Black Political Power & Defeating Republicans in 2024: Dems tap Obama for crucial redistricting push

[The Catcher In The Rye]

If you care about black political power in the US, you should be keeping an eye on the South:

Should Black Americans Migrate To The South To Consolidate Political Power?

We Need a Second Great Migration Georgia illuminates the path to Black power. It lies in the South. Follow me there. By Charles M. Blow ATLANTA — A year ago this week, I packed some bags and left New York City for Atlanta. I’d lived in New York for 26 years. The city made me feel awake and...

www.bgol.us

If you care about representation in the South or the 2024 election, you should really be paying attention to redistricting:

Dems tap Obama for crucial redistricting push​

The party sees shifts in five states before the end of the year.

By ZACH MONTELLARO
08/25/2023 02:46 PM EDT

The House majority next year could be determined in a state-by-state fight over redistricting that’s taking place right now.

And Democrats are calling in the big guns.

Former President Barack Obama hosted a fundraiser for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee on Thursday. The event in Martha’s Vineyard raised $1.5 million, the committee told POLITICO, ahead of a crucial stretch of redistricting fights that will play out in the closing months of this year.

“The only danger is that we get complacent,” Obama said at the fundraiser for the premiere Democratic group working on redistricting battles, according to a readout obtained by POLITICO. “Because one thing we’ve learned is that the other side doesn’t quit.”

The NDRC is helmed by Eric Holder, who served as Obama’s first attorney general. Obama has been a vocal supporter of the NDRC’s efforts in the past, which were launched in early 2017 after the party was largely overrun in redistricting fights in the previous decade.

Democrats have been aggressive in recent fights over maps, and analysts found that lines are among the most balanced in decades. Yet a series of court rulings — state courts blocked some of Democrats’ more aggressive gerrymanders, while some of Republicans’ stood for the midterms — could have tipped the control of the House toward the GOP.

But increasingly, the battle over state lines does not end when that first map is drawn, with recent court fights re-opening the mapmaking process in a handful of states across the country.

“We are now living in an era of perpetual redistricting,” John Bisognano, the president of NDRC, wrote in a memo accompanying the recent fundraiser.

The memo from the committee projects that there are five states that could see new maps by the end of this year — which is “enough to tip control of the U.S. House of Representatives to either party,” Bisognano writes.

Perhaps most pressingly is Alabama. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s findings that the state’s old maps likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of Black voters. (An NDRC affiliate is involved in this suit.) Litigation is ongoing after the GOP-dominated legislature seemingly defied that lower federal court’s order to draw an additional Black-majority district in the state. But should that seat be drawn, there would be two majority Black — and likely Democratic — seats in Alabama.

“Alabama’s still engaging in resistance, and NDRC has to be there, along with other civil rights organizations, to ensure that this victory in the Supreme Court is actually translated into people’s votes being counted in Alabama,” Obama said at the fundraiser.

Similarly, a Louisiana case that was put on hold pending the Alabama Supreme Court decision is set to pick back up in October, and it could also result in another majority Black, Democratic-leaning district, as could an ongoing case in Georgia.

Perhaps the biggest prize for Democrats is New York. After a lengthy legal battle, a court threw out a Democratic-drawn gerrymander for the midterms. Democrats are now suing in state court, arguing that last year’s court-drawn lines were temporary. A largely advisory redistricting commission could put forward new lines by the end of this year. But what Democrats are hoping for is that the mapmaking process ends up in the hands of the Democratic-dominated legislature. A similar gerrymander to the one the party tried to implement for last year’s election would make seven of the 11 seats currently held by Republicans more Democratic-friendly.

But it isn’t all good news for Democrats in 2023. Republicans in North Carolina will get their chance to reclaim some seats in a gerrymander of their own, after the partisan balance of the state Supreme Court flipped and the newly-conservative judiciary said it wouldn’t weigh in on partisan gerrymandering. Republicans will redraw their congressional districts later this year and could pick up as many as four seats in the Tar Heel State — more than erasing any gains the party could see out of increased Black representation elsewhere in the South this year.

All told, Bisognano wrote that “as many as 27 congressional districts across 13 different states could be reshaped ahead of the 2024 elections,” leaving more than a half-dozen states on the board for potential redraws in 2024. Those include Florida — where a judge earlier this week grilled attorneys for the state on the legality of a map pushed by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis that dismantled a stretching 200-mile seat that was majority Black.

Recent “victories do not mark the end of redistricting for the decade — they mark the start of the next chapter in the fight for fair maps,” the memo reads. “This fight isn’t coming, it’s happening right now and NDRC is the tip of the spear.”

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

Even if the North Carolina map negates the 2024 impact of Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia, the implications for black political power generally are worth paying attention to.

From a 2024 perspective, even a stalemate there leaves Democrats in a great position to take back the House with the New York seats on the table.

Hard to forecast with all the states on the table but worth being aware of!

 

[mrcmd187]

Need youngblood in across the board these senior citizens and don't want give up power MFs in both parties need to go. We need new ideas and new outlooks on everything not the decades long business as usual trickle down politics.

 

[DC_Dude]

Need youngblood in across the board these senior citizens and don't want give up power MFs in both parties need to go. We need new ideas and new outlooks on everything not the decades long business as usual trickle down politics.

Right. We need the youth or the younger generation to take over...Too many geriatric motherfuckers in political power.

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

I was going to @ the guy who responded to my posts with laugh emojis and ask him to put his response into words.

Then I noted his screen name...

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

Need youngblood in across the board these senior citizens and don't want give up power MFs in both parties need to go. We need new ideas and new outlooks on everything not the decades long business as usual trickle down politics.

Right. We need the youth or the younger generation to take over...Too many geriatric motherfuckers in political power.

That was the saddest thing about the 2020 election IMO.

The mainstream media tells everyone all black voters are like Jim Clyburn but young black voters are significantly more progressive than the old folks who are afraid of pushing for change.

