progressive caucus – RI Future

June 25, 2013July 1, 2013

Progressives should vote against the budget

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Progressives have always had a complicated relationship with House Speaker Gordon Fox. Though deeply concerned that Fox’s very conservative economic policies are destroying our state, we have always supported the House leadership team because Fox’s likely successors, Helio Melo and Nick Mattiello, are even more conservative than he is.

When Speaker Fox faced the progressive voters of the East Side in November, they were angry—angry at the bevy of red-state legislation Fox had actively pushed for. Fox promised to change. He promised to sunset the ALEC-backed voter ID law he supported, a law he passed even though the chairwoman of the national Democratic Party called him to beg him to reconsider. He promised to consider not bailing out Wall Street on the 38 Studios deal he helped orchestrate. He promised to work with progressives on scaling back the tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts he had once promised would create jobs. He promised, in essence, to govern like the Democrat he once was. It has now become clear that he does not intend to honor those pledges. Jolting sharply to the right, Fox has launched a campaign against Democratic values. Here is a sample of his recent right-wing moves:

He is handing Newport Grand a million-dollar bailout.

He is forcing through a much, much larger bailout of the 38 Studios bondholders.

He is throwing 6,500 Rhode Islanders off Medicaid.

He is skipping a pension fund payment, in a gratuitous middle finger to labor.

He is refusing to roll back some of the tax cuts for the rich and instead raising taxes on the middle class through steep tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge.

He is paring back Chafee’s already minuscule municipal aid package, forcing the City of Woonsocket into receivership.

He is blocking the family planning expansion under ObamaCare.

Like the US Senate’s filibustering Republicans, he is refusing to let an assault weapons ban or background checks reporting get a vote.

Finally, not only did he break his promise to sunset the voter ID law, he snuck in a provision to tighten voting restrictions even further. Telling the members of the Judiciary Committee that they were voting to freeze the current law to prevent the harsher 2014 restrictions from coming into effect, they refused to release the actual bill in time for everyone to read it. A violation of the trust the statehouse runs on, this move tricked many pro-voting committee members to vote for this red-state-style assault on our democracy.

When she was the Executive Director of the Rhode Island GOP, Ann Clanton famously admitted, “We have a lot of Democrats who we know are Republican but run as a Democrat — basically so they can win.” Progressives cannot help but look at Gordon Fox’s recent record and conclude that he is indeed one of those Republicans hiding in the Democratic Party. We urge the General Assembly to stand up for Rhode Island values and stop this conservative onslaught.

We are not the only ones who are angry. We have heard from a large and growing body of furious Representatives that there will be a serious effort to vote down the budget to stop the 38 Studios bailout. If the progressive bloc in the House breaks away from leadership on this issue, we can block this right-wing budget and force something a little more reasonable.

So we call on progressives to vote this budget down. We understand the power of leadership and all the practicalities that entails, but if any progressives are forced to vote against their conscience, we sincerely hope that it is in exchange for a more moderate budget. And we call on Gordon Fox to return to the principles he ran on.

March 21, 2013March 21, 2013

In Budget Vote, Cicilline Betrays Progressives

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As I predicted on Tuesday, Congressman Cicilline voted against the Progressive Caucus’s budget on Wednesday. For a vice chair of the Progressive Caucus, this is a major break—especially after Rhode Island progressives have made it very clear they do not want Cicilline to abandon House progressives.

This is a tough vote for Rhode Island progressives to swallow. The progressive community threw our all into getting Cicilline reelected. We are his base. We chose not to attack him on previous votes where he has betrayed the progressive agenda because we thought it might damage him. David Segal, a progressive who ran against Cicilline in 2010, opted not to run in 2012. But he refuses to stand up for progressive values.

In a statement posted to RI Future in response to my post on Tuesday, Cicilline spokesman Rich Luchette argued that “it is absurd to suggest that David is anything other than %100 committed to protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits.” Cicilline did sign a letter specifically opposing such cuts in a sequestration deal, but only in a sequestration deal. However, the concern I raised was not that he would support such cuts in a sequestration deal but that he would support them in a grand bargain deal. The letter Cicilline signed would not bar him from supporting those cuts in a grand bargain deal. The letter he refused to sign would.

This is not a difficult issue. If Cicilline believes his position has been misrepresented by his actions, all he has to do is sign the Grayson-Takano letter pledging never cut Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare. If he continues to refuse to sign it, his position will be clear.

