SOURCE: Wikipedia, captured 2020-09-02
This page last modified: 2020-09-10 19:26:14 -0700 (PST)
See also:
See also: Synopsis of Dark Money Campaign Financing and U.S. Constitution Article V Reform.
[2020-09-02] "Coordinated Homophobic Attack" on Alex Morse Denounced as Progressive Challenger Falls Short of Ousting Corporate Rep. Richard Neal. "We're not done yet," said Morse, who slammed challenge Richard Neal for raking in money from corporations that are "exploiting the working class people of this community and of this country."
In a statement late Tuesday [2020-09-01], Justice Democrats -- a progressive advocacy group that endorsed and remained supportive of Morse throughout the campaign -- slammed the "manufactured scandal" targeting the progressive challenger who ran on a platform that included Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.
"While national and local media -- particularly local television media -- covered the initial allegations, there was little subsequent coverage of the investigative reporting that exposed the political hit job," the group noted. "Neal's backers even claimed to 'accidentally' release an ad the weekend before Election Day attacking Morse over the allegations."
Alexandra Rojas, Executive Director of Justice Democrats, said that despite Morse's loss, he emerges from the race "as an inspiration for his community who overcame a culture of fear instilled by the incumbent and desperate, manufactured attacks" while "Neal walks away damaged and vulnerable."
"Taking on Neal was always going to be our biggest battle," said Rojas. "He's the number one recipient of corporate PAC donations in all of Congress and wields an enormous amount of power over elected officials, labor unions, and community organizations as Ways and Means chair."
President and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, Annise Parker, said that "while Alex's loss is disappointing, it proved our community and our allies can respond forcefully in exposing the dog whistles and stereotypes that too often haunt LGBTQ candidates." "We will not allow attacks on LGBTQ candidates to go unanswered during the final two months of this election cycle," said Parker.
Justice Democrats is an American progressive political action committee founded on January 23, 2017, by Kyle Kulinski of "Secular Talk," Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, Saikat Chakrabarti, and Zack Exley -- former leaders from the 2016 Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign.
Kulinski and Uygur are no longer affiliated with the group but remain active supporters.
Alexandra Rojas became Executive Director of Justice Democrats in May 2018.
Justice Democrats formed as a result of the 2016 United States Presidential election and aspires "to elect a new type of Democratic majority in Congress" that would "create a thriving economy and democracy that works for the people, not big money interests."
Justice Democrats advocates campaign finance reform (reducing the role of money in politics) and only endorses candidates who pledge to refuse donations from corporate PACs and lobbyists.
Justice Democrats was noted for issuing a much smaller set of endorsements in 2020 than it did in 2018. Communications Director Waleed Shahid has justified this as an effort to focus the group's resources on the most promising candidates.
After the 2016 Presidential election resulted in a victory for Donald Trump, many progressives pointed to the perceived loyalty of politicians to large donors as a major contributing factor to Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump. These critics contend that a campaign finance model more similar to that of Bernie Sanders, whose 2016 Presidential campaign was funded by small individual donations, will increase public trust in politicians and accountability to constituents.
On January 23, 2017, Cenk Uygur and Kyle Kulinski, founded Justice Democrats with ten others, including former staffers from the Sanders campaign such as its Director of Organizing Technology, Saikat Chakrabarti, and MoveOn.org [now: MoveOn] fundraiser Zack Exley. According to Justice Democrats, they seek to create a left-wing populist movement to support alternative Democratic candidates beginning with the 2018 mid-term elections, in order to either defeat the incumbent Democrats or cause them to become accountable to their constituents.
Justice Democrats requires their candidates to take a pledge to refuse financial contributions from billionaires and corporations [dark money, nonprofit influencer organizations]. In addition, Justice Democrats hopes to rebuild the Democratic Party on a national level and to defeat President Trump in his 2020 run for re-election.
The Democrats used to represent something wonderful -- voters. We want you to represent just us, not your donors... and stand for justice for the people
-- Cenk Uygur explaining the name of the group
On March 20, 2017, Justice Democrats reported that they had received 8,300 nominations and raised $1 million. Justice Democrats announced in March 2017 they had teamed up with Brand New Congress, a PAC established by former Sanders campaign supporters, to further their goals. By November 1, 2017, they had merged with fellow progressive group AllOfUs.
Representative Ro Khanna of California's 17th congressional district announced on May 9, 2017, that he had become a Justice Democrat, and the first sitting member of Congress to join the Justice Democrats organization. Over the following year, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona's 3rd congressional district and Pramila Jayapal of Washington's 7th congressional district also joined bringing the number of sitting representatives in Justice Democrats to three. Khanna and Jayapal had first won elections to the House of Representatives in 2016 while Grijalva had been an incumbent since 2002.
During the 2018 elections, Justice Democrats ran 79 progressive candidates against Democrats, Republicans, and Independents in local, state, and federal elections. 26 of them advanced past the primary stage. All Justice Democrat candidates running for office were endorsed by The Young Turks who provided them with a media platform on their interview show Rebel HQ. The seven Justice Democrats candidates who won their electoral congressional races in 2018 consisted of Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the three sitting members. All seven won districts already held by Democrats.
In 2020, Justice Democrat Marie Newman defeated incumbent Representative Dan Lipinski in the 2020 primary for Illinois's 3rd congressional district. Jamaal Bowman defeated incumbent Representative Eliot Engel in New York's 16th congressional district's primary. Bowman was also endorsed by Justice Democrats. Another Justice Democrat-endorsed candidate won in Missouri's 1st congressional district, when Cori Bush defeated Representative Lacy Clay.
