Congressional Black Caucus: Divided on Trade, Immigration
CBC Monitor Report Card, Second Session 109th Congress
by Leutisha Stills, CBC Monitor
"There is reason to believe that corrupt behaviors can be altered."
There is no semblance of a consensus on foreign trade among members of the Congressional Black Caucus - more evidence that the CBC finds great difficulty in speaking as a body on issues that transcend traditional "civil rights" matters, but which are critical to the fortunes of constituencies served by the 42 African Americans in the U.S. House.
Additionally, a significant minority of the CBC is prepared to bow to anti-Latino gang hysteria, supporting legislation that encourages racial profiling while integrating local police into a combined "War on Terror" and "Defend Our Borders" criminal justice juggernaut.
These disturbing conclusions are based on results of the CBC Monitor's twice-yearly survey of Black lawmakers' votes on key issues. The watchdog group's current Report Card reviewed Black Caucus voting behavior on ten pieces of legislation that came before the full House in the second session of the 109th Congress, September through December, 2006. In general, the legislative menu was rather bland, including few "bright line" issues that might illuminate serious fissures among the 40 CBC members permitted full voting privileges. (The two congressional "Delegates" from Washington, DC and the U.S. Virgin Islands are barred from casting votes on the House floor, although they may vote in committee.)
"A record 70 percent of Caucus members achieved ‘Honor Society' status."
Possibly as a result of the largely non-controversial legislative lineup, a record 70 percent of Caucus members achieved "Honor Society" status in the second session of 2006, compared to the 46.5 percent that scored 90% or better on previous CBC Report Cards. Honor Society membership rose from 22 to 28 members.
The "Derelict" category - members scoring at the very bottom of the class - decreased from 12 percent to 7.5 percent. The three current Derelicts with "F" scores are: Sanford Bishop (GA) and Artur Davis (AL), both at 30 percent, and Harold Ford, Jr. (TN), who left the U.S. House with a 40 percent grade after a losing bid for the Senate.
Confusion in the Ranks
Had it not been for the controversial bills on foreign trade and targeting immigrant gangs, the CBC's internal conflicts would not have surfaced so dramatically in the months following the Caucus' annual September gala. However, the Extension of Trade Preferences Programs Act, which came to a vote on December 8, split the CBC down the middle. With five members failing to take a position either way, seventeen lined up with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in favor of extending and expanding CAFTA and NAFTA trade arrangements, while eighteen members were opposed. Most significantly, of the 23 then-CBC members who were also part of the Congressional Progressive Caucus - and who are almost always clustered in the CBC Monitor Honor Roll - eight supported Democratic and Republican House leadership on trade, with 13 in principled opposition. Three Progressive Caucus/CBC members, John Conyers (MI), Diane Watson (CA) and Chaka Fattah (PA), sat the vote out.
Clearly, both caucuses are in disarray on the nuts and bolts of trade policy, unable to act as dependable counterweights to corporate power in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In the large majority, the Congressional Black Caucus stood tall in opposition to the draconian police state powers embodied in the deceptively named Community Protection Act of 2006, which will target Latino and Asian youth for hyper-surveillance, detention and fast-track deportation - a license that is certain to be abused by local police forces and will not be limited to Asian- or Latino-looking youths. At Speaker Pelosi's urging, Democrats voted overwhelmingly for the bill. However 91 Democrats, recognizing the measure as an assault on constitutional restraints on police powers, bucked Pelosi. Twenty-nine of them - a third of the opposition - were members of the CBC.
"Both the CBC and the Progressive Congressional caucuses are in disarray on the nuts and bolts of trade policy, unable to act as dependable counterweights to corporate power."
Sadly, among the 11 CBC members supporting the measure were Corrine Brown (FL), William "Lacy" Clay (MO), James Clyburn (SC), Al Green (TX), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX), and Bennie Thompson (MS) - members that can usually be counted on to defend civil liberties, based on the fundamental fact that the primary victims of abusive state power have always been Black folks. This time, they ignored history, and voted with the mob.
