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On a recent Sunday evening, a dozen New York liberal housing activists gathered for a virtual reunion with Senator Chuck Schumer. Although the newly anointed majority leader served in Congress for four decades, a number of attendees had barely interacted with him before, and some saw him as an uncertain ally.
But Mr. Schumer was eager to reassure himself. At one point he described himself as a former tenant organizer who was now able to respond to housing issues on a large scale, several participants recall.
“He had done a bunch of homework and knew everything we were going to ask for and made a bunch of commitments with us to make it happen,” said Cea Weaver, strategist for the Housing Justice for All coalition in New York City. “He was like: I’m talking to Ilhan Omar, I’m talking to Bernie Sanders, I’m talking to AOC”
The January meeting was part of a series of moves Mr Schumer took to convince left-wing leaders in New York and Washington ahead of his 2022 reelection campaign. Armed with a vast array of political promises, he courted the next generation activists, organizers and elected officials in New York City who would likely form the backbone of an effort to dethrone him, if at all.
He faces an extraordinary balancing act in the coming days as he simultaneously seeks to forge a massive relief bill to counter the coronavirus pandemic while also handling the impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump. Both tasks are seen as urgent, practical and moral imperatives by the electoral base of the Democratic Party.
Mr Schumer, 70, has tried to channel his party’s sense of impatience: in recent days he has publicly urged President Biden to “be very bold” with his economic policies and executive actions, defying pressure from Republicans and a few. centrist Democrats to cut campaign promises.
Over the past week, Mr Schumer has backed a new initiative to decriminalize cannabis; endorsed Senator Cory Booker’s Baby Bonds proposal, a plan to close the racial wealth gap; and appeared with Senator Elizabeth Warren and other progressives to call on Mr. Biden to cancel student debt.
On impeachment as well, Mr Schumer has taken a hard-line approach, demanding Mr Trump’s dismissal from office the morning after the Jan.6 attack on Capitol Hill and making the upcoming trial a crucial ritual. responsibility, although it is highly unlikely that two-thirds of the Senate will vote for condemnation.
Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said Mr. Schumer was adamant in private conversations about his intention to “do very great things” despite the Senate’s disheartening calculations. Mr Mitchell said he spoke frequently with Mr Schumer but had yet to discuss the 2022 campaign with him.
“He will have to use all the tools at his disposal to keep his caucus united; he understands that, we all understand that, it’s no surprise, ”Mitchell said. “I think it’s also very clear that the alternative is unacceptable – that he absolutely has to keep his promises.”
The new Senate leader seems to recognize that his political manual needs to be updated. Compulsive retail politician and prodigious fundraiser, Mr Schumer rose to power less as a legislative engineer and big-idea writer than as a campaign tactician with a financial base on Wall Street and an eye keen to find the political midpoint between the liberals. New York and its historically conservative suburbs.
David Carlucci, a former Rockland County senator who lost a House primary in 2018 to a more progressive candidate, Representative Mondaire Jones, has said that a diverse new generation is transforming state politics. Mr Schumer seems relatively safe, he said, but no Democrat should feel immune.
“Any old guard politician must be very concerned about a potential primary,” Carlucci said.
It’s a lesson progressives have taught establishment Democrats over the past two election cycles, when the losses of two senior House members Joseph P. Crowley and Eliot L. Engel marked back-to-back breakthroughs. for leftist politics in upstate New York. .
Unlike MM. Crowley and Engel, the Leader of the Senate remains a ubiquitous presence in New York. But his ability to match the passions of his own party is another question.
Mr. Schumer has regularly received complaints from the left throughout the Trump years for taking a generally cautious approach to campaign messages and strategy, including in key Senate races last year, where Mr. Schumer selected moderate recruits who ultimately lost in states like Maine and North Carolina. Democrats have limited patience for the kind of progressive maneuvering and horse-trading that are traditionally required to pass laws in the Senate.
In a statement, Mr Schumer said he was trying to “do the best job for my constituents and for my country” and recognized a shift in the scope of his government goals.
“The world has changed and the needs of families have changed,” he said, “income and racial inequalities have worsened, the climate crisis has become more urgent, Trump has attacked our democracy – all of these things require ambitious and daring action. is what I strive to deliver to the Senate.
