Money is Drying Up for Blue Dogs

In March of 2009, Chris Bowers from Open Left suggested that, "We simply must stop funneling money to the Blue Dog coalition."

Let's take a quick review of the Blue Dog behavior we are ratifying. The Blue Dog coalition has made it clear that they believe they have veto power over the entire agenda of the Obama administration and the Democratic congressional leadership. After a meeting with President Obama three weeks before the election, the Blue Dogs declared:

"He also recognized that we had the numbers to block or clear" legislation coming from the White House if he is elected.

If they are coasting that they can block or clear whatever legislation they want, the Blue Dogs consider themselves to be in charge of D.C., not Speaker Pelosi or President Obama. Some highlight of their past behavior include being the driving force in the Democratic Party behind the 2005 bankruptcy bill (they voted 32-4 in favor), the 2006 ending of habeus corpus, the 2007 Iraq War blank check, and the 2008 FISA re-write (see here for both). So far in 2009, they only allowed the stimulus package to go through after extracting a pay-go promise from the Obama administration. Last month, they joined with the New Democrats to block foreclosure relief legislation, which Evan Bayh's Blue Dogs in the Senate seem to have killed. And most of them will vote against the budget, too.

The Blue Dogs are an overt obstacle to progressive governance. For crying out loud, their entire name comes from feeling "choked blue by the left-wing of the party." In the recent past, they have refused to send money to the DCCC because another member of Congress criticized them on Iraq. They are overtly anti-progressive and anti-left wing. They don't even work to help other members of the party. So, why are we working to help them?

As previously discussed, Blue Dog Sen Evan Bayh has a monetary incentive to stop a real and robust healthcare reform including a Public Option from becoming reality.

Finally, a Center for Public Integrity analysis shows that fundraising for the Blue Dog Democrat Coalition has significantly been cut over the course of the year.

It’s official. The Blue Dog’s fundraising slowdown was not just a symptom of the dog days of summer. Newly released public disclosure forms indicate that over September, the coalition’s PAC took in its smallest monthly total yet this year.

Our analysis of the fiscally conservative and increasingly influential Blue Dog Coalition and its funding noted that the group’s political action committee had averaged more than $176,000 in receipts from other PACs over the first half of 2009. Their monthly haul dropped to a surprisingly low $27,000 in July, rebounded somewhat in August, and but then dropped again to just $12,500 in September.

That September money came from just three donations — $5,000 from accounting and professional services giant Ernst & Young’s PAC, $2,500 from the Food Marketing Institute PAC, and $5,000 from the National Rifle Association of America Political Victory Fund.

After raising $1.1 million from January to June, the committee raised less than $87,000 between July and September — less than it brought in during any one of the preceding five months. And in just three months, the Blue Dog PAC’s monthly fundraising average dropped by more than $50,000 — probably not the sort of fiscal conservatism the 52-member coalition was hoping for.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/27/blue-dog-fundraising-dimi_n_335448.html

Ask yourself, is it undemocratic when our elected officials believe that their constituents are corporate supporters rather than the people who elected them?

Legalized Corruption

Sen Joe Leiberman against the filibuster until he's for the filibuster.

Rachel Maddow discusses Lieberman's anti-Democratic position with Glenn Greenwald in: Lieberman, Bought & Paid For!

WATCH:

h/t Crooks and Liars:

Maddow: Sen. Lieberman has made it very clear that he plans to oppose health reform that includes a public option. He’ll filibuster it in fact which would be historic. What do you think is motivating him?

Greenwald: Well I think you have to look first of all at a Research 2000 Daily KOS poll that was taken last month that shows that a margin of 68 to 21% of Connecticut voters, the people who he’s essentially representing, favor a public option. That’s a 47 point margin which is almost impossible to find on almost any other issue. So when you ask why he’s doing this, it’s clearly not because the people he’s supposed to be representing favor it.

I think clearly what it’s about is primarily that fact that the industry that he’s serving by doing this—by preventing competition with the public option—is an industry from which he receives very substantial benefits. He’s drowning in campaign contributions from the insurance industry, the health care industry, the pharmaceutical industry—more than $2.5 million.

In early 2005 his wife was hired by a large P.R. firm, Hill & Knowlton, in the pharmaceutical division, which at the time was representing the health care giant Glaxo in major legislation before the Senate. And several months later Joe Lieberman was on the floor of the Senate offering legislation that would directly steer huge amounts of incentives to that company in order to develop vaccines.

So I think what you’re seeing here is the kind of legalized corruption, legalized bribery that runs the United States Senate; only in this case it’s particularly sleazy and transparent because Lieberman is ready to gut the major initiative of the Democratic Party.

Maddow: In doing so, using a procedural tactic that he’s in part made his name by opposing is the thing that’s so dramatic. Sen. Lieberman of course—he made this big announcement yesterday—today Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana followed suit saying that he reserves the right now not only to filibuster the final vote, but even to filibuster earlier than that any debate on a bill that he’s not happy with. Sen. Bayh—we had thought that other conservative Democrats might follow Lieberman’s lead here, he sort of threw the door open and now presumably Bayh and maybe even others will follow. Can you say anything about what may be motivating Bayh.

Greenwald: Well, let’s look at Sen. Bayh. His wife sits on the Board of Directors of WellPoint, one of the largest health insurance companies in the nation. They own by their own disclosures between $500,000 and a million dollars just of WellPoint stock alone. And as I think you reported yesterday when Sen. Lieberman threatened to filibuster to the public option as one would expect the value of the stock of the health care industries and the health care companies skyrocketed—which directly benefited, personally benefited the finances of the Bayh family.

Let me just quickly reference this column two weeks ago by Dan Carpenter, a columnist for the Indianapolis Sun, who knows Sen. Bayh the best. He talks about how his wife is benefiting directly from the very actions Sen. Bayh is taking in the Senate to block health care reform—financially benefiting his family. And he wrote “after it became clear he was going to be a Senator, Susan Bayh started stacking up memberships on the board of health care corporations. Susan Bayh got paid a little over $2 million for her service between 2006 and 2008. Her husband had a good 2008 also, collecting more than $500,000 in campaign donations from the health care industry.

And now these very same people who receive enormous amounts of benefits, in Lieberman’s case from camp contributions and through his wife and also in Bayh’s case are not ignoring their constituents and the interest of their country to serve the very industries that enrich them. It’s really clear corruption.

It is time that the voters of Connecticut and Indiana vote Sen. Lieberman and Sen.Bayh out of the office. Voters need to support Progressive Democrats who will vote for the interests of their constituents and not just for the lobbyist who are lining the politicians' greedy pockets.