Slippin' and Slidin'
At least in part due to the paucity of controversial issues before them in the waning months of the 109th Caucus, the proportion of CBC members rated "Consensus" performers (a "B" at 80-90 percent) increased from 11.6 to 15 percent, while the ten percent of "Underachievers" ("C" and "D" at 60-80 percent) remained constant. However, a pattern has become evident since the CBC Monitor's first Report Card in September, 2005: the Congressional Black Caucus fractures whenever it is confronted with massed corporate power. Such was the case last year, as BAR reported in October, 2006:
"In the most dramatic example of growing subservience to corporate influence, two-thirds of voting Caucus members backed the telecommunications industry's COPE bill, the Communications, Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006, which will turn the Internet into a toll road and strip cities of the ability to prevent cable companies from redlining poor and minority neighborhoods. This year's capitulation to corporate power was an even greater retreat from the CBC's legacy than the debacle of April, 2005, when 15 Black legislators, comprising 37.5 percent of the Caucus, voted with Republicans on key issues - ten of them for the infamous bankruptcy bill, tailor-made for the finance industry at the expense of the working poor and struggling middle classes."
Despite the hoopla surrounding the assumption of choice committee chairs by many Black Caucus members in the new Democratic congress, the CBC's lack of internal cohesion will inevitably manifest itself whenever corporate power demands that members cross over to the money-side of the aisle. Only an informed and active constituency can halt the rot. However, there is reason to believe that corrupt behaviors can be altered.
Albert Wynn (MD), who was one of only four CBC members to support George Bush's grab for Iraq War Powers in 2002 and ranked abysmally in the first two CBC Report Cards, scored 100 percent in the latest evaluation - and is now a member of the Out of Iraq Caucus. Wynn came close to losing his seat to progressive challenger Donna Edwards, who lambasted Wynn for his CBC Monitor Report Card grades during her under-funded campaign.
David Scott (GA), once labeled "The Worst Black Congressman" and an early denizen of the "Derelict" zone, has managed to pull himself up to "Underachiever" status in the last two Report Cards. An essentially non-financed challenge by Donzella James, brandishing her copy of the CBC Report Card, appears to have caused Scott to at least occasionally weigh matters other than the concerns of his corporate backers.
Harold Ford, Jr., thankfully, is not in a position to upgrade his consistent "Derelict" status. He left the CBC as he came in - a shameless shill for money. His replacement is a white man, Steve Cohen, who tried unsuccessfully to join the CBC but promises to represent his 60 percent Black district far better than Ford. In fact, anybody could.
"Only a revived Movement can reverse the CBC's slide into irrelevance - or worse."
Major Owens (NY) retired from Congress as a sterling "Honor Roll" legislator, replaced by Brooklyn's Yvette Clark, who will show up in the next CBC Monitor Report Card, along with Minnesota's Keith Ellison and Hank Johnson, the man that defeated Cynthia McKinney in a suburban Atlanta district despite McKinney's overwhelming support among Blacks. Johnson, it should be noted, has joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
New York's Rep. Edolphus Towns raised himself up from "Underachiever" to "Consensus" rank in the face of a strong challenge from city councilman Charles Barron, a former Black Panther.
Accountability works. But only a revived Movement can reverse the CBC's slide into irrelevance - or worse, wholesale capitulation to Black people's most implacable and powerful enemies. At a minimum, a new dialogue is required, based on "bright line" issues that reflect a living political consensus among African Americans. We at the CBC Monitor, joined by Black Agenda Report and the Hip Hop Caucus, urge all progressives to support our Petition to the Congressional Black Caucus and its seven Demands.
Go to:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/cbcmonitor/
Sign the Petition, and send out emails to your family, friends and co-strugglers, asking them to do the same. Let's make the CBC what it once claimed to be: The Conscience of the Congress.
To review the latest CBC Monitor Report Card, go to:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/images/stories/021/CBC_report_card_fall_2006.pdf
To post a comment on the CBC Monitor Project or this edition of the report card, click here to visit its page on the Black Agenda Blog.
Leutisha Stills can be contacted at [email protected].
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