As of yet, Mr Schumer’s more serious potential challengers – Chief Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among them – have not taken steps towards a campaign. Ms Ocasio-Cortez, the 31-year-old MP for Queens, told her associates that she did not decide to run but believed the possibility of a challenge was a form of constructive pressure on Mr. Schumer, people who spoke with her said.
Other potential opponents appear more focused on mounting a bid to overthrow Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Yet Mr Schumer appears to want to deter even a quixotic opponent who could turn out to be a calming distraction or worse. He started using Twitter and cable interviews to demand that Mr Biden take bold executive action on issues such as student debt and climate change.
And as he assumes the expanded powers of the Senate majority, Mr. Schumer draws on old and new alliances to help him govern.
Starting last spring, Mr Schumer called several conference calls to work out pandemic contingency plans with some of the Democratic Party’s top political minds. They included more centrist voices, such as former Treasury Department official Antonio Weiss; progressive economic thinkers like Felicia Wong of the Roosevelt Institute and Stephanie Kelton of Stony Brook University; and liberal think tank leaders Heather Boushey and Michael Linden, who now serve in the Biden administration.
Mr Schumer’s regular meetings with national liberal advocacy groups have intensified in recent weeks, and he has spent time with a cohort of elected New York progressives over the past year. In December, he met State Senator Jabari Brisport, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist elected last fall, at a bar in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and stressed his support for the fight against climate change.
“We joked that I was a socialist in Brooklyn,” Brisport said, recalling that Mr. Schumer noted he worked well with Mr. Sanders, who is also a Brooklyn socialist.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a 32-year-old progressive who won an open house seat in the Bronx last fall, said Mr Schumer was the first official to contact him after Mr Torres won a controversial primary; Shortly thereafter, Schumer visited his district for a meeting on expanding the federal child tax credit.
Mr Torres said he intended to back Mr Schumer in any contested primary. “Without a doubt, he deserves to be re-elected,” said Torres.
If Mr. Schumer struggled to turn his glowing approvals of bold action into law, or came to be seen as reluctant to certain clashes with Republicans, a serious challenge could well arise. Mr Schumer faces a dense ideological minefield on issues ranging from economic recovery legislation to end filibuster and achieve statehood for Washington, DC
“The pressure now is that he’s one of the most powerful politicians in the whole country,” said assemblyman Ron Kim, a progressive lawmaker. “If he can’t deliver, it’s not just him – it’s the party that will suffer in two or four years.
State Senator Jessica Ramos, a Democrat from Queens who defeated a Tory incumbent in a 2018 primary, said she believed Mr Schumer reacted to the Liberals but waited to see tough results before to approve it. She said she was “disappointed” that Mr Schumer did not take a harder line in his power-sharing negotiations with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“We have to stand up to these people who don’t care to come up with legislation that is humane and takes care of the people of this country.” Said Mrs. Ramos.
People who have spoken with Mr Schumer about a possible main challenge say he is confident about his chances against Ms Ocasio Cortez or anyone else; he stresses his support in the suburbs and among black voters in New York City, arguing that it would be difficult for a leftist opponent to overcome those advantages. As the very first leader of the Jewish majority in the Senate, he would likely have considerable strength among a large population of left-wing whites.
But Mr. Schumer also certainly knows that coalitions can be fleeting and flexible. He is said to have closely followed Senator Edward Markey’s primary campaign in Massachusetts last year against Joseph P. Kennedy III. Mr Markey, a colleague in his seventies, has beaten his younger and better-known rival by campaigning as a champion for environmental justice and aligning closely with Ms Ocasio-Cortez and groups like Sunrise.
Days after Mr Markey won his primary, Congresswoman Yuh-Line Niou, a liberal Democrat from Manhattan, spoke briefly with Mr Schumer at a 9/11 commemoration event in her district. Frustrated by Mr Cuomo’s opposition to raising taxes on the rich, Ms Niou said she appealed to Mr Schumer to help her raise the income he really needed. He was supportive, she said, but at the time, Republicans controlled the Senate.
Ms Niou said she supported Mr Schumer and thought it was “really important that New York had the majority leader as a member”. But she said she intended to push Mr Schumer to get the most out of his job.
“Every thing that I asked, I will ask five thousand times harder,” she said.
John Washington, a Buffalo-based housing organizer who attended the January meeting with Mr Schumer, said he saw a marked change in the senator. In the past, he said, Mr. Schumer sought support for his own priorities and offered “radio silence” on militant goals.
“I think it’s clear to everyone that there is sort of a new era in politics,” he said.
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