CBC Monitor Report Card: Black Caucus Adrift
by Leutisha Stills, CBC Monitor
"No CBC member garnered a perfect score."
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) struggles - and too often fails - to maintain a progressive majority in the face of rightward pressures from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Key votes on the financial crisis, government spying on citizens, and the military budget reveal a Caucus adrift, with no discernable political identity or clear mission of its own. For the second consecutive grading period, no CBC member garnered a perfect score on the Congressional Black Caucus Monitor Report Card. (Click HERE to view the entire Report Card.)
The twice yearly Report Card was delayed for two weeks to include the results of the two Wall Street bailout votes, September 29 and October 3. The tallies of these and six other pieces of legislation reflect tremendous pressures on members to buckle to party discipline and to align with standard bearer Barack Obama - powerful pulls to the Right on each of four bills in which the Caucus was substantially split.
Those bills were:
HR 3997 - Amended Version of Emergency Economic Supplemental Act of 2008.
The first attempt by the combined forces of the Bush administration and Democratic leadership to ram through the hastily constructed buy-off of toxic mortgage paper - "cash for trash" - at a cost of $700 billion (pork would be added later). Of the 39 Black Caucus members voting, 21 stood firm against the bailout. Voting with the slim majority were:
G.K. Butterfield (NC), Julia Carson (IN), William "Lacy" Clay (MO), Emanuel Cleaver (MO), John Conyers (MI), Elijah Cummings (MD), Donna Edwards (MD), Al Green (TX), Jesse Jackson (IL), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX), William Jefferson (LA), Hank Johnson (GA), Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI), Barbara Lee (CA), John Lewis (GA), Donald Payne (NJ), Bobby Rush (IL), David Scott (GA), Bobby Scott (VA), Bennie Thompson (MS), Diane Watson (CA).
With the surprise rejection of the mega-bill, Pelosi turned up the heat and Barack Obama intervened, personally. By Friday, October 3, only eight CBC members still stood against the revised (porked-up) bailout:
HR 1424 - Emergency Economic Supplemental Act of 2008
Butterfield (NC), Clay (MO), Conyers MI), Jefferson (LA), Johnson (GA), Payne (NJ), Scott (VA), Thompson (MS).
Each of the two bailout votes counted separately for 12.5% of the score. The 18 members that voted twice for the bailout lost 25 points.
Donna Edwards, who captured Albert Wynn's Maryland seat to become the most recent addition to the Caucus, voted against the first bailout bill but allowed Barack Obama to convince her to vote Yes the second go-round. However, Rep. Edwards has not been scored, since she was not in office for the full grading period.
HR 6304 - FISA Amendment Act of 2008
On June 20, members cast their votes on a bill that gave telecom companies immunity for their cooperation with the Bush administration's spying activities on Americans. The so-called "compromise" was backed by Pelosi and, more pointedly, by Barack Obama, who had previously vowed to filibuster such legislation. The Obama "flip-flop" was especially disappointing to his progressive supporters.
Twelve CBC members voted Pelosi's instructions and Obama's example, losing 12.5 points. They were:
Sanford Bishop (GA), Corrine Brown (FL), G.K. Butterfield (NC), Emanuel Cleaver (MO), James Clyburn (SC), Artur Davis (AL), Al Green (TX), Alcee Hastings (FL), Gregory Meeks (NY), Laura Richardson (CA), David Scott (GA), Bennie Thompson (MS).
HR 5658 - Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2009
In May, the lines were once again drawn on spending for the Iraq war. The ranks of CBC peace lawmakers had thinned significantly, now comprising less than one in four members:
Yvette Clarke (NY), Danny Davis (IL), Jesse Jackson (IL), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX), Barbara Lee (CA), John Lewis (GA), Gwen Moore (WI), Charles Rangel (NY), Maxine Waters (CA).
These nine members picked up 12.5 points for voting not to fund the war.
Four other bills counted for a total of half (50) of the points in the report card. As it turned out, the points associated with these bills were essentially gifts to the lawmakers, since the Caucus voted virtually as a bloc on all four. The exceptions were two members who failed to cast a vote - earning them a penalty of 6.25 points per absence. (Click HERE to view entire Report Card.)
Derelicts
The six members rated as Derelicts with a score of only 50% voted "wrong" on all four bills in which there was a difference of opinion. They are:
Corrine Brown (FL), Sanford Bishop (GA), James Clyburn (SC), Artur Davis (AL), Alcee Hastings (FL), Laura Richardson (CA).
Until the next Report Card, in early February of next year, these six are the bottom of the CBC barrel. Laura Richardson is the newest member being graded, having won a special election in 2007 to succeed Juanita Millender-McDonald, who died in office.
Gregory Meeks (NY), a Democratic Leadership Council member, also rated Derelict, with a 56.25% score.
No Higher Than B-Plus
It is not true that crises bring out the best in people, including politicians. On top of the relentless corrupting influence of corporate money, election cycle tensions coupled with financial meltdown resulted in sub-prime scores for the CBC as a body - roughly similar to the Caucus's performance in February of this year. With 87.5% B+ scores, the following ten lawmakers are the best of the batch, this grading period:
William "Lacy" Clay (MO), John Conyers (MI), William Jefferson (LA), Hank Johnson (GA), Donald Payne (NJ), Bobby Scott (VA), John Lewis (GA), Barbara Lee (CA), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX), Jesse Jackson (IL)
Most notable by his presence in the upper grades is New Orleans' Bill Jefferson, who for the first several CBC Monitor Report Cards (beginning in September 2005) was stuck in Dereliction.
CBC Monitor's congratulations to Jose Serrano, the Hispanic Caucus Representative from The Bronx, the only member of the New York delegation to vote twice against the bailout, and the solitary 100% scorer among all the caucuses rated. (Click HERE to view the entire Report Card.)
Not officially rated, but honorably noted, is Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), the two time presidential candidate who was once described in Black Agenda Report as "the blackest candidate in the ring." Kucinich's votes would have won him a perfect score - 100%.
Leutisha Stills can be contacted at [email protected].
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