Collin Peterson is getting a lot of credit, both on Open Left and elsewhere, for holding up the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. However, it needs to be pointed out that Peterson is only able to do this through anti-climate change solidarity from every single Democrat on the Agriculture Committee. All 28 Democrats on that committee are refusing to pass pre-weakened climate change legislation unless the legislation gets even weaker.
Further, it needs to be pointed out that 13 of the 28 Democrats on the Agriculture Committee were first elected to Congress in 2008 or later, 3 were first elected to Congress in 2006, and 3 more were first elected to Congress in 2004. Still further, many of these are the same Democratic candidates who received the lion's share of Democratic Party Committee spending, and who also received the most progressive, small donor money from Act Blue.
In other words, the climate change bill is being held up by Democratic newbies in the House who received enormous amounts of donations from progressive activists. Here is a chart showing just how much money we are talking about: $18,508,225.
Agriculture Committee Democrats, Frosh and Sophomores
This money doesn't even include donations from MoveOn, or independent expenditures from progressive advocacy groups (especially environmental groups). Tack on that and you are probably talking about upwards of $30,000,000.
All of this presents us with an opportunity to do an end-run around Collin Peterson. While Peterson is able to wield strong influence over this committee largely because its members are so utterly lacking in seniority, there is no way Peterson could ever hope to match the level of fundraising for Agricultural Committee Democrats detailed above. Truth be told, agribusiness would have a difficult time matching these fundraising amounts.
We should be able to leverage this fundraising to break Collin Peterson's hold over the committee in two ways:
Pressure the members directly: Direct donors to these members of Congress over Act Blue should be calling the campaigns to which they donated. Tell them to stop watering down an already weak climate change bill.
Pressure the leadership: Donors to the DCCC should be calling those offices, and letting staffers there know that they will be pulling the plug on contributions unless the Democratic leadership is able to get the freshman back in line.
Let's see Collin Peterson compete with that. If a few hundred small doors start calling each of these offices, plus a few thousand small donors start calling the DCCC, you better believe that at least a few Agriculture Democrats would start falling back in line.
The progressive netroots has become a huge source of campaign contributions for Democrats. We didn't spend that money to elect members of Congress who would work to weaken the most important aspects of the Democratic agenda. As such, we should start looking into ways to use the influence our money should have purchased to make sure that the new members of Congress, and the Democratic leadership, don't sell us out.
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