Similarly, if Cicilline opposes sequestration, all he has to do is cosponsor the Cancel the Sequester Act. The mainstream Democratic plan, which Cicilline supports, replaces sequestration with more acceptable austerity that has no chance of passage. It cedes the ideological ground that we must be doing austerity in a jobs crisis, a battle Democrats will never win. Had Democrats supported repealing the sequester, the debate would have been between Republicans who support the sequester and Democrats who oppose it. Instead, it is between Democrats who want a Democratic version of the sequester and Republicans who want a Republican version of the sequester.

One doesn’t have to be a very active observer of politics to know that Democrats and Republicans would not come together on a sequester plan even vaguely acceptable to liberals. When Democrats refused to call for a repeal of the sequester, it ensured the sequester would happen. If Cicilline persists in opposing repealing the sequester, his position will be clear: He prioritizes deficit reduction over jobs.

On Tuesday, I predicted Cicilline would abandon the Progressive Caucus and oppose the Caucus’s budget. Yesterday, he proved me right. This is about as clear a sign as you could imagine that Cicilline does not stand with progressives on economic issues. If he had felt at all conflicted, he could have, like Jim Langevin, at least chosen not to vote one way or the other. This vote indicates that he may soon be contemplating an exit from the Caucus. Again, if he sees this concern as unwarranted, all he has to do is pledge he will never leave the Progressive Caucus.

Let us be clear, progressives are not going to vote against Cicilline in the general election. We are not going to vote for a conservative primary challenger. The question is whether we will continue to pour our limited resources into a candidate who does not stand up for our values—instead of state and local candidates who do.

This is not an idle concern. During the 2012 election, for instance, members of the Progressive Democrats knocked on more than 3,000 doors for Cicilline in East Providence. Had we instead been canvassing for Bob DaSilva (who lost by less than 2%), Bob DaSilva almost certainly would have won.

If Cicilline would like to see his base work for him instead of on General Assembly races, he has some explaining to do. I encourage him to begin that process by defending his vote on RI Future.

March 19, 2013March 20, 2013

Will Cicilline Abandon Progressives On Budget?

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Many progressives worked hard to reelect David Cicilline. I spent a lot of my summer and fall knocking on doors for him instead of helping out progressives in tight General Assembly races. When everyone was piling on Cicilline a year ago, we were defending him. We took a lot of flack, but we knew that we could not let progressives lose such a heavily Democratic seat. The sad thing is, that may be happening anyway—because Cicilline is making worrying signs of an exit from the Progressive Caucus.

The first warning signs came when Cicilline refused to sign the Grayson-Takano letter pledging not to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. That sent a shiver of fear down the neck of Rhode Island progressives who worry this is setting up for a vote in favor of a grand bargain that sells out the middle class by cutting these essential programs in the middle of a jobs crisis.

Then he refused to cosponsor the Cancel the Sequester Act. This common-sense initiative of the Congressional Progressive Caucus cancels the sequester. Does not replace it with a slightly less devastating austerity package. Just cancels it. Ends this messy debate with no damage to the economy. It is about the most common-sense progressive initiative you can think of. But Cicilline still has not signed on.

But when I called Cicilline’s office (202-225-4911) last Thursday to ask why he is not standing with the rest of the Progressive Caucus on these basic economic issues, a staffer told me something even more disturbing: Cicilline’s budget plan is not the Progressive Caucus’s budget, the Back to Work Budget. It is the standard House Democratic budget.

Budget votes are a statement of core principles. They are usually the most important vote a legislator will make on economic issues. Not supporting the Progressive Caucus budget would be about as clear a sign as you could make that Cicilline is planning on leaving the Progressive Caucus.

The Back to Work Budget is not particularly progressive. It completely capitulates on the terms of the debate with a fiscally irresponsible focus on deficit reduction instead of jobs or debt in the real economy. Unlike the Ryan budget, which is a conservative wish list, the Back to Work Budget is a compromise package that leaves out most progressive goals. It contains only very limited stimulus, no housing plan, no plan to stop climate change, no Medicare for All, and no private sector debt relief. Instead, it is a compromise designed to attract conservative Democrats. But it is still the only budget actually focused on economic growth. It should be an easy, non-controversial vote.

The Back to Work Budget is coming up for a vote tomorrow. I sincerely hope that staffer was mistaken. Rhode Island will be watching.