Kicking Our Allies to the Curb, Vol. 2

by: Adam Bink

Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 19:00

I read a piece in the NYTimes yesterday that had echoes for me of the same rationale on which Ray is running. In TN-9, progressive Rep. Steve Cohen, elected in 2006, is facing a primary challenge from former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton. The difference between this race and the race I discussed is that Herenton is running completely unabashedly as the "African-American" candidate. Examples:

"To know Steve Cohen is to know that he really does not think very much of African-Americans," Mr. Herenton said in a recent radio interview on KWAM. "He's played the black community well."

"This Congressional race, you know what it's going to be about?" Mr. Herenton said in a radio interview. "It's going to be about race, representation and power."

"This seat was set aside for people who look like me," said Mr. Herenton's campaign manager, Sidney Chism, a black county commissioner. "It wasn't set aside for a Jew or a Christian. It was set aside so that blacks could have representation."

DLCer Harold Ford, Jr. held this seat until running for Senate in 2006. The district is 60% African-American. Cohen ran against a field of six African-American primary candidates in 2006 and won with 30.95%, 5% more than Nikki Tinker, a former Ford aide. He then won the general against Jake Ford (I), Harold's own brother and son of another former Congressman from that district, Harold Ford Sr., along with a Republican, with 60% of the vote. Heck, then-Mayor Herenton even endorsed him in that race, even saying something that certainly stands in contrast to his current rationale for running:

Why then had he made such a point of endorsing Cohen versus independent contender Jake Ford in 2006, the year the current incumbent won his seat?

"I supported a principle of fairness and nondiscrimination," Herenton said. "I resented the way a group of African-American clergy had treated Cohen because of race and religion. That's why I stood with him. I am a product of the civil rights revolution. I stood with him in principle and not in person."

In 2008, he was again targeted in the primary by Tinker and won with 79.34% of the vote. Clearly, he's done at least something to win over the African-American community in three successive elections.

One question this raises for me is the intent of the Voting Rights Act in the first place. The Voting Rights Act requires that some districts be drawn to ensure a majority-minority demographic if the minority group constitute 50% plus one of the voting age population. It doesn't mandate the representative be a individual of that demographic. The question is whether the latter was part of the intent, and whether it is important to ensure an individual belonging to a minority represents a minority district.

Should Herenton run to ensure a 60% African-American district has an African-American member of Congress? Is it fair for Herenton to resent ministers who treat Cohen different because he's white, then a few years later, give race as the primary reason he's running against Cohen?

That's hard for me to say, but I'm generally disinclined to believe race or sexual orientation or other similar demographic should be the primary consideration in electing someone to represent you. Clark Ray wants to run because Mendelson screwed up on housing issues? Okay by me. Herenton wants to run because of a particularly bad issue position by Cohen? Run, Willie, run. But running on the basis of race or sexual orientation make little sense, particularly when the opponent is like Cohen, who considered joining the CBC, wrote a national apology for slavery and Jim Crow, endorsed Obama, and received an A rating from the NAACP. He also says:

"I vote like a black woman," he said in an interview. "I don't know the black experience, but I know about being a minority and being discriminated against because of religion."

He's clearly making an effort to ensure his African-American constituents are well-represented, so for Herenton to give race as the primary race is befuddling. Like Cohen, I do not know the black experience, so it is hard for me to understand why that's not enough, along with his overwhelming victories against African-American candidates. Like Cohen, I am Jewish. Unlike Cohen, I am gay. I have experienced discrimination. But I don't see a need for a gay representative like Clark Ray because he's gay.  I would not insist on a Jewish councilmember if I lived in a 60% Jewish district. If the "black experience" is different and warrants particular representation, I'm interested to hear why.

Kicking Our Allies to the Curb

by: Adam Bink

Tue Aug 25, 2009 at 15:30

Harvey Milk used to get into intra-movement battles over whether to push openly gay candidates or straight ally candidates with his nemesis in San Francisco gay politics, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic club. The Toklas' Club philosophy was to work closely with straight allies, not antagonize anybody, and endorse straight candidates for seats on the Board of Supervisors, cautiously believing gay candidates- especially ones with Milk's politics and methods- could never win and that the city wasn't ready for them. Milk, who was refused the Toklas Club endorsement in his first race for Supervisor in 1975, his race for an Assembly seat in 1976, and his second race for Supervisor in 1977 (the latter because Rick Stokes, a strong openly gay ally of the Club, was running) was so frustrated with the Toklas Club methods that he formed his own organization, the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, after losing his Assembly race.

But Harvey was living in a time when there were no major pieces of pro-LGBT legislation, no strong advocates on the Board of Supervisors, and no openly LGBT elected officials in the country. Today, all of that's changed.

I'm thinking about all of this because here in DC, Clark Ray, an openly gay candidate, is running against an incumbent Councilman Phil Mendelson, perhaps the strongest ally of the LGBT community and a straight man. It gets at the heart of what Milk stood for, and choices we need to make as a movement. Yet Ray is, as I see it, making three arguments for his candidacy, all of which are unstrategic and unpersuasive. I examine them on the flip.