties, but with the rise of the anti-establishment left inside the Democrat conference–led by the “Squad” but followed by many others, including in particular the broader Congressional Progressive Caucus–the leadership has been caught off guard by surging leftist activism pushing political and policy priorities far outside the American mainstream.
The swift takeover of the Democrat Party that Ocasio-Cortez and her comrades have engineered may have deep consequences for the party nationally. President Donald Trump has sought to accelerate her rise inside the Democrat Party, to great success, in order to force the party further to the left and away from solutions on issues voters care about like healthcare, infrastructure, immigration, family leave, the economy, and more.
More at: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/08/19/surrounded-left-corners-pelosis-deputies-lines-up-primaries-against-democrat-committee-chairs/