New Dems on the Hill: ‘We Ran as Populist Democrats’

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/11/14/new-dems-on-the-hill-%e2%80%98we-ran-as-populist-democrats%e2%80%99/

New Dems on the Hill: ‘We Ran as Populist Democrats’

by Mike Hall, Nov 14, 2006

Hollywood couldn’t have set the stage any better. The Capitol dome brightly spotlighted in the Washington night through the picture window. The first women ever set to serve as speaker of the House. A half-dozen newly elected senators whose victories shifted the Senate’s balance of power and many more new House members.


AFL-CIO President John Sweeney celebrates with the next speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (top), at the AFL-CIO reception for new members of Congress.

But it wasn’t make believe last night. It was part victory party, part welcome wagon for the new lawmakers and part promises of a new congressional direction at an AFL-CIO new members’ reception.

Several hundred people—including members of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, legislative specialists from national unions and Hill staffers—joined the new office holders and the AFL-CIO leaders.

Introducing Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who will take over the House speaker’s reins in January, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said:

The job ahead of us is just as important as the job that was just done. We have to work together to bring about real change and we will stay mobilized and organized to help that happen.

Pelosi praised the union movement’s mobilization, declaring that AFL-CIO troops “owned the ground” in the battleground states that swung congressional control away from the failed policies of the Bush administration and extremist Republican leaders.

FULL story at link above.