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Meanwhile, the attempt to contain AOC, and to destroy the threat of anyone similarly independent and outspoken winning election, is having some instructive side-effects:
The Democratic Party is protecting one of its last anti-abortion members in a safe blue district. Why?
CHICAGO — In 1990, Patti Ernst was 35 years old and 16 weeks pregnant and found herself in a devastating medical situation. Her water had broken five months early, during a prenatal procedure testing for abnormalities that went horribly wrong.
Her doctors, at a Catholic hospital in southwestern Chicago, said there was nothing they could do. Ernst said they essentially told her “the baby is going to be terribly deformed and probably won’t come to term, but you are just going to have to wait and be pregnant and give birth to a child that is either terribly deformed or ...”
“I have a big issue with anybody that feels they get to legislate what I get to do with my body,” she said. She ultimately went to a different hospital to have an abortion.
Her congressman is Rep. Dan Lipinski, one of the last remaining anti-abortion Democrats in the House. He has voted to defund health clinics that offer abortion services, and to ban abortions at 20 weeks. He opposed the Affordable Care Act and its mandate that employers cover birth control. He speaks at the annual March for Life and attends fundraisers for anti-abortion groups.
Ernst supports Marie Newman, a progressive who supports abortion rights and is mounting a primary challenge to Lipinski. “It just never felt [Lipinski] was a Democrat,” Ernst, now 63, said, sitting in a Chicago Ridge, Illinois, home where Newman was holding a meet-and-greet.
This will be one of the most competitive Democratic primaries in 2020. And already, Newman is encountering some roadblocks. Though the district leans heavily Democratic, the national party has erected rules to protect incumbents like Lipinski. Newman says she can’t find a pollster who will work for her. Four political consultants have left her campaign because of a policy, made public in April, that the official campaign arm for House Democrats won’t do business with political vendors — like direct mail companies or political consultants — that also work for candidates challenging incumbent Democrats. Party superstars like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez oppose the rule; she also managed to topple an incumbent in a primary challenge. But the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee isn’t budging.
* * *
In the liberal stronghold of Illinois’s Third Congressional District, the anti-abortion Lipinski family has been in power for nearly 40 years — first Lipinski’s father, William, held the seat before passing it on to Dan — and they’re fighting against the current.
Once known for its conservative pockets, the area — surrounding Midway Airport, which spans parts of Cook and Will counties — is more diverse both socioeconomically and politically than it once was. It’s younger and middle class; the median age is 37, with a $65,000 household income, according to the most recent census estimates. There’s a growing Latinx population. Sanders beat Hillary Clinton here in 2016 by 8 points. Clinton went on to beat Donald Trump by an even bigger margin. Interestingly, Lipinski, who was a superdelegate in the 2016 elections, pledged his vote to Sanders.
But between Newman and Lipinski, only one has adopted Sanders’s worldview.
“I’m a real Democrat,” Newman likes to tell voters. “To be a real Democrat, you have to believe in the platform,” she said to Vox. She, like Sanders, identifies income inequality as the root cause of American suffering. At a Saturday morning Pet Parade in Chicago’s Garfield Ridge neighborhood, Newman led a procession of staffers and volunteers — and their dogs — with signs supporting Medicare-for-all, a $15 minimum wage, and a Green New Deal. Newman supports abortion rights, the Equality Act, and free college and thinks Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be “repealed and replaced.”
Steps behind, Lipinski’s team, in T-shirts reading “Commonsense Leadership for the 3rd District” on the backs, represented a different world of Democratic politics. In Washington, Lipinski’s commonsense leadership has translated to a vote against the Affordable Care Act and a past opposition to raising the minimum wage to $15 hour (he supported raising it to $12 but has since shifted on the issue). Lipinski voted for the Dream Act and the Equality Act for the first time this year, but with a caveat — he believes the bill conflicts with his positions on religious liberties. In the past, his immigration views have been more focused on border security than on a path to citizenship. ICE has continued to conduct raids in his district.
When describing the area, Lipinski’s staff focuses on the district’s history of conservatism. Lipinski himself cites the influx of Latinx residents as the biggest change in his district.
