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Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao Addresses Newly Elected Congressmen at an Orientation Session in Cambridge, Massachusetts, A Handful of Democrat Recruits Slipped into the Winter Cold to Join at a medical rally.
In the absence of the biennial conference, a serious affair organized by the Harvard Kennedy School, the progressive warriors of the new majority of the House sent a clear message.
"I was not sent to Washington to play nicely," Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts MP, was elected a member of Congress. told the crowd on the outside. "I've been sent to Washington to fight, alongside my colleagues, to save and improve lives."
Pressley, who fired a 20-year-old candidate on the message "The change can not wait, "is part of a" squad "of upstarts led by women in social media that targets power structures on Capitol Hill.
They have used a relentless battle to obtain coveted seats in powerful committees such as credit and lanes. means, tasks generally reserved for senior legislators, while continuing to address priorities such as universal health and action against climate change
Noisy beginnings in Washington spark politicians – and leaders Democrats – wondering how these new faces intend to exercise their power. Will they act as a left-wing incarnation of the right-wing freedom caucus or will they turn out to be a reliable block within the government majority?
One thing is certain, says Congressional Congressional Caucus Chair (House Congress, Caucus), Mark Pocan: "This is not the progressive caucus of your mother and your father.
However, he rejects comparisons with Tea Party renegades who constantly challenge Republican leadership.
"The difference is that the Tea Party liked to say no, and we like to say yes," he told reporters during the presentation of new members of the group last month. "We will have a lot of good political ideas to defend."
For many leftist activists, the election of Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Michigan was a validation of the progressive program. They believe that many party members are insufficiently liberal and committed to corporate interests – and urge newly elected members to seize the moment.
But this could be a headache for Democratic leaders, who are trying to protect the party's fragile majority in the House. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House leader, said their priority was to improve the Affordable Care Act rather than rush to replace it with a single payer health plan.
"There is a collective urgency among the members of this room to get things done," said Lori Trahan, a new Massachusetts MP who joined the health care rally on Tuesday.
According to her, the Democratic caucus has little appetite for intransigence.
"Even if it is something narrower What we talked about in our campaign", a- she said, "we are giving ourselves the means to start working together to work together on something small. "
The new progressives have so far fallen into the lineage of the Democratic leaders.The rebellion came rather from a group of moderates demanding new faces and new leadership.
If Pelosi l & rsquo; In his candidacy for the position of Speaker of the House, this will be largely thanks to the support of the newly elected Liberals.His victory could prompt them to seek hearings and votes on political initiatives such as Medicare for All and Green New Deal.
Despite progressive victories in plain view, the party supports Donald Trump in 2016. The majority of the party crosses across the country, some moderates fear that letting progressives dominate party rhetoric will hurt MPs less liberal, especially at
"The caucus strategy must be to support the members most likely to lose," Jim Himes of Connecticut, incumbent president of the Centrist New Democrat Coalition, told reporters. The ideological differences between progressive and pragmatic are exaggerated, he said, suggesting that to maintain control of the House by 2020, it will bail out moderate voters.
"We need our young people," he said. "We need our base. We also need persuasion. "
" Welcome to Hogwarts "
Even before taking the oath, rising Democratic stars are making changes to Capitol Hill, and Ocasio-Cortez, who will be the youngest woman in Congress at age 29, has used social media to attract followers behind the scenes of the orientation of freshmen.
"Welcome to Hogwarts", she said in an article on Instagram camera to reveal the booming architecture
On Twitter, she promises to pay her trainees $ 15 an hour, after learning that most members offer unpaid internships. "It's time to walk," she said. she tweeted and then spent time answering questions from online users about how her operating budget works.
This week, she and Tlaib used Twitter to criticize the Harvard conference. yists and business leaders but not labor organizations nor activist groups.
"Lobbyists are here," tweeted Ocasio-Cortez about the event behind closed doors. "Goldman Sachs is here. Where is the work? Activists? Leaders of the frontline community? "
Ro Khanna, a progressive who overthrew a Democratic president to win his Silicon Valley district in 2016, said about newcomers:" They debunk congress hallways on social media and give ordinary Americans how their democracy really works.
"More importantly, they restore the sense of idealism for politics – reminding us all that the only reason to come to Washington is to try to do great things for our country."
Elizabeth Holtzman, a former New York congressman who, in 1972, shocked political authorities by upsetting a veteran of the House of Laws for 50 years and became the youngest woman to sit in Congress at the House of Commons. Aged 31, acknowledged their desire to shake Washington.
But she offered an edifying account by getting what you want, based on her "unwelcome beginning".
She arrived at Congress with the firm intention of avoiding the Judiciary Committee of the House. But the Democratic leaders ignored her protests and she accepted her task reluctantly.
More than a year later, Holtzman became aware of her luck when she took a seat behind the parade early in the hearings on the removal of Richard Nixon. [19659004] "I lost my first legislative battle," she said. "But I was immersed in the middle of the story. Sometimes it's good not to get everything you want. "
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