MAGA Mike's Bill Would Have Failed Without Hakeem Jeffries' Support
Yesterday, 133 Democrats went along with the Republican messaging bill about anti-Semitism, not in regard to the GOP right-wing variety that was demonstrated at Charlottesville (“Jews will not replace us”) but instead, aimed at the students— many of whom are Jewish— protesting American complicity with the Israeli genocide in Gaza, ie- campus pro-peace demonstrators. The vote was funny— 70 serious pro-peace Democrats paired with 21 actual GOP anti-Semites and Nazis like Paul Gosar, Moscow Marge, Matt Rosendale, Clay Higgins, Lauren Boebert… that crew. With all those GOP votes against it, the only way it could pass was with support from Democrats, beyond even the die-hard AIPAC scum like Gottheimer, Moskowitz, Wasserman Schultz...
Just to give you an idea of the Democrats who refused to be stampeded into supporting the craven, idiotic bill:
Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)
AOC (D-NY)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Greg Casar (D-TX)
Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
Katie Porter (D-CA)
Chuy García (D-IL)
Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)
Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Mark Pocan (D-WI)
Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
Jamaal Bowman (D-NY)
Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ)
Jim McGovern (D-MA)
Mark Takano (D-CA)
Ro Khanna (D-CA)
Cori Bush (D-MO)
Delia Ramirez (D-IL)
Needless to say the AIPAC-adjacent Democratic leadership all voted for the bill. It passed 320-91, so the 133 Dems who voted for it can pat themselves on the back for going on the record in favor of cracking down against freedom of speech on college campuses. And for being so bipartisan in their support for the underlying genocidal foundation of the bill. Just disgusting! Is it any wonder that young progressives turn away from electoral politics?
One thing the vote yesterday demonstrated is that Hakeem Jeffries and Pete Aguilar are utterly unfit to be the leaders of the House Democrats— too bought into the Establishment and too personally corrupt. This morning Jake Sherman, Mica Soellner and Max Cohen reported that the caucus needed some real leadership, not just Jeffries and Aguilar rallying the troops for AIPAC. “For House Democrats, the entire picture is gray— and therein lies what Republicans see as a gigantic political upside. While the majority of House Democrats still back Israel through its brutal war against Hamas in Gaza, many Democrats have been critical of the way the Israeli forces have conducted the conflict. This represents a serious break in the bipartisan support for Israel, a hallmark of congressional politics for decades. Furthermore, a large group of House Democrats don’t see vigorous criticism of Israel or the large-scale, pro-Palestinian protests that have broken at numerous schools as inherently antisemitic. Numerous younger, more progressive Democrats back the protests, lamenting the deaths of 30,000-plus Palestinians killed during the war.”
[T]he Republicans’ response to the protests— a parade of votes on antisemitism and a stream of high-profile hearings with university officials— is causing serious heartburn in the House Democratic Caucus.
…The bill, authored by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Yet inside the GOP leadership, there was glee that they were pushing what they considered to be good policy while also putting Democrats in a bind.
…One House Democrat, speaking anonymously to avoid angering the leadership, put it this way:
“Jeffries is saving Johnson even as he’s allowing Republicans and moderate Democrats like [Rep. Jared] Moskowitz and Josh Gottheimer to continue jamming us on tough votes and leaving the rest of us hanging and getting hammered at home. If they showed real leadership, they would keep us all together to protect all of us and use their leverage to stop with the gotcha bills.”
Rep. Becca Balint, a Jewish Democrat from Vermont in her first term, said she’s frustrated with the fact that her caucus doesn’t have conversations about antisemitism.
“We have voted on so many antisemitism resolutions. As a Jewish person, I can say, I’m fed up with it. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s absurd. It’s not moving us towards action. It’s not making me feel any safer in this country.”
But consider what House Republicans have in store over the next few months.
Johnson has announced a House-wide investigation into antisemitism on college campuses. This probe will take up the next several months. The House Education and Workforce Committee is bringing officials from Yale, UCLA and Michigan to a hearing next month.
Next week, the House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing to probe why the Metropolitan Police Department rebuffed the George Washington University administration’s request to clean up its campus.
And several GOP-run panels said they’ll spend appropriations season trying to strip federal funds from schools that don’t do enough to protect Jewish students. House Democrats told us this will put many of them in a tough spot.
This is what Democrats get for allowing Jeffries and his team to lead them down a path of propping up an extreme right-winger like MAGA Mike and keeping the House Republicans from falling into chaos and acrimonious turmoil again:
Yesterday 538 published an interesting analysis of congressional voting patterns, The 8 Types Of Democrats And Republicans In The House. The quintet of writers noted that “while many members’ formal caucus affiliations matched up pretty well with their voting behaviors, some did not. We analyzed every House floor vote from the first year of the 118th Congress (2023) and applied an algorithm to divide representatives into eight clusters based on similarities in their voting records, using eight official ideological congressional caucuses as a comparison. We then dug into what these clusters say about which issues and votes set members apart, and how these divides fell along the lines of ideology, tenure, district partisanship and more.” They found 5 Republican and 3 Democratic clusters (Progressives, Core Dems and the right-wing Dems who they mis-label “moderate”).
