Novak: 'Big Business' Fundraiser Held for Pro CAFTA House Dems

[Rose Siding]

Free-trade Democrats

Big business quietly held a major fund-raiser Wednesday evening to help the 15 Democratic House members who voted for the Central American Free Trade Agreement and have had their funding cut off by organized labor.

The event was held at the Washington offices of Nortel, a telecom company. Contributions ranged from $1,000 to $15,000. Top business leaders and corporate executives were listed among sponsors led by former Michigan Gov. John Engler (now president of the National Association of Manufacturers).

All 15 recipients of the business aid have liberal voting records as measured by the Americans for Democratic Action. Vic Snyder of Arkansas and Jim Moran of Virginia each voted 95 percent liberal last year. They were followed at 90 percent by Ruben Hinojosa of Texas, Dennis Moore of Kansas and Edolphus Towns of New York.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak11.html

[1932]

1. I'm reading Richard Parker's Galbraith bio. Nat'l Assoc. of Mnfgs. shows

up frequently in the book as an extremely conservative voice for wealth polarization and slammer of any progressive impulse.

I also heard the author of What's The Matter With Kansas say that NAM told Kerry not to pick only one person as his VP -- John Edwards -- and that Kerry showed a lot of courage picking him (but made the mistake of not using him effectively). I believe a tape of that talk is available at the Commonwealth Club's website.

[MaineDem]

2. Interesting, Nortel is a foreign company

It's Canadian, I believe. (Nothing against Canada!)

[madfloridian]

3. And let's not forget David Sirota's list of Senate and House sell-outs.

From his July 30 emailed newsletter:

http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=69095EDE-985B-CCEE-5E17D64701D57A07

The Final House-Senate List of Democrats' Ultra-Disloyal Sellouts

In the interest of getting to a final comprehensive list of both House Members and Senators who are the Democratic Party's real problem, let's take a look at which Democratic Senators are most consistently undermining their party by voting for corporate interests over middle-class interests. Then let's combine it with the list we already have amassed of the House sellouts.

Ten Senate Democrats this past week voted for the corporate-written Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) - that constitutes about a quarter of all Senate Democrats. These turncoats are:

Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Murray (D-WA)
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Wyden (D-OR)

To whittle down who among these sellouts can be considered an ultra-sellout I'll use the same standard as with House Members: which of these Senators voted for the credit card industry-written Bankruptcy Bill, and the bill limiting citizens' legal rights against abusive corporations?

On the Bankruptcy Bill, the key vote was on cloture, because that was where everyone knew the bill would either be killed or not, no matter how they voted on final passage. If cloture had been voted down, there would never have been a vote on final passage and the bill would have died. There were 6 total Democrats who voted for CAFTA and who voted for cloture on the bankruptcy bill (and thus in support of the bill): Carper, Lieberman, Lincoln, Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson, and Pryor.

On the vote limiting citizens' legal rights against abusive corporations, the list gets further whittled down to 5: Carper, Feinstein, Lieberman, Lincoln and Bill Nelson.

As I have said, the idea that any of these people had to vote for these things because they represent swing states is wholly without merit - there is simply no proof that selling out to corporate interests helps politicians win elections - in fact, there is proof that the opposite is true, and that standing rejecting this extreme economic agenda wins elections, while capitulating to this agenda loses elections.

But even if you subscribe to the ridiculous "swing state Democrats must sell out" theory and take out Senators who could have potentially tough re-election races like Lincoln and Bill Nelson, you still have 3 safe Senators who are consistently undermining their party: Carper, Feinstein and Lieberman.

Combine these Senators with the House Members I discussed in a previous post, and that gets us the final comprehensive list. There are 11 Democrats from both the House and Senate who are consistently undermining their party, even though they win re-election easily, and thus have positively no excuse for their willingness to aid and abet the Republican Party/Corporate America's extreme economic agenda. They are:

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN)
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT)
Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY)
Rep. Dennis Moore (D-KS)
Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA)
Rep. John Tanner (D-TN)

These are the people who should, for starters, get absolutely no money or grassroots resources from organized labor or regular working people in general. And they are the people that should be high on the list when progressives think about which Democratic lawmakers need to know there are political consequences to selling America out.

Sources:
Senate CAFTA vote:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00209

Senate bankruptcy cloture vote:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00029
Senate vote on limiting citizens' legal rights:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00009


Previous analysis of House Democrats on core economic issues:
http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/07/which-of-15-dem-sellouts-should-start.html

[MaineDem]

4. Greg Meeks was a candidate For Vice Chair of the DNC

At the last minute he pulled out and threw his endorsement to Mike Honda.