Ocasio-Cortez floats a progressive "sub-caucus"
Zephyr Teachout raises more than half a million from small donors, and Barbara Lee gets a big boost
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in a unique position of power. I’ve talked recently to a significant number of House Democrats, and their number one question about her revolves around the personal: Does she plan on endorsing a primary challenge against me?
That means that Democratic members of Congress, at least as long as that sword is credibly hanging in the air, will look to honor any requests that Ocasio-Cortez might make (assuming it’s something they can plausibly do). If she asks a colleague to endorse Barbara Lee for caucus chair, for instance, the colleague will likely weight the cost-benefit and say, sure, I’m with Lee. (Leadership elections will be held after Thanksgiving, Nancy Pelosi announced today.)
On The Dig podcast recently, she floated the idea that perhaps the Congressional Progressive Caucus ought to have a sub-group of more steadfast members who are willing to vote as a bloc to leverage their power. My story on that is here.
Speaking of Barbara Lee, Rep. Ro Khanna, a fellow California Democrat, tells me he’s going to work hard for her bid for leadership if she ends up making one after the November elections. Lee has said she’s contemplating running for the leadership post -- number four in the House -- being vacated by Joe Crowley.
And with Rachel Cohen, I have a scoop on Zephyr Teachout’s huge small-dollar fundraising haul in the New York state attorney general’s race. Details on that here.
I’m trying out a new platform for this newsletter, called substack, which is built specifically for emails like this. Nothing will change, except now the email will be available online, which means there’ll be a link you can share. And people who decide to make a contribution get to comment on it. But you can still reply and yell directly at me -- that remains free. Though, as always, I’m allowed to yell back. (I’m mostly joking; I’ve really enjoyed the exchanges I’ve been able to have with readers here.)
If you’re already a recurring subscriber on the other platform, you don’t have to do anything. But if you want to be able to comment on this new platform, let me know and I’ll figure that out.
The move has me waxing nostalgic about this newsletter, which began on tinyletter.com, which doesn’t really exist anymore. I went and checked, and I sent the first one on April 3, 2014, meaning I’ve been pumping this sucker out for more than four years.
While scrolling back to find the first one, I found this subject line, for a story by Elise Foley I sent out on June 26, 2014: “HuffPost Exclusive: Deportation Separated More Than 72,000 Parents And U.S.-Born Children In 2013.”
When we’re living in a world where that number is zero, I’ll hang this newsletter up. Until then, thanks, as always, for reading.
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