This is from August 2019, early in the 2020 race before Bernie Sanders took off and when folks like Kamala were still running:​

​

Back in the 2016 Democratic primary, the age gap was huge. Hillary Clinton won the black vote with somewhere around 75% in 2016. This large vote share came primarily from black primary voters older than 30. She took 70% among black voters ages 30 to 44, 85% from those ages 45 to 59 and 89% from those 60 years and older. Blacks under the age of 30 actually went for Sanders by a 52%-to-47% margin.​

​

This year, Sanders isn’t benefiting from quite the same age gap, though an age gap still exists. He stood at 9% with all black Democratic primary voters in our CNN polls from April to June. Breaking it down by age, he does do better with black Democrats under 50 (12%) than those 50 years and older (6%). Using the modeling technique that we did with Biden, we can estimate that Sanders likely has somewhere between 15% and 20% support with black voters under the age of 30. Our model indicates it’s probably well under 5% with black voters over 70 years old.​

​

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/17/politics/black-democrat-demographics/index.html

Why Black Voters Prefer Establishment Candidates Over Liberal Alternatives

Why Black Voters Prefer Establishment Candidates Over Liberal Alternatives By Perry Bacon Jr. FiveThirtyEight OCT. 2, 2019 Black voters effectively delivered Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. She and Sen. Bernie Sanders ran about evenly among white voters, but...

www.bgol.us

"We are at the end of one era of black politics and the start of a new one"

The End of Black Politics Black leaders regularly fail to rise to the challenges that confront young people. By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor June 13, 2020 Young black people have exploded in rebellion over the grotesque killing of George Floyd. We are now witnessing the broadest protest movement in...

www.bgol.us

The problem is, despite all the talk about a new era of black politics following the George Floyd uprising, young black voters aren't pulling their weight as a group:

"Only 34% of black Democrats call themselves liberal. That's a 20-point drop from other Democrats, compared with 61% of Democratic African American primary voters, who self-describe as moderate or conservative, 16 points higher than the rest of the Democratic Party, overall. And how about age? Only 18% of the African American primary vote, right now, is in the 18-to-34-year-old age group. That's nine points lower than the party, overall. That's compared with 57% of African American primary voters, who are 50 and older, six points higher than the party, overall."

Biden has consistently said he is the choice of black voters because "they know me."

This week: “I come out of the black community, in terms of my support. If you notice, I have more people supporting me in the black community that have announced for me, because they know me, they know who I am. Three former chairs of the Black Caucus, the only African-American woman that has ever been elected to the United States Senate. A whole range of people.”​

Joe Biden Stumbles Again on Race at the Fifth Democratic Debate

An hour and a half into the fifth Democratic debate, the moderators’ questions turned to the topic of race, and the former Vice-President delivered one his characteristic flubs.

www.newyorker.com

​

August: “The bad news is that I have a long record, but the good news is that I have a long record,” Mr. Biden said in an interview with a group of black journalists. “People know me, or at least they think they know me, after all this time. They have a sense of who my character is and who I am — warts and all.”​

Biden Extols His Black Support: ‘I Think They Know Me’ (Published 2019)

In an interview with black journalists, the former vice president cited his support among black voters to push back on criticism of his candidacy as focused on the white working class.

www.nytimes.com

An interesting presentation of numbers on Meet The Press today suggested "it may be because black voters just look a lot like Biden's other core constituency groups, regardless of race."

​

​

​

​

Many of the Democratic 2020 hopefuls used Wednesday night's Democratic debate in Atlanta to court African American voters, whose support, so far, has kept Joe Biden on top, nationally. But just how sturdy is that support? Well, we decided to dig into data from our NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls conducted all throughout this year, combined them into one big poll. Biden is still the clear frontrunner in our poll, among voters overall. In fact, among black voters, he does even better. He's at 50%, among African American voters, compared to just 12% for Elizabeth Warren, 10% for Bernie Sanders, and just 2% for Pete Buttigieg. Now, some may chalk this up, simply, to Biden's high name ID and his time serving as vice president to the first African American president. But in fact, it may be because black voters just look a lot like Biden's other core constituency groups, regardless of race. Only 34% of black Democrats call themselves liberal. That's a 20-point drop from other Democrats, compared with 61% of Democratic African American primary voters, who self-describe as moderate or conservative, 16 points higher than the rest of the Democratic Party, overall. And how about age? Only 18% of the African American primary vote, right now, is in the 18-to-34-year-old age group. That's nine points lower than the party, overall. That's compared with 57% of African American primary voters, who are 50 and older, six points higher than the party, overall. So look at it. Older, moderate, or conservative voters, they've always been voters that Biden has been able to win over. That's true even when you remove race from the equation. And that might make black voters less likely to support sweeping changes that Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren are running on. They're looking for a small “c” conservative change. Is that Joe Biden? And as this race shifts south, black voters could keep Biden in the front of the pack, regardless of what happens in Iowa or New Hampshire.​

Why is Biden the choice of black voters? Familiarity from the Obama years, his moderate politics or something else?

Biden has consistently said he is the choice of black voters because "they know me." This week: “I come out of the black community, in terms of my support. If you notice, I have more people supporting me in the black community that have announced for me, because they know me, they know who I...

www.bgol.us

 

[DC_Dude]

That was the saddest thing about the 2020 election IMO.

The mainstream media tells everyone all black voters are like Jim Clyburn but young black voters are significantly more progressive than the old folks who are afraid of pushing for change.