On December 22, 2017, it was announced that Cenk Uygur had resigned from his position at Justice Democrats, following the revelation of previously deleted but archived controversial blog posts he had written. The following day, Kyle Kulinski announced that he had stepped down from Justice Democrats as he disagreed with the opinions of the Justice Democrats staff members that pressed for Uygur's dismissal over the blog posts. Kulinski said his decision came as a result of a personal dilemma as he saw the posts in question upon re-reading them as being satirical due to them dealing with Uygur complaining about his inability to attract women. Kulinski noted that the decision to ask for Uygur's resignation came from Justice Democrat staff, not the candidates, and as such he asked his supporters to continue backing Justice Democrats' candidates.
In mid-November 2019, Cenk Uygur filed to run for Congress in California's 25th district, a seat recently vacated by the resignation of Katie Hill, an office also being pursued by former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. Uygur stated he would not run as a member of the Justice Democrats.
According to Justice Democrats, their highest priority is to effectively eliminate the role of money and conflicts of interests in politics. As such, any candidate running with Justice Democrats must pledge to refuse any donations from corporate PACs and lobbyists. Declining money from corporate PACs and supporting Medicare For All have both been described as litmus tests for Justice Democrats. Justice Democrats support the idea of publicly funded elections, banning SuperPACs as well as banning private donations to politicians and campaigns [dark money].
In addition, Justice Democrats advocates for the reinstatement of provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and a ban on gerrymandering for partisan gain. Several members have voiced support for a constitutional amendment aimed at removing money from American politics.
To accompany its launch, Kulinski and Uygur published the following set of progressive founding principles for the coalition. Adjustments have been made since 2017, resulting in a slightly different platform appearing on the Justice Democrats webpage at a given time.
Creating a new infrastructure program called the "Green New Deal"
Ending arms sales to countries that it says violate human rights such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt
Enacting a federal jobs guarantee, which would promise all Americans a job paying $15 per hour plus benefits
Ending the death penalty
Ending the practice of unilaterally waging war, except as a last resort to defend U.S. territory
Ending the War on Drugs in favor of legalization, regulation, and taxation of drugs, and pardoning all non-violent drug offenders and treating all drug addicts
Ensuring free speech on college campuses and supporting net neutrality
Ensuring universal education as a right, including free four-year public college and university education
Ensuring universal healthcare as a right
Establishing paid maternity leave, paid vacation leave, and free childcare
Expanding anti-discrimination laws to apply to LGBT people
Expanding background checks on firearms and banning high capacity magazines and assault weapons
Funding Planned Parenthood and other contraceptive and abortion services, and recognizing reproductive rights
Implementing electoral reform and publicly financed elections nationwide to make irrelevant and obsolete fundraising from large corporations and the wealthy
Implementing instant-runoff voting nationwide in an effort to make third-party and independent candidates more viable
Implementing the Buffett Rule, ending offshore financial centers, "chaining" the capital gains and income taxes, and increasing the estate tax
Making the minimum wage a living wage and tying it to inflation
Pardoning Edward Snowden, prosecuting CIA torturers and DoD war criminals, shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and all other extrajudicial prisons, and ending warrantless spying and bulk data collection by the National Security Agency
Passing the Paycheck Fairness Act
Abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) | Sounds, suspiciously, like a Charles Koch-sponsored neoliberal agenda [privitization; note, e.g., Charles Koch-Funded Efforts To Privatize the U.S. Postal Service]
Reforming police by mandating body cameras, establishing community oversight boards, eliminating broken windows policing, ending stop and frisk, and appointing special prosecutors to hold police accountable in courts
Renegotiating other free trade deals CAFTA-DR, and NAFTA and opposing the Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and the World Trade Organization
Stopping any reductions to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and establishing single-payer universal healthcare
Stopping anthropogenic climate change through an ecological revolution and upholding the United States' participation in the Paris Climate Agreement
Uncompromisingly rejecting President Trump's immigration proposals and policies, particularly Executive Order 13769 and deportation of illegal immigrants, and implementing comprehensive immigration reform which will include giving non-criminal illegal immigrants a path to citizenship
There were 79 candidates officially endorsed by Justice Democrats in the 2018 election cycle.
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Currently, there are 17 candidates endorsed by the Justice Democrats in the 2020 election cycle.
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Several progressive organizations, including Our Revolution, Democratic Socialists of America, National Nurses United, Working Families Party, and Brand New Congress, announced in July 2017 a push to encourage House Democrats to sign on to a #PeoplesPlatform, which consists of supporting "eight bills currently in the House of Representatives that will address the concerns of everyday Americans." These eight bills and the topics they address are:
On May 9, 2017, Ro Khanna of California's 17th congressional district announced that he was a member of Justice Democrats and supported Justice Democrats' agenda.
On December 6, 2017, Justice Democrats announced that Raúl Grijalva of Arizona's 3rd congressional district had joined the group.
On April 16, 2018, Justice Democrats announced that Pramila Jayapal of Washington's 7th congressional district had joined the group.
On January 3, 2019, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York's 14th congressional district, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota's 5th congressional district, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts's 7th congressional district and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan's 13th congressional district were sworn in as members of the House of Representatives and as Justice Democrats. They have been dubbed "The Squad."
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