Black Caucus Pitches Fit Over Wynn Loss
by Leutisha Stills, CBC Monitor
"Labor's willingness to take sides in a Black left-right contest scares many members of the CBC."
The Congressional Black Caucus is showing its backside.
In an ugly fit of frustrated rage following the defeat of corporate-backed incumbent Rep. Al Wynn (D-MD) earlier this month, the Caucus lashed out at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for backing Black progressive challenger Donna Edwards. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported CBC members were "seething" at SEIU's purchase of nearly $900,000 in television and radio ads supporting Edwards, a lawyer and nonprofit foundation executive who came close to ousting the eight-term congressman on a shoe-string budget two years ago. This time around, Edwards handily defeated Wynn in his suburban Washington district, hammering away at his votes for George Bush's 2002 War Powers resolution, Republican-sponsored bankruptcy legislation in 2005, and his close ties to corporate moneybags.
Apparently, Caucus members who were willing to speak to Roll Call think such rightwing behavior has nothing to do with working people's interests. "The Black Caucus members are very upset," said Baltimore congressman and former CBC chairman Elijah Cummings. "I'm very upset. I think my fellow members think he [Wynn] didn't deserve that."
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) - like Wynn, a high-profile member of the corporatist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) faction in the CBC - chimed in: "I think there's some real questions about why they were so upset with Al Wynn. Members of the CBC want to know what's up."
Reps. Cummings, Meeks and Alcee Hastings (D-FL) emerged from the closed-door Caucus session demanding a meeting with SEIU officials. "We have a need to talk with our friends in labor about the disparity in giving to those of us who have tremendous records," said Hastings. "Someone's going to reach out to have a meeting and we're going to find out what's going on. Members of the CBC want to know what's up."
"What's up" is, the SEIU has finally deployed its money on the progressive side of an intra-Black congressional contest, in which the incumbent has repeatedly sided with corporations, betraying the interests of constituents. What's "going on" is, the days of CBC incumbent impunity may be coming to an end, as progressives like Donna Edwards find sources of funding to mount serious challenges to members who harbor narrow notions of what is "pro-labor" and what is not.
"The SEIU has finally deployed its money on the progressive side of an intra-Black congressional contest, in which the incumbent has repeatedly sided with corporations."
Al Wynn didn't think his vote for war was against the interests of his predominantly Black constituents. A trillion blood-soaked dollars later, the prospect of maintaining federal social services is in grave doubt as a direct result of the exploding military budget. Wynn thought his Prince George's County-centered constituents wouldn't mind when he voted to make it much harder for them to keep their homes through bankruptcy protections. Three years later, PG County has the highest foreclosure level in the state, and growing.
For everyone who works hard to buy and keep a home, bankruptcy is a labor issue. War is an issue for labor, and everyone else. These are also profoundly "Black" issues, since African Americans are consistently the most anti-war demographic in the nation, and the prime prey of predatory lenders.
The CBC's definition of working and Black people's "issues" is purposely narrow, allowing them to vote with the moneyed classes on virtually any legislation that does not have a direct "civil rights" connection. That's why we at the watchdog group CBC Monitor have, since September 2005, graded Black members of the U.S. House on their voting behavior on a range of issues: war and peace, economic justice, public education, draconian law enforcement measures, corporate control of civil society - the wider scope of legislation that impacts the larger world that Black and working people inhabit, above and beyond such bills as extension of the Voting Rights Act.
"The CBC's definition of working and Black people's "issues" is purposely narrow."
Albert Wynn was clustered with other "Derelicts" at the bottom of the CBC class - until the 2006 challenge from Donna Edwards caused him to change course. Too late. Wynn's friends in the nuclear power industry and high (or rather, low-life) finance, and endorsements from the likes of former Memphis congressman Harold Ford, Jr. (who was nearly always the worst-scoring "Derelict" on the CBC Report Card) could not save him from an adequately funded progressive opponent. That's what really has Wynn's friends in the Congressional Black Caucus worried. Many of them could be - and should be - next on the list.