This is from August 2019, early in the 2020 race before Bernie Sanders took off and when folks like Kamala were still running:​

​

Back in the 2016 Democratic primary, the age gap was huge. Hillary Clinton won the black vote with somewhere around 75% in 2016. This large vote share came primarily from black primary voters older than 30. She took 70% among black voters ages 30 to 44, 85% from those ages 45 to 59 and 89% from those 60 years and older. Blacks under the age of 30 actually went for Sanders by a 52%-to-47% margin.​

​

This year, Sanders isn’t benefiting from quite the same age gap, though an age gap still exists. He stood at 9% with all black Democratic primary voters in our CNN polls from April to June. Breaking it down by age, he does do better with black Democrats under 50 (12%) than those 50 years and older (6%). Using the modeling technique that we did with Biden, we can estimate that Sanders likely has somewhere between 15% and 20% support with black voters under the age of 30. Our model indicates it’s probably well under 5% with black voters over 70 years old.​

​

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/17/politics/black-democrat-demographics/index.html

Why Black Voters Prefer Establishment Candidates Over Liberal Alternatives

Why Black Voters Prefer Establishment Candidates Over Liberal Alternatives By Perry Bacon Jr. FiveThirtyEight OCT. 2, 2019 Black voters effectively delivered Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. She and Sen. Bernie Sanders ran about evenly among white voters, but...

www.bgol.us

"We are at the end of one era of black politics and the start of a new one"

The End of Black Politics Black leaders regularly fail to rise to the challenges that confront young people. By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor June 13, 2020 Young black people have exploded in rebellion over the grotesque killing of George Floyd. We are now witnessing the broadest protest movement in...

www.bgol.us

The problem is, despite all the talk about a new era of black politics following the George Floyd uprising, young black voters aren't pulling their weight as a group:

"Only 34% of black Democrats call themselves liberal. That's a 20-point drop from other Democrats, compared with 61% of Democratic African American primary voters, who self-describe as moderate or conservative, 16 points higher than the rest of the Democratic Party, overall. And how about age? Only 18% of the African American primary vote, right now, is in the 18-to-34-year-old age group. That's nine points lower than the party, overall. That's compared with 57% of African American primary voters, who are 50 and older, six points higher than the party, overall."

Why is Biden the choice of black voters? Familiarity from the Obama years, his moderate politics or something else?

Biden has consistently said he is the choice of black voters because "they know me." This week: “I come out of the black community, in terms of my support. If you notice, I have more people supporting me in the black community that have announced for me, because they know me, they know who I...

www.bgol.us

Yeah we definitely don't think like Clyburn and I have the upmost respect for him because I am from SC and he has done a lot for people in SC, but he is definitely old school in his thinking....

If anything, I think most black people would relate better to someone like Bakari Sanders or my boy Justin Bamberg who is a state representative in SC and was one of the lead attorneys on the Walter Scott case both under the age of 40.

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

Yeah we definitely don't think like Clyburn and I have the upmost respect for him because I am from SC and he has done a lot for people in SC, but he is definitely old school in his thinking....

If anything, I think most black people would relate better to someone like Bakari Sanders or my boy Justin Bamberg who is a state representative in SC and was one of the lead attorneys on the Walter Scott case both under the age of 40.

Why do you think that about Bakari Sellers?

"Sellers first attended the annual AIPAC conference while serving as a student body president at Morehouse College. He has since become a prominent African-American Zionist. In 2016, he authored a letter signed by 60 fellow African-American politicians urging the Democratic Platform Committee to keep the same language, refusing to include the statement that Israel is engaging in an "occupation" of Palestine that appeared in previous Democratic platforms."​

Bakari Sellers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When you read "African-American Zionist," that means corrupt sellout.

Politics: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Just Made History—and Gave a Helluva Speech - viewed over 2 million times!

@easy_b @Camille

www.bgol.us

AIPAC steps up efforts to oust anti-Israel lawmakers

https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/congressional-black-caucus-rips-justice-democrats-for-targeting-black-lawmakers-for-primaries.1057187/

www.bgol.us

I have never seen a convincing case as to why these black politicians would legitimately be so forceful in backing Israel in every way including support for apartheid and opposing Palestinian rights. It is the opposite of everything Martin Luther King and Malcolm X stood for. Like Ilhan Omar said, it is all about the benjamins.

I think he's bad in other ways but just that disqualifies him off the top-- In my opinion.

 

[DC_Dude]

Why do you think that about Bakari Sellers?

"Sellers first attended the annual AIPAC conference while serving as a student body president at Morehouse College. He has since become a prominent African-American Zionist. In 2016, he authored a letter signed by 60 fellow African-American politicians urging the Democratic Platform Committee to keep the same language, refusing to include the statement that Israel is engaging in an "occupation" of Palestine that appeared in previous Democratic platforms."​

Bakari Sellers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When you read "African-American Zionist," that means corrupt sellout.

Politics: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Just Made History—and Gave a Helluva Speech - viewed over 2 million times!

@easy_b @Camille

www.bgol.us

AIPAC steps up efforts to oust anti-Israel lawmakers

https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/congressional-black-caucus-rips-justice-democrats-for-targeting-black-lawmakers-for-primaries.1057187/

www.bgol.us

I have never seen a convincing case as to why these black politicians would legitimately be so forceful in backing Israel in every way including support for apartheid and opposing Palestinian rights. It is the opposite of everything Martin Luther King and Malcolm X stood for. Like Ilhan Omar said, it is all about the benjamins.

I think he's bad in other ways but just that disqualifies him off the top-- In my opinion.

I don’t know too much about that and one of my homeboys is good friends with him so I’ll ask him about it. I can only go off the work he did as a state representative serving an area called Denmark, SC which is one of the poorest cities in SC.
I’ve interacted with him and he definitely isn’t a sell out. Unlike Clyburn, his dad was jailed during the whole Orangeburg Massacre and I’ve seen some of the work he has done. Good movie about him - https://www.bakarisellersdocumentary.com/

Just like Justin who is only a state representative, but was being touted to run for Lt. Gov in SC with Joe Cunningham under the Dems before he decided to go with another candidate. Again someone who I’ve been around and interacted with and he literally is a walking version of Malcom X with a formal education. Got justice for Walter Scott and a lot of other cases in SC.

I’m sure there are other young blacks in political offices in the USA that I don’t know about but these are the two that come to mind. Unfortunately living in DC, there were zero unless you refer to Trayon White who Marion helped as a youth but I’m not sure he has the political experience at the national level.