But Newman and her supporters say he’s espousing policies from a bygone era.
“He is stuck back in 1991 and he just couldn’t ever catch up,” Newman told Vox, praising Lipinski’s father for working on infrastructure. “It’s a misnomer to say [the district] is changing dramatically in 10 years. No, it’s just made great progress over time.”
“He just blocks out representing the district and turns to his personal beliefs to lead his vote,” Abby McEntee, a progressive activist with Indivisible and a local preschool teacher, said. “Personal beliefs are totally fine, but his job is to represent the district.”
* * *
Lipinski barely hung on last time, winning the Democratic primary by just over 2,000 votes. Already, Newman is outpacing Lipinski in fundraising, with nearly quadruple the individual contributions. She spent the end of last year working on local campaigns to learn even more about the district. Walking through a local farmers market, introducing herself and passing out stickers, she said roughly half the people she comes across at community events know who she is.
But House Democrats, facing a tough year to hold on to their current majority, have made incumbents a priority. And it’s hard to find a greater beneficiary than Lipinski. Newman says her campaign has been forced to create a new way to poll the district: gathering data from outside groups, and relying more on door-to-door events.
She’s familiar with fighting against the party apparatus. The “Chicago Machine” is infamous for its dirty tricks, and while Newman can’t definitively blame the party for her loss in 2018, she has a long list of fishy happenings she’s happy to share.
She says her office internet would go out without any explanation from the service providers. Her staff’s cars would get keyed outside the office. And most shocking of all, Newman said her name didn’t show up on the ballot at all in more than a dozen precincts. This time, they will have election watchers on the ground at every polling station. Above all, she says, fighting against the machine is fighting against a negative playbook.
Her supporters see the DCCC’s now public policy in the same vein.
“It’s disappointing the DCCC is learning from the Chicago old-style machine tactics,” José Torrez, an immigration activist and educator in the district, said. “We are watching what the Democratic Party is doing. We are not Republicans; we don’t block incumbents from challenges.”
The DCCC playing in her district like the Chicago political machine was a frightening thought for Newman.
Laughing, she said only, “I hope not. The machine is pretty darn good, so I’m scared to hear that.”
The Democratic Party is protecting one of its last anti-abortion members in a safe blue district. Why?
CHICAGO — In 1990, Patti Ernst was 35 years old and 16 weeks pregnant and found herself in a devastating medical situation. Her water had broken five months early, during a prenatal procedure testing for abnormalities that went horribly wrong.
Her doctors, at a Catholic hospital in southwestern Chicago, said there was nothing they could do. Ernst said they essentially told her “the baby is going to be terribly deformed and probably won’t come to term, but you are just going to have to wait and be pregnant and give birth to a child that is either terribly deformed or ...”
“I have a big issue with anybody that feels they get to legislate what I get to do with my body,” she said. She ultimately went to a different hospital to have an abortion.
Her congressman is Rep. Dan Lipinski, one of the last remaining anti-abortion Democrats in the House. He has voted to defund health clinics that offer abortion services, and to ban abortions at 20 weeks. He opposed the Affordable Care Act and its mandate that employers cover birth control. He speaks at the annual March for Life and attends fundraisers for anti-abortion groups.
Ernst supports Marie Newman, a progressive who supports abortion rights and is mounting a primary challenge to Lipinski. “It just never felt [Lipinski] was a Democrat,” Ernst, now 63, said, sitting in a Chicago Ridge, Illinois, home where Newman was holding a meet-and-greet.
This will be one of the most competitive Democratic primaries in 2020. And already, Newman is encountering some roadblocks. Though the district leans heavily Democratic, the national party has erected rules to protect incumbents like Lipinski. Newman says she can’t find a pollster who will work for her. Four political consultants have left her campaign because of a policy, made public in April, that the official campaign arm for House Democrats won’t do business with political vendors — like direct mail companies or political consultants — that also work for candidates challenging incumbent Democrats. Party superstars like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez oppose the rule; she also managed to topple an incumbent in a primary challenge. But the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee isn’t budging.