It is true that labor unions have taken Black congresspersons for granted, just as so many Black lawmakers take their incumbencies and union support as a matter of right. If the CBC wants to meet with the SEIU for clarification of the union's policies, we hope they will hear that labor will lend its muscle to punish incumbents that sell out working people on a broad range of issues. This standard goes beyond supporting opponents of members that vote for NAFTA-like legislation - about a third of the Black Caucus. The two-thirds of the CBC that voted with the telecom giants to roll back decades of inner city victories against the cable industry, and to endanger Internet neutrality, ought to be made to regret that day in 2006, in the same way that Wynn now regrets his past transgressions.
Unions that are true to the interests of their constituents are the best hope of progressive Black challengers to the entrenched corporate corruption of the Congressional Black Caucus. Black unionists in Prince Georges County pushed the SEIU to stand with Donna Edwards, because Edwards positions coincided with the union's broad agenda, and Wynn's record did not. We hope the SEIU tells the disgruntled CBC members just that.
"We hope they will hear that labor will lend its muscle to punish incumbents that sell out working people on a broad range of issues."
The CBC's curiously-timed decision to challenge union funding behavior in the wake of Wynn's defeat exposes the ugly (and male chauvinist) side of the Caucus. Rather than welcome a woman who promises to become a shining star of a body that claims to be "the conscience of the Congress," they protest her impending presence almost a year before she will arrive on Capitol Hill, next January. How crude and self-defeating - yet revealing! The Caucus only pays lip service to solidarity when their own job security is threatened. Labor's willingness to take sides in a Black left-right contest scares many members of the CBC, only a fraction of whom can any longer be counted on to consistently vote progressive on the House floor.
To please House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and to rid themselves of one of their most outspoken members, the Caucus allowed former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) to be mauled and humiliated by Democratic leadership, and ultimately defeated for a second time by corporate dollars. Then-chairman Mel Watt (D-NC) relished every opportunity to pummel McKinney, while most Caucus members either joined in the assault or slinked away. Now they are launching a preemptive strike against Donna Edwards, on the pretext of fighting white leadership of unions. They are playing the wrong card, at the wrong time, and shamelessly.
The SEIU is on the right side in this dispute with the CBC - and it's not the first time. Back in 2005, the SEIU dared to write a letter "to express our disappointment that the Congressional Black Caucus has given Wal-Mart an opportunity to fashion a false image as a friend of African Americans and of working people generally" by accepting Wal-Mart sponsorship of CBC events. Wal-Mart has doled out more than $1 million in hush money to the CBC. None other than Rep. Al Wynn derided the SEIU letter as "preposterous," declaring, "The attitude of the letter was that somehow we were allowing someone [Wal-Mart] to do this as though we had no free will or common sense." Nancy Pelosi's poodle, Mel Watt, also took umbrage. "I couldn't imagine them writing a similar letter to other members of Congress, Democrats, Blue Dogs [conservative Democrats], Republicans."
"The Caucus only pays lip service to solidarity when their own, individual perks and privileges are threatened."
The Caucus continues to take money from Wal-Mart, and now wants to prevent unions from supporting progressive challengers to their most "Derelict" members - all under the guise of defending the dignity of The Race. In the process, they show themselves to be utterly lacking in dignity and totally self-concerned.
It would be understandable if Donna Edwards declined to join the CBC next year - too many knives in that crowd. But the real hope for the future is the prospect of more Donna Edwards and Cynthia McKinneys as Blacks and progressives wake up to the necessity to purge the CBC of its near-dominant corporate faction.
Albert Wynn told Roll Call that he wasn't party to the CBC's dispute with the SEIU. "For me, it's done," said Wynn.
One down, more to go.
Leutisha Stills can be contacted at LeutishaStills1@hotmail.com.
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