Hell even Lauren underwood should be making more noise than she is.
Smart, intelligent, and is current a house representative but I think she would be the perfect candidate to put money behind plus she has a public health and nursing background so she is forward thinking in those issues which are my personal concerns. She never gets talked about a lot, but I think that is just wrong

ISSUES — LAUREN UNDERWOOD for CONGRESS

www.underwoodforcongress.com

We need more Lauren Underwood’s to get in the political game IMO

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

I don’t know too much about that and one of my homeboys is good friends with him so I’ll ask him about it. I can only go off the work he did as a state representative serving an area called Denmark, SC which is one of the poorest cities in SC.
I’ve interacted with him and he definitely isn’t a sell out. Unlike Clyburn, his dad was jailed during the whole Orangeburg Massacre and I’ve seen some of the work he has done. Good movie about him - https://www.bakarisellersdocumentary.com/

Just like Justin who is only a state representative, but was being touted to run for Lt. Gov in SC with Joe Cunningham under the Dems before he decided to go with another candidate. Again someone who I’ve been around and interacted with and he literally is a walking version of Malcom X with a formal education. Got justice for Walter Scott and a lot of other cases in SC.

I’m sure there are other young blacks in political offices in the USA that I don’t know about but these are the two that come to mind. Unfortunately living in DC, there were zero unless you refer to Trayon White who Marion helped as a youth but I’m not sure he has the political experience at the national level.

Hell even Lauren underwood should be making more noise than she is.
Smart, intelligent, and is current a house representative but I think she would be the perfect candidate to put money behind plus she has a public health and nursing background so she is forward thinking in those issues which are my personal concerns. She never gets talked about a lot, but I think that is just wrong

ISSUES — LAUREN UNDERWOOD for CONGRESS

www.underwoodforcongress.com

We need more Lauren Underwood’s to get in the political game IMO

Appreciate all the info!

I'll look up Justin Bamberg-- definitely an appealing comparison you've made.

And I'll look at the Sellers documentary, probably over the three-day weekend coming up. I've never liked the dude-- last big story I saw on him was his support last year for a PAC claiming to support Black communities that was financed by a billionaire hedge fund investor who also funds Republicans and AIPAC:

New PAC Backed by Bakari Sellers Plans to Spend $1 Million to Unseat Rep. Rashida Tlaib

The group aiming to unseat Tlaib is financed by a billionaire hedge fund investor who also funds Republicans and AIPAC.

theintercept.com

This was a precursor of what AIPAC is doing now, targeting the strongest progressive black legislators like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. They pretend to support black political power when it is convenient, like targeting Rashida Tlaib, but when you look under the hood, they ALWAYS are supporting the more conservative candidate.

I'm not anti-Semitic at all but we will never build black political power by letting AIPAC pre-select our leaders.

I've seen Sellers on TV and acknowledge he is smart. But he is a puppet IMO-- knowingly and by choice.

 

[DC_Dude]

Appreciate all the info!

I'll look up Justin Bamberg-- definitely an appealing comparison you've made.

And I'll look at the Sellers documentary, probably over the three-day weekend coming up. I've never liked the dude-- last big story I saw on him was his support last year for a PAC claiming to support Black communities that was financed by a billionaire hedge fund investor who also funds Republicans and AIPAC:

New PAC Backed by Bakari Sellers Plans to Spend $1 Million to Unseat Rep. Rashida Tlaib

The group aiming to unseat Tlaib is financed by a billionaire hedge fund investor who also funds Republicans and AIPAC.

theintercept.com

This was a precursor of what AIPAC is doing now, targeting the strongest progressive black legislators like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. They pretend to support black political power when it is convenient, like targeting Rashida Tlaib, but when you look under the hood, they ALWAYS are supporting the more conservative candidate.

I'm not anti-Semitic at all but we will never build black political power by letting AIPAC pre-select our leaders.

I've seen Sellers on TV and acknowledge he is smart. But he is a puppet IMO-- knowingly and by choice.

And that’s why I offered 3 and quite frankly I would probably put Lauren at the top of the 3. No shade to Bakari or Justin because I know the work they have done at the local level, but Lauren is smart and just has more appeal IMO.
Smart, educated, offers real solutions and is the youngest black woman to ever serve in Congress.
My homeboy who does a lot of work behind the scenes and helps run political campaigns in SC ( worked on Berni Sanders campaign in 2020 and is working on Marianne in SC currently), that shit is a crazy and wild game. It’s all about money and working favors. One of the main reasons why I just like supporting organizations doing work in the communities with zero political ties.

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

And that’s why I offered 3 and quite frankly I would probably put Lauren at the top of the 3. No shade to Bakari or Justin because I know the work they have done at the local level, but Lauren is smart and just has more appeal IMO.
Smart, educated, offers real solutions and is the youngest black woman to ever serve in Congress.

Yeah, I need to learn more about her as well. I've seen a few people promoting her on this board but really don't even recall ever seeing an article focused on her or a TV interview.

When you wrote that she "should be making more noise than she is... She never gets talked about a lot, but I think that is just wrong," that suggested to me that, at the very least, she has not put a strong team around her, at least with regard to communications. I think she would get coverage if she sought and earned it and if she really is so great she should be out there promoting what she has done and, more importantly, advocating for what she stands for.

I think being vocal and drawing attention to your causes is an important part of leadership.

Cori Bush gets press. I know Cori Bush is the real deal:

With Capitol Sit-In, Cori Bush Galvanized a Progressive Revolt Over Evictions (Published 2021)

Refusing to move from the Capitol steps, the first-term congresswoman from St. Louis intensified pressure on the Biden administration and showed her tactics could yield results.

www.nytimes.com

Cori Bush steers progressives to win on eviction crisis

A new member of the liberal “Squad” stepped to the forefront this week, leading a Capitol steps sit-in that forced the White House to act.

www.politico.com

 

[DC_Dude]

Yeah, I need to learn more about her as well. I've seen a few people promoting her on this board but really don't even recall ever seeing an article focused on her or a TV interview.

When you wrote that she "should be making more noise than she is... She never gets talked about a lot, but I think that is just wrong," that suggested to me that, at the very least, she has not put a strong team around her, at least with regard to communications. I think she would get coverage if she sought and earned it and if she really is so great she should be out there promoting what she has done and, more importantly, advocating for what she stands for.