Far-Right Obstructionists cluster— 39 members who are part of, or tend to be closely aligned with, the Freedom Caucus and includes all the psychos, like Moscow Marge (GA), Matt Gaetz (FL), Scott Perry (PA), Troy Nehls (TX), Clay Higgins (LA), Lauren Boebert (CO), Gym Jordan (OH), Paul Gosar (AZ), Andy Biggs (AZ), Bob Good (VA)… you know who they are. Obviously these nuts are the most reactionary, most neo-fascist, most anti-establishment, obstructionist, pro-Kremlin and MAGA of all the clusters.
Still extremely right wing, they call their second cluster Far-Right Establishment, the largest of the GOP clusters (55 members), stacked with party leaders. This one includes MAGA Mike (LA), Steve Scalise (LA), Tom Emmer (MN), Guy Reschenthaler (PA), Gary Palmer (AL), Scott DesJarlais (TN) and Kevin Hern (OK). With the exceptions of David Schweikert (AZ) and Jeff Van Drew (NJ), they’re all in safe deep red districts.
Next is the Old Guard Republicans, their second biggest cluster (50 members) which is very hard to distinguish from the Far-Right Establishment. It includes characters like Elise Stefanik (NY), Joe Wilson (SC), Claudia Tenney (NY), Virginia Foxx (NC), Troy Balderson (OH)…
The Compromise Conservatives is the smallest of the GOP groups (32 members). Many of them are in swing districts, like Laurel Lee (FL), Derrick Van Orden (WI), John Duarte (CA), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA), Brandon Williams (NY), Mike Garcia (CA)… conservative but afraid of losing their Cush jobs.
Not much different, but infinitesimally less right-wing are the so-called “Moderate Republicans,” 39 members “who break more often than others from the majority of their party on both substantive policy and partisan messaging, with the goal of finding consensus across the aisle.” This sounds like a fairy take description of something that just does not exist. It includes right-wings in swing districts like Ken Calvert (CA), Michelle Steel (CA), Don Bacon (NE), Tony Gonzales (TX), Ann Wagner (MO), Nick LaLota (NY), Zach Nunn (IA), Anthony D’Esposito (NY), Andrew Garbarino (NY), Ashley Hinson (IA), Juan Ciscomani (AZ)…
The mis-labeled “Moderate Democrats”— barely distinguishable from republicans much of the time)— come next, fortunately the smallest of teh Democratic clusters (75 members). “This cluster is by far the most centrist of the Democratic wing. Last year, the Moderate Democrats voted yes on bipartisan amendments 92 percent of the time, 20 percent more frequently than their progressive colleagues, and they voted for Democratic amendments 11 percent less frequently than the rest of their party. They also voted yes more often on all types of passage, a signal that they were more willing than other Democrats to side with the Republican majority. Three of the five Democrats who represent districts that Trump won in 2020 are in this cluster: Kaptur, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state. This cluster also contains almost every member of the Blue Dog Coalition, the most [right-wing] Democratic caucus in the House.” What a coincidence thy most of the most corrupt Democrats are also members of this cluster— Jimmy Panetta (CA), Henry Cuellar (TX), Jared Moskowitz (FL), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Lizzie Fletcher (TX), Don Davis (NC)… Just real dreck.
Half the House Dems are in the Core Democrats cluster— just a big mush of establishment, mostly corporate careerists, like Hakeem Jeffries (NY), Peter Aguilar (CA), Steny Hoyer (MD), Adam Schiff (CA), Brad Sherman (CA), Bill Foster (IL), Scott Peters (CA), Rob Menendez (NJ), Ritchie Torres (NY), Ami Bera (CA), Rick Larsen (WA), Joyce Beatty (OH), Ed Case (HI), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL), Shontel Brown (OH), Haley Stevens (MI), David Trone (MD)… More dreck— and in control of the party.
The Progressive cluster includes 68 members, many of whom are actual progressives, but, unfortunately, many of whom aren’t. With just a few exceptions, the only good Democrats in the House ar win this cluster, which includes the Squad plus members like Pramila Jayapal (WA), Jim McGovern (MA), Jamie Raskin (MD), Mark Takano (CA), Ro Khanna (CA), Judy Chu (CA), Barbara Lee (CA)… a significant number who don’t have a progressive bone in their bodies, like Juan Vargas (CA), Sean Casten (IL), Tony Cardenas (CA)…
I found mistake after mistake in their results, which means their methodology was probably flawed. Or there was human error in the analysis.