Campaign Diaries

With Massachusetts one of the bluest states in the country, Democrats are favored to hold on to Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat. This makes December 8th’s primary arguably more consequential than the general election: Will progressives manage to elect one of their own in a chamber that has few left-wing members? Will they get a mainstream politician who is neither interested in pushing his party to the right nor in strengthening its left? Or will Massachusetts imitate Delaware, a blue state that has sent a centrist Democrat to the Senate?

A number of state Democrats were expected to defer to Joe Kennedy, but the former congressman announced yesterday that he would not seek his uncle’s seat. This should lead to a free-for-all in the Democratic primary. While a crowded race could muddy differences, most of the potential contenders are current or former representatives. That makes it relatively easy to compare their politics.

In the chart below, you will find these 7 Democrats’ votes on 22 roll calls that have divided their party over the past 18 years. Some of these votes concern highly contentious issues that have come to define politicians’ careers (NAFTA, the Iraq War resolution); others have a lower-profile but are just as revealing tests of a congressman’s ideology (the progressive budget, the 2009 war supplemental).

Unfortunately, I had to exclude Attorney General Martha Coakley from this analysis. While she is a highly credible contender, her job is far less conductive to this type of analysis. I’ll take a look at her politics in the future. For now, I focus on 7 Democrats who have served in the House: former Rep. Marty Meehan and current Reps. Jeff Tierney, Stephen Lynch, Mike Capuano, Ed Markey, Jim McGovern and Bill Delahunt.

(While Delahunt and McGovern appear to have ruled out a run, neither appears to have done so decisively, which is why I am including them on this list. As for the other members of the state delegation: Barney Frank has made it clear he will not be a candidate, Richard Neal is a chairman of a Ways and Means subcommittee, 73-year old John Olver yields great influence as the chairman of an Appropriation Committee and Niki Tsongas has been in the House for just two years. It seems unlikely that any of them will jump in, though it won’t be hard for me to update this post if they do.)

Lessons

The group as a whole clearly leans to the left, and there is no more obvious proof of this than the fact that that all 7 Democrats voted in favor of the budget proposal put forth by Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Lynn Woolsey in 2007. That’s striking, because the proposal got the support of just 36% of the entire Democratic caucus!

Also, they all are or have been co-sponsors of H.R. 676, which would implement a single-payer system. They all opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment, the repeal of the estate tax and the FISA Act of 2008, which split Democrats nearly in half. All are co-sponsors of HR 1283, which would repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. In short, it looks relatively unlikely any of them would join the Senate’s centrist caucus.

Yet, a number of votes have split this group in predictable enough fashion that we can draw some lessons - and they weren’t all what I was expecting.

First of all, Meehan has comparatively centrist record, to a surprising extent: He voted for welfare reform, for the Balanced Budget Act, for NAFTA, for the Patriot Act and for the Iraq War resolution. On the other hand, he was the main sponsor of legislation to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Then comes Lynch. We keep hearing that he is a centrist Democrat with close ties to labor, which is why I was surprised to see that he was the only name on this list to have voted in favor of the Peru Trade Promotion Agreement! That’s not what you would expect from the man who is reputed so close to unions that his labor credentials are supposed to balance out his pro-life stance - though his stance on other issues might dispel the image of a social conservative: He voted for stem-cell research and is a co-sponsor of H.R. 1263. He voted to authorize the Iraq War, though he later opposed the FISA Act and renewing the Patriot Act.

Next is Markey, who would have to account for his vote in favor of the Iraq War if he were to try to justify his progressive credentials. Perhaps he could point to his opposition to the Gulf War, way back in 1991. While he voted in favor of NAFTA, he opposed trade agreements with China and Peru. All in all, his record is liberal and his role in drafting June’s global warming bill (known as the Waxman-Markey Act) makes him all the more credible. He is a CPC member.

Few congressional Democrats can hope to out-left Capuano, Tierney and McGovern, all of whom are CPC members. Of the roll calls I have listed here, neither has a single vote that could be characterized as tilting to the right - and that includes matters like the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, the progressive budgets, FISA and free trade deals. They all opposed the 2009 defense supplemental bill, along with only 29 other Democrats. They’ve all signed a letter stating they will vote against a health care bill that does not include a public option. (Update: Capuano has just started drawing fire from left-leaning groups after he signaled his openness to a trigger mechanism. Not the best idea just a few weeks from a Democratic primary!)

Two All three are also known to be concerned with international issues: Capuano has championed international aid, McGovern was arrested in front of the Sudanese Embassy during an anti-genocide protest and, as a commenter points out, Tierney is a subcommittee chairman on the National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee.

That leaves us with Delahunt, whose record on the issues I highlighted is the same as those three progressives except on the 2009 war supplemental. He is also not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and he is the oldest on the list, which could be a problem for liberal hopes of getting someone who can accumulate seniority. Age-wise, McGovern is decisively younger than the rest of the list - though he was also elected to the House at a young enough age (37) that he can hope to reach high seniority levels in the lower chamber.

(One more note: Lynch might have one vote on which he can claim to have outflanked his colleagues on the left, depending on how you categorize people’s votes on the bailout. Markey, Capuano and McGovern all voted for it while Lynch opposed it twice. Here is his lengthy explanation for the vote.)