“It’s a huge victory,” said MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) in a recent interview, before Maloney’s decision was formally announced, noting that the move would open “a door for our party to leverage strength. from all parts of this. “
“The escalation and aggression against the progressive wing of the party with an explicit ‘forward looking’ blacklist ‘created a lot of deterrence against the candidates, even considering the grassroots companies,” she said.
Enacted in 2019, the new policy prohibited the committee from hiring or recommending to any Chamber campaign a consultant or company that worked in the primaries of an incumbent Democratic incumbent. This generated an unexpectedly strong reaction – but it was popular with members who are more prone to primary challenges and do not want their party apparatus, which they pay for, to empower their opponents.
The ban has long been an informal practice in the DCCC, but codifying it has left progressives in a nutshell. Coming a few months after Ocasio-Cortez ousted a member of the Democratic leadership in 2018, the groups that impelled her to Congress claimed it was an attempt by the establishment to curb their movement.
“We have primaries to ensure that we have the best and the brightest in each party,” said Congresswoman Marie Newman (D-Ill.), Who successfully overthrew a Democratic incumbent last year, even after the new policy forced several of its consultants to give up suddenly. “Therefore, the primaries must be free from external forces.”
Maloney reversed a policy created by his predecessor, Deputy Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), In a somewhat tacit acknowledgment that the shot backfired. This created enmity within the conference and a fierce confrontation with members of Congressional Progressive Caucus, including representatives Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) And Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), The then co-chairs. Ocasio-Cortez, a powerful force among the liberal wing of the party, was so outraged that he refused to pay any fees to the committee and instead donated directly to the candidates.
The rule was seen as an opening by Bustos to two key constituents of the Democratic Party: moderates who helped win the majority and feared challenges from the left; and the congressional caucuses of blacks and Hispanics, who have seen an influx of primary challengers in recent cycles.
CBC, in particular, put on a show by coming together to prevent progressives from expelling one of their own: Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who faced a challenger supported by a coalition of progressive groups. Beatty won, but now the former Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), A CBC member whose family controlled her district of St. Louis for decades, lost to now Rep. Cori Bush, activist for the Black Lives Matter.
Not everyone praised Maloney’s decision.
“I think that’s inappropriate,” said Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, a member of Central California’s fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition coalition, in an interview before the decision was finalized. Costa easily won a progressive challenger in 2020.
“We must be a team,” he said in a statement. interview last week, adding that members should not help other primary members. “It is the same principle as far as I am concerned. We are either a team or we are not. “
Still, the DCCC remains a powerful gatekeeper and maintains a significant amount of leverage. Even without an explicit rule in place, it can still choose which vendors to distribute millions of dollars in TV and research contracts to its independent spending arm. And it will play a big role in targeting the main challenging campaigns for certain consultants and firms.
“Nobody should be looking for work around here if they want to go after one of our members at the same time,” Maloney told POLITICO last month. “But I don’t think the general ban ever made sense. And we are going to replace it with a new approach.”
During his tenure, Bustos included a question on a form for companies wishing to appear on a list of suppliers approved by the DCCC. The consultants had to certify that they understand that “the DCCC will not do business with, nor will it recommend to any of its targeted campaigns, any consultant who works with an opponent of an effective member of the House of Democrats”
The 2022 version of this form, which will air on Tuesday morning, will not include this requirement.
However, controversial primaries may be unavoidable in the 2022 cycle. Redistricting will almost certainly place members in new territory and make them more vulnerable.
The main challenges – and the amount of support they receive or not from leading companies and strategists – have been a thorny issue within the caucus for years. Some successful challengers won with the help of leading Democratic researchers or media consultants, including Congressman Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Who dismissed incumbent John Tierney in 2014 and Congressman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Who defeated Mike Capuano in 2018.
Part of the progressives’ argument against the ban was that it generated less competition and deprived other candidates of more diversity and talent in the ecosystem of campaigning groups.
“At the end of the day, I think, it works especially against the newest suppliers, color suppliers, people who may have appeared more in the last decade in the business and who may have won more different types of customers,” said Pocan in a recent interview . “It’s good for the process not to have any arbitrary rules out there.”
The committee was able to increase the amount spent on several suppliers, jumping from $ 4 million in 2016 to $ 28.6 million in 2020, according to data from the DCCC. A new policy for 2022 also requires approved suppliers to participate in diversity, equity and inclusion training offered by the committee.
Despite the ban, the Liberals still achieved important victories. Three Democratic candidates lost in the primaries; two were former members who succeeded their parents in Congress. Clay lost in Missouri, and Newman overthrew Congressman Dan Lipinski, a Blue Dog Democrat who opposed the right to abortion and voted against Obamacare. A third, deputy Eliot Engel (DN.Y.), chairman of the Chamber’s Foreign Affairs Committee, lost to now deputy Jamaal Bowman, director of a secondary school supported by progressives.
And Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress and a defender of the black list, reached 3,000 votes of loss to Jessica Cisneros, a 26-year-old lawyer supported by Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Some consultants have adopted the so-called “black list”, he even formed a website, dcccblacklist.com, to connect candidates to companies that were not afraid to break DCCC rules.
“There just aren’t that many more people who want to do Democratic consultancy that support the views of Bill Clinton and Bruce Reed,” said Sean McElwee, co-founder of Data for Progress, a liberal research organization. (Reed is a former chairman of the center’s Democratic Leadership Council and currently serves as White House advisor to President Joe Biden.)
McElwee’s firm did a search in the Bush race in Missouri and Bowman in New York, but said Data for Progress lost a client in Texas, Julie Oliver, who was running against Republican deputy Roger Williams thanks to the new policy of the committee. The group did a search for Oliver in June before being replaced by a DCCC approved supplier.
“Treating progressives as if they should be crushed,” he said, “instead of partners who want to build a better and more durable party is not a healthy tactic.”
Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.