I think being vocal and drawing attention to your causes is an important part of leadership.

Cori Bush gets press. I know Cori Bush is the real deal:

With Capitol Sit-In, Cori Bush Galvanized a Progressive Revolt Over Evictions (Published 2021)

Refusing to move from the Capitol steps, the first-term congresswoman from St. Louis intensified pressure on the Biden administration and showed her tactics could yield results.

www.nytimes.com

Cori Bush steers progressives to win on eviction crisis

A new member of the liberal “Squad” stepped to the forefront this week, leading a Capitol steps sit-in that forced the White House to act.

www.politico.com

Yeah I am familiar with her too, but I’m more so focused on people who are under 40 getting more involved in the political game. I think Cori is 46 which isn’t old and again she is solid, but Lauren is 36. Media never really shows love for the youth and she actually won her first time.
Again, I don’t follow politics like most, but we need to get more youth involved in politics.

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

Yeah I am familiar with her too, but I’m more so focused on people who are under 40 getting more involved in the political game. I think Cori is 46 which isn’t old and again she is solid, but Lauren is 36. Media never really shows love for the youth and she actually won her first time.
Again, I don’t follow politics like most, but we need to get more youth involved in politics.

That's cool. A difference of perspective. I think youth can be overrated. You have bullshit politicians like Pete Buttigeig whose entire appeal is based on being younger. I'm much more interested in who is doing the most to lead on positive change. Though I'd love to see more younger people doing that and think the younger generation has a lot more potential than the older ones.

Tomorrow is the 60 year anniversary of the March on Washington-- the fact that King never saw 40 is one of the craziest, given all he accomplished. But A. Philip Randolph was the driving force behind the March on Washington at age 74!!! I think we should be in awe of both of them and I'd caution not to discount the older folks who are doing real shit, especially when the age difference is marginal as in the case of Underwood and Bush.

 

[Non-StopJFK2TAB]

That's cool. A difference of perspective. I think youth can be overrated. You have bullshit politicians like Pete Buttigeig whose entire appeal is based on being younger. I'm much more interested in who is doing the most to lead on positive change. Though I'd love to see more younger people doing that and think the younger generation has a lot more potential than the older ones.

Tomorrow is the 60 year anniversary of the March on Washington-- the fact that King never saw 40 is one of the craziest, given all he accomplished. But A. Philip Randolph was the driving force behind the March on Washington at age 74!!! I think we should be in awe of both of them and I'd caution not to discount the older folks who are doing real shit, especially when the age difference is marginal as in the case of Underwood and Bush.

Politicians are only friends to people who write large checks. Most black people cannot write a check to a candidate. However, take pride we prefer to get fleeced by a Realty Fund than a lousy politician.

As you write about The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, I am thinking of the Trinidad and Tobago Airplane Pilot Association asking for higher wages. As you mention The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, I am thinking of the slavers Gladstones of England who announced a fund at a college in Guyana.

Phillip A Randolph isn’t the man you think he is. Ask Anna Hedgeman about Randolph. Ask Mary Bethune how she responded to Randolph selling out black women in 1941 via FDR’s executive action.

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

Politicians are only friends to people who write large checks. Most black people cannot write a check to a candidate. However, take pride we prefer to get fleeced by a Realty Fund than a lousy politician.

As you write about The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, I am thinking of the Trinidad and Tobago Airplane Pilot Association asking for higher wages. As you mention The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, I am thinking of the slavers Gladstones of England who announced a fund at a college in Guyana.

Phillip A Randolph isn’t the man you think he is. Ask Anna Hedgeman about Randolph. Ask Mary Bethune how she responded to Randolph selling out black women in 1941 via FDR’s executive action.

I don't understand the point you are making in the bolded section.

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

Progressives see promise in more diverse candidates, voters ahead of 2024

The Democratic Party’s progressive wing has been through many iterations – from the upstart insurgency of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016 to the 2018 primary upsets inspired by Rep. Alexandria …

thehill.com

 

[Non-StopJFK2TAB]

I don't understand the point you are making in the bolded section.

Time has revealed we haven't moved an inch.

In America after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Civil Rights Act, and Voting Rights Act were signed and became law, and the Caribbean nations were given their independence around the same time. Here we are 60 years later and both the blacks in America and the Caribbean are in search of jobs and freedom. Sixty years ago, most of us were punked out of being nationalists, and today most of us are afraid to be “Woke”.

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

Perhaps the biggest prize for Democrats is New York. After a lengthy legal battle, a court threw out a Democratic-drawn gerrymander for the midterms. Democrats are now suing in state court, arguing that last year’s court-drawn lines were temporary. A largely advisory redistricting commission could put forward new lines by the end of this year. But what Democrats are hoping for is that the mapmaking process ends up in the hands of the Democratic-dominated legislature. A similar gerrymander to the one the party tried to implement for last year’s election would make seven of the 11 seats currently held by Republicans more Democratic-friendly.

Republican candidates in New York’s swing seats will likely need all the help they can get.​

​

The GOP is facing myriad challenges, including the potential for a new round of redistricting that could see Democrats in Albany drawing new congressional lines to their advantage. New York’s top court is set to hear a challenge to the existing districts in November.​

​

The money being raised and sent to New York by Republicans is expected to go to advertising and to support potential legal challenges.​

​

Stefanik said she is part of a coordinated effort with the Republican National Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm and multiple political action committees to boost the party’s most vulnerable incumbents. She pegged the total haul will be around $100 million between the campaigns and the candidates. ...​

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

NY Times: Democrats Want to Flip N.Y. House Seats. But There’s a Primary Problem.​

To win back a key seat it lost in 2022, the party must first deal with a battle between Mondaire Jones and Liz Whitmer Gereghty, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s sister.

Sipping iced coffee at a diner the other day, Liz Whitmer Gereghty looked every bit the dream recruit Democrats need to recapture this coveted suburban House seat north of New York City.

She once owned a shop down the street, serves on the school board and speaks passionately about abortion rights. She also happens to be the younger sister of one of her party’s brightest stars, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

“My rights are at risk,” said Ms. Gereghty, 50. “Everything feels very urgent, and I have a congressman who is not representing me, so I raised my hand.”

