House Democratic leadership

LOL!Bobby Scott (D-VA) introduced a great piece of legislation on January 16, the Raise the Wage Act (H.R.582. The bill would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. There are 235 Democrats in the House. 205 have signed on as co-sponsors.

No one elected Hoyer and Pelosi king and queen of anything, let along of the House Democratic caucus. Their innate, across-the-board, status quo, establishment perspective-- especially Hoyer's-- holds the Democrats in the House back and saddles America with no-can-do policies on virtually everything to the left of Pay-Go... meaning everything.

That's part of a press release Pelosi's office sent me Wednesday evening. It also has the new appointees for Ways and Means:

Loser (l) and winner (r)Tuesday evening, Liz Goodwin, writing for the Boston Globe, speculated that conservative and very ambitious Massachusetts congressman Seth Moulton was playing a risky game against Pelosi.

The honorable co-chairThe so-called "Problem Solvers Caucus," best known for never having solved a problem, is led by reactionary Wall Street-owned Democrap Josh Gottherimer (Blue Dog-NJ) and mainstream Republican Tom Reed (NY).

Republicans aren't the only ones who gerrymander states to create safe partisan majorities for themselves. The Democratic Party-controlled Illinois legislature did the same thing. And one of the congressional seats they carved out in a pretty red area is the 17th district abutting eastern Iowa and southern Wisconsin. The legislators carefully-- and awkwardly-- included Rockford and Peoria to give a Democrat the margin of victory they need.

Tuesday, we saw that Ted Lieu is running for a junior leadership post, co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC). The other member that people keep urging to run for House leadership is living legend Barbara Lee.

It's time for Nancy Pelosi to go. We need someone else to lead the Democratic Party in Congress. She's part of a status quo-- like Hillary-- that voters are not happy about. IT IS TIME FOR HER TO MOVE ON and make way for someone who comes from a different, more up-to-date personal and political context. Pelosi's priorities are no longer in synch with the priorities of the Democratic base. But that does not mean throwing her out and replacing her with a cabal of Wall Street and Big PhRMA-backed corporate shills. God forbid!

In troubleWhen Seth Moulton first seriously considered running for Congress in 2012, it was as an independent. That makes sense because he isn't really a Democrat and he has nothing to do with Democratic Party values. He is an independent.

Admirers of Ted Lieu keep asking why he doesn't run for Speaker-- or at least DCCC chair. That's easy, he has two young sons and he flies back to L.A. every weekend to play his role in their lives. That isn't something a Speaker or a DCCC chair could do.