* * *
In the liberal stronghold of Illinois’s Third Congressional District, the anti-abortion Lipinski family has been in power for nearly 40 years — first Lipinski’s father, William, held the seat before passing it on to Dan — and they’re fighting against the current.
Once known for its conservative pockets, the area — surrounding Midway Airport, which spans parts of Cook and Will counties — is more diverse both socioeconomically and politically than it once was. It’s younger and middle class; the median age is 37, with a $65,000 household income, according to the most recent census estimates. There’s a growing Latinx population. Sanders beat Hillary Clinton here in 2016 by 8 points. Clinton went on to beat Donald Trump by an even bigger margin. Interestingly, Lipinski, who was a superdelegate in the 2016 elections, pledged his vote to Sanders.
But between Newman and Lipinski, only one has adopted Sanders’s worldview.
“I’m a real Democrat,” Newman likes to tell voters. “To be a real Democrat, you have to believe in the platform,” she said to Vox. She, like Sanders, identifies income inequality as the root cause of American suffering. At a Saturday morning Pet Parade in Chicago’s Garfield Ridge neighborhood, Newman led a procession of staffers and volunteers — and their dogs — with signs supporting Medicare-for-all, a $15 minimum wage, and a Green New Deal. Newman supports abortion rights, the Equality Act, and free college and thinks Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be “repealed and replaced.”
Steps behind, Lipinski’s team, in T-shirts reading “Commonsense Leadership for the 3rd District” on the backs, represented a different world of Democratic politics. In Washington, Lipinski’s commonsense leadership has translated to a vote against the Affordable Care Act and a past opposition to raising the minimum wage to $15 hour (he supported raising it to $12 but has since shifted on the issue). Lipinski voted for the Dream Act and the Equality Act for the first time this year, but with a caveat — he believes the bill conflicts with his positions on religious liberties. In the past, his immigration views have been more focused on border security than on a path to citizenship. ICE has continued to conduct raids in his district.
When describing the area, Lipinski’s staff focuses on the district’s history of conservatism. Lipinski himself cites the influx of Latinx residents as the biggest change in his district.
But Newman and her supporters say he’s espousing policies from a bygone era.
“He is stuck back in 1991 and he just couldn’t ever catch up,” Newman told Vox, praising Lipinski’s father for working on infrastructure. “It’s a misnomer to say [the district] is changing dramatically in 10 years. No, it’s just made great progress over time.”
“He just blocks out representing the district and turns to his personal beliefs to lead his vote,” Abby McEntee, a progressive activist with Indivisible and a local preschool teacher, said. “Personal beliefs are totally fine, but his job is to represent the district.”
* * *
Lipinski barely hung on last time, winning the Democratic primary by just over 2,000 votes. Already, Newman is outpacing Lipinski in fundraising, with nearly quadruple the individual contributions. She spent the end of last year working on local campaigns to learn even more about the district. Walking through a local farmers market, introducing herself and passing out stickers, she said roughly half the people she comes across at community events know who she is.
But House Democrats, facing a tough year to hold on to their current majority, have made incumbents a priority. And it’s hard to find a greater beneficiary than Lipinski. Newman says her campaign has been forced to create a new way to poll the district: gathering data from outside groups, and relying more on door-to-door events.
She’s familiar with fighting against the party apparatus. The “Chicago Machine” is infamous for its dirty tricks, and while Newman can’t definitively blame the party for her loss in 2018, she has a long list of fishy happenings she’s happy to share.
She says her office internet would go out without any explanation from the service providers. Her staff’s cars would get keyed outside the office. And most shocking of all, Newman said her name didn’t show up on the ballot at all in more than a dozen precincts. This time, they will have election watchers on the ground at every polling station. Above all, she says, fighting against the machine is fighting against a negative playbook.
Her supporters see the DCCC’s now public policy in the same vein.
“It’s disappointing the DCCC is learning from the Chicago old-style machine tactics,” José Torrez, an immigration activist and educator in the district, said. “We are watching what the Democratic Party is doing. We are not Republicans; we don’t block incumbents from challenges.”
The DCCC playing in her district like the Chicago political machine was a frightening thought for Newman.
Laughing, she said only, “I hope not. The machine is pretty darn good, so I’m scared to hear that.”