Problem is, she was not the only one. Mondaire Jones, a popular former congressman who represented much of the area until January, is also running and believes he is the best candidate to defeat Representative Mike Lawler, the Republican incumbent.

It is a pattern repeating itself in swing seats across the country this summer, but nowhere more so than New York, where ambitious Democrats eager to challenge Republicans defending seats that President Biden won are creating primary pileups from Long Island to Syracuse.

Contested primaries have long been a reality for both parties. But after Democrats’ underperformance in 2022 made New York a national embarrassment, party officials and strategists have been increasingly worried that Democrat-on-Democrat fights could drain millions of dollars and bruise a crop of eventual nominees, threatening their carefully laid plans to wrest back House control.

“My view is we shot ourselves in the foot last cycle, and we seem intent on shooting ourselves in the head this cycle,” said Howard Wolfson, who helps steer tens of millions of dollars in political spending as Michael R. Bloomberg’s adviser.

“I can’t for the life of me understand why we can’t figure this out and ensure that we have one strong candidate running in each of these districts,” he added.

Paradoxically, the problem could only grow more stark if Democrats win a lawsuit seeking to redraw the state’s district lines. That could ease the party’s path to victory, but also prompt the courts to push the primary date from June to late August, extending the bitter primary season and truncating the general election campaign.

There is time for leaders like Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat and a New Yorker, to intervene if they want to. While the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee rarely interferes in open primaries, there is a tradition of less direct maneuvering to boost preferred candidates and edge others out.

So far, Mr. Jeffries appears to be doing the opposite — privately encouraging more potential candidates, with mixed success, according to four Democrats familiar with his outreach who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to discuss it. He tried to nudge State Senator Michelle Hinchey into a Hudson Valley contest earlier this year and urged the former Nassau County executive, Laura Curran, to enter a large primary field for another seat as recently as July.

Mr. Jeffries has also offered support to Tom Suozzi to enter the race for his old House seat on Long Island, where a crowded field of Democrats is circling Representative George Santos, a first-term Republican who faces federal fraud charges.

The leader’s allies argue that the competition will strengthen their nominees and brush off concerns that Democrats will be short on funds. A Democratic super PAC has already earmarked $45 million for New York races. And the D.C.C.C. is pitching donors — as recently as a party retreat in Torrey Pines, Calif., last weekend, according to an attendee — to give to special “nominee funds,” a kind of escrow account collecting money for primary winners.

“Leader Jeffries has no plan to endorse in any Democratic primary in New York,” said Christie Stephenson, his spokeswoman. “He is confident that whoever emerges in these competitive districts will be strongly positioned to defeat the extreme MAGA Republican crowd.”

But the mix of ego and ideology buffeting the star-studded race between Mr. Jones and Ms. Gereghty shows the potential risks, particularly in such a high-profile race to reclaim a Hudson Valley seat lost last year by Sean Patrick Maloney, who was the chairman of the Democratic campaign committee at the time.

Mr. Jones, an openly gay Black Democrat, represented a more liberal configuration of the seat in Congress last term. But after a court imposed new district lines in 2022, Mr. Maloney opted to run for Mr. Jones’s seat instead of his traditional one. Rather than run against a party leader, Mr. Jones chose to move 25 miles to Brooklyn to run for an open seat there.

He lost and has now moved back north.

In a phone interview, Mr. Jones, 36, said he was confident that voters would understand his “impossible situation,” but regretted his decision not to challenge Mr. Maloney, who lost to Mr. Lawler in a seat Mr. Biden won by 10 points.

Mr. Jones said the outcome showed that “you can’t just substitute any Democrat for Mondaire Jones in this district.” More than 100 local and national officials and groups — from the Westchester Democratic chairwoman to the congressional Black and progressive caucuses — have backed his comeback attempt, making him the clear front-runner against Ms. Gereghty.

But some of the positions Mr. Jones trumpeted to win more liberal electorates in earlier campaigns could prove cumbersome.

He is already tacking toward the center and would say little about Ms. Gereghty in the interview. Mr. Jones referred to his own calls to defund the police in 2020 as “emotional, facile comments”; his current campaign features video of Mr. Jones shaking hands with a local police chief while touting votes to increase police funding.

Mr. Jones said he wanted to see New York grant judges new authority to set cash bail for defendants they deem dangerous. And he said he would only support a state plan to tax cars traveling into central Manhattan if there was a carveout for the suburban counties he represented.

Over breakfast in Katonah, an affluent Westchester suburb, Ms. Gereghty pitched her modest record as an electoral strength in a general election. She cast herself as a member of the get-it-done wing of the Democratic Party, like her sister, and predicted Mr. Lawler would gleefully use Mr. Jones’s words against him, as he did to Mr. Maloney.

“If you got tired of the Sean Maloney ads last year, well, at least have some more variety if he’s the candidate,” she said.

Ms. Gereghty has no plans to drop out. But she has struggled to amass local support.

Her most notable endorsement comes from Emily’s List, the national group dedicated to electing women who back abortion rights. Of the $408,000 she’s raised thus far, almost half came from residents of Michigan.

Democrats have caught some breaks in neighboring districts.

Republicans have yet to field a top-tier challenger to Representative Pat Ryan, the only Democrat defending a swing seat here. They are also headed toward their own fraught primary if Mr. Santos continues to run.

Elsewhere, the candidates are crowding in.

Three Democrats, including Sarah Hughes, a former gold medal figure skater, are vying to represent the party against Representative Anthony D’Esposito in a Long Island district Mr. Biden won by 14 points.

Three more have already raised at least $300,000 to run in Mr. Santos’s neighboring district. That does not include Mr. Suozzi or Robert Zimmerman, the party’s 2022 nominee, who is eying another run.

A similar dynamic is playing out in Syracuse, where four Democrats are competing over whether a moderate or progressive should take on Representative Brandon Williams, a Republican who narrowly won a seat that favored Mr. Biden by eight points in 2020.

“Primaries can be bloodying, and they cost a lot of money,” said Ms. Curran, who has decided not to run for Mr. D’Esposito’s seat. “It clouds the message and the mission.”

Republicans have watched it all with delight.

Mr. Lawler spent the month of August meeting constituents and gathering large campaign checks. He said he ran into Mr. Jones along the way and got an earful — about how frustrated the Democrat was to be stuck in a primary.

He won’t have a Democratic primary vote, but Mr. Lawler, who will have to defend his own conservative votes unpopular in the district, made clear he has a preference.

“Look, I’d be happy to run against either,” he said. “But Mondaire Jones certainly has a very long and detailed record that shows him clearly out of step.”

 

[DC_Dude]

 

[Dr. Truth]

I’ll tell you why he’s not married

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

I don't really associate Tim Scott with black political power.

"We don’t need any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice." - Rep. Ayanna Pressley

He's a black face, sure, but that's about it.

I’ll tell you why he’s not married

Are you saying that hooligan killed his girlfriend?

I read this in the Axios newsletter this morning:

During an onstage interview with Axios in May, Scott said he had a girlfriend but didn't name her.​

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

I don't really associate Tim Scott with black political power.

"We don’t need any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice." - Rep. Ayanna Pressley

He's a black face, sure, but that's about it.

This is a GREAT article to that effect-- I learned some shit about Senator Carol Moseley Braun, one of the first two black women ever in that position:

BLACK CLASS MATTERS: Class conflict undermines assumptions about political solidarity (Colin warning: Good but long article)

It's not really that long... Key sentences are bolded... https://hammerandhope.org/article/black-america-2020-protests Joe Biden stated what his party takes to be the truth about Democrats and Black America, when, days before police officers murdered George Floyd in 2020, he told a host of a...

www.bgol.us

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

 

[The Catcher In The Rye]

If a map resembling any of these three were adopted and a Black Democrat flipped the 2nd, Alabama would have two Black members of Congress for the first time ever. It would also mark the first time since the early 1960s that a Democrat has represented a district covering part of the Mobile area.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/26/1200906844/supreme-court-alabama-voting-case

 

[Costanza]

Morning Digest: North Carolina GOP's extreme new maps set new standards in gerrymandering

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team. Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast ...

www.dailykos.com

On Wednesday, North Carolina Republicans passed new congressional and state legislative gerrymanders that will likely cost three to four House Democrats their seats in Congress and guarantee GOP control of the legislature in this longtime swing state. Thanks to an unusual provision of the state's constitution, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper lacks the power to veto this map, so these new districts will now become law.

The GOP's new congressional map will rank as one of the most extreme gerrymanders in the country and upend the state's House delegation. North Carolina relied on a court-drawn map in 2022 that elected seven Democrats and seven Republicans, with Republican House candidates collectively winning the popular vote by a close 52-48 margin.

As shown on this graphic comparing the old and new maps, that fairer map will be replaced with one that will almost certainly elect 10 or 11 Republicans next year and just three or four Democrats. The plan could also end the House career of one of the state's three Black representatives.

Meanwhile, the GOP's new state Senate and state House maps turbocharge their existing gerrymanders and will make it effectively impossible for Democrats to secure majorities, even though they're routinely capable of winning statewide elections. Even worse, the new maps will likely ensure that, in all but the most Democratic of election years, Republicans will maintain the three-fifths supermajorities they'd need to override gubernatorial vetoes and to place constitutional amendments on the ballot.

As shown on this graphic, the congressional gerrymander works by cracking apart two heavily Democratic urban areas: the city of Fayetteville and the region known as the Piedmont Triad, which includes Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point. These four cities are collectively split among six different districts, combining their large Black populations with heavily white rural areas to ensure that all will be represented solely by Republicans.

 

[Costanza]

 

[Costanza]

New York’s Highest Court Allows Dems To Redraw Congressional Map, With Potentially Massive Consequences

The New York Court of Appeals has permitted the Democratic-controlled state legislature to redraw its congressional district maps for 2024.

dailycaller.com

 

[Costanza]

The election for the new black district in Alabama is coming up in a month...

Who Will Represent Alabama’s New Democratic District?

After redistricting created another heavily Black congressional district, nearly a dozen candidates have put themselves forward.

prospect.org

Who Will Represent Alabama’s New Democratic District?​

After redistricting created another heavily Black congressional district, nearly a dozen candidates have put themselves forward.
BY TOBY JAFFE
“I am here,” declared James Averhart, executive director of the Alabama NAACP and candidate for Alabama’s Second Congressional District, at a recent candidate forum in Mobile. “I live in this district. In March, I can vote for myself.”

Other candidates made similar appeals, such as state Rep. Napoleon Bracy, who evoked his record representing Mobile County since 2010, and former Biden administration official Shomari Figures, who boasted of being born and raised in Mobile and still calling it home. By contrast, high-profile candidates like state Rep. Juandalynn Givan and state Sen. Merika Coleman are from Birmingham, which is over 200 miles from Mobile.

Alabama House minority leader Anthony Daniels is from even further away in northern Huntsville, and state Rep. Jeremy Gray is from northeast of the district in Opelika along the Georgia border.

Opportunities like this don’t come along for Alabama Democrats every day, so political hopefuls are coming from all over the state to compete in the March 5 primary for a newly drawn seat that could help shift the balance of power in Congress. The Supreme Court, in Allen v. Milligan last June, ruled that the old Alabama redistricting map assembled by the legislature after the 2020 census violated the Voting Rights Act. Federal judges selected a new map that will give Black Alabamians, who represent over one-quarter of the population, a second plurality-Black district out of the seven in the state.

That will almost certainly flip one seat in Alabama to the Democrats in 2024. The only question is who will get it. In Alabama’s other heavily Black district, Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell caucuses with the centrist New Dems, has worked to split consensus party stances on the minimum wage by proposing regional variation, and co-founded a PAC to protect incumbents from progressive primary challenges. Where on the political spectrum will Alabama’s newest Democratic House member land?

THE NEW SECOND DISTRICT RUNS ACROSS THE ENTIRE WIDTH of the state, and includes Montgomery and Mobile, two of Alabama’s largest cities. The district overlaps with large swaths of the rural Alabama “Black Belt,” an area not often included in discourse about American blue-collar decay that tends to center whiteness. The region is considered to be amongst the poorest in America and suffers from many of the same problems experienced in white rural communities, as well as the institutional racial prejudice ubiquitous in Black communities. Most of the Democratic Party candidates are running on platforms that seek to address both racial injustices as well as rural poverty.

Of the 11-candidate field, which came together only in the past few months after the new maps were confirmed, Bracy, Figures, Gray, Daniels, Coleman, and Givan are considered to have the best chances of winning the primary by local media. One poll late last year showed Bracy and Figures in first and second place with 15 percent and 9 percent, respectively, but the sample was small and 47 percent of respondents declared themselves undecided. Some have said that Daniels, who came in at 8 percent in the poll, is in fact the front-runner because of union support and political connections.

Bracy’s campaign strategy seems to be almost entirely tied up with his familiarity with local communities in the district. His campaign website is full of references to the local community, and in a recent interview with the Alabama Reflector he said that jumping into the race “seemed like a natural fit because these are citizens that I had already been serving for the last two decades.” Bracy’s policy positions also skew local and sometimes have a tinge of 21st-century populism: He speaks of bringing manufacturing jobs to the district and expanding Medicaid to boost rural health care.

Figures, the son of two Alabama state legislators, is running on his Washington experience. He worked on the Biden-Harris transition team, served as deputy chief of staff to Attorney General Merrick Garland, and prior to that advised Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

A map of a GOP proposal to redraw Alabama’s congressional districts is displayed at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, July 18, 2023.

“I’ve worked across all three branches of federal government,” he boasted in an early-January interview. “So I know how the government works, and I have networks, skills and experiences in Washington already that will be able to be deployed immediately for the benefit of the people of this district.”

Figures has reportedly already raised $250,000 in his first nine weeks as a candidate, and has declared that the money will enable him to “have the resources to reach every voter.” Interestingly, Figures has made providing “access to alternative capital” an important part of his platform. His website states that “Cryptocurrency is a catalyst for innovation and has revolutionized traditional financial systems …” Figures would like to see crypto leveraged for job creation in an “inclusive economy.” It’s the kind of thing one might have expected to see from candidates during the 2022 cycle, but less so in the post-SBF, GPT-crazed days of 2024.

Former NC State defensive back turned state representative Jeremy Gray expressed reluctance in a recent interview to detail specific legislation he’d be interested in pursuing as a member of Congress. Rather, he declared that he was “promising people things that just won’t happen on day one or year one.”

This is an odd statement, given that congressional terms last only two years. Gray’s campaign platform is hardly extravagant, though he did cite Amazon’s headquarters in Northern Virginia as the kind of thing he would like to see in the district. Gray has mainly spoken of securing federal funding for AL-02 for education, health care, and infrastructure through “wheeling and dealing” in Washington.

Alabama House minority leader Anthony Daniels has attracted union support, such as an endorsement from the Professional Fire Fighters Association (the Alabama chapter of the national union) on January 22nd. That kind of support can go a long way in crowded primaries and is one reason some have considered Daniels “the favorite” in the race despite hailing from far outside the district boundaries.

Daniels’s campaign strategy seems predicated on general-election electability, which is interesting given that the new district is expected to be safely Democratic in November.

Daniels’s campaign website, which is fairly bare and free of policy specifics, states that “His ability to build consensus—on both sides of the political divide—has resulted in public policy that strengthens Alabama’s economy, creates good-paying jobs, and opportunity for all Alabamians.”

Elsewhere, Daniels has talked about laws he helped pass in the Alabama state House, such as the elimination of a statewide tax on overtime pay. “The first priority for me going into Congress is to eliminate the income tax on overtime pay at the federal level,” he said at the Mobile candidate forum earlier in January.

Merika Coleman is seen speaking in Montgomery, Alabama, October 26, 2021. Coleman is the one state senator joining the contest to represent Alabama’s new district in Washington.

State Rep. Givan is running the most outwardly populist campaign of the candidates considered viable by local media, often mentioning her coal miner father who passed away in 2015 and positioning herself as the voice of the Alabama Black Belt. Those living in the Black Belt are “simple” people, she has declared, who “don’t want all the glitz and glam of big city living.” She has advocated for a $15 minimum wage, restorative justice for incarcerated people, and federal protections for reproductive rights.

“I still have not seen a day with regards to health issues that America or my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle dare to pass legislation to tell a man what he can and cannot do with his penis,” said Givan in a recent interview. “Every year there are laws as to what a woman can do or should do or mandate what she must do with her vagina.” Reproductive rights is an especially urgent topic in Alabama given the state’s repressive post-Roe abortion ban.

Merika Coleman is the one state senator running in the AL-02 primary, having been elected in 2022. Her Twitter avatar features a selfie with President Biden, though her campaign website makes no mention of him. Like other candidates, she has said she will advocate in Congress for federal funds to be sent to the Second District and would like to see incentives for businesses to keep jobs in the region.

Coleman has used her position as state senator to propose legislation that some of her primary opponents, such as Givan, have said was politically motivated and of little use. One such bill, a proposal that would apparently create mechanisms for the public disclosure of body cam footage, was unveiled by Coleman at a press conference in late December, where she was flanked by the surviving family of Jawan Dallas, a 36-year-old killed by police last summer. Givan declared that the bill was giving “false hope” to the Dallas family and was functionally a political prop.

“Definitely a campaign move on her part,” added Givan, who herself sponsored a body cam bill that was signed into law in September 2023. In this example and others, Givan has demonstrated a certain brazenness that would likely make her a lightning rod in Washington should she win the primary and general election.

Things are fluid in the primary, though it does seem at this stage that Daniels, Bracy, and Figures have the best chances of winning given their organizational capabilities. Whether they are the best policy options remains to be seen.

 

[Costanza]