There has been a lot of debate over the last few days regarding the tabling of Christine Pelosi’s proposals, which has included some misinformation. I’m going to try my best to clear it up. Here is the proposal as per her website. I will note: there were revisions made in the rules committee Friday, and I am using the text as provided to us during the meeting as the image above.
Now, let’s discuss what was discussed and occurred.
Before we begin, there are a few things we should clarify right off the top: President Obama had implemented this policy prior without the body, which was his prerogative. It was opened back up last year, and many sought to close it.
Let’s talk about how the debate went.
When you get into a room of attorneys and lay people in a room debating campaign finance can be, at times, confusion. The question tackled in the debate around resolutions centered around these phrases:
”banning corporate lobbyists serving as DNC chair-appointed, at large members,” and “ban on corporate donations”. Sounds easy, right?
OK. Here comes the counter argument.
The counter argument, voiced by some members was this: the resolution fails to define corporation. As a result, they argued, union lobbyists or leaders would not be able to serve as an at-large. They also argued that anyone who lobbies on behalf of their LLC or minor company would also be forbidden, and that impacts millions of people who aren’t necessarily bad people. “If you go before congress for the Arts, asking for money, you’re a lobbyist, right?” said one.
My perspective:
I found this argument to be, well, wrong. In a room where a lot of members aren’t necessarily clear on campaign finance or how finance works, it was pretty easy for opponents to advocate that this resolution was not properly written and should go back to the author for revisions that specifically exempted Democratic friendly groups, like unions.
Larry Cohen, representing the CWA, referred to this as "ridiculous" saying that under the previous ban, provided by President Obama, unions were not blocked from giving, and he was echoed by another member who offered "it's like we caught the vapors."
The group who opposed the resolution motioned that it should be stricken from the packet, basically tabled, and it could be submitted again revised.
We took a vote on whether to table the motion. I was a vote AGAINST tabling debate. So, I stood with Pelosi and others, because I thought the debate was healthy and because I felt as though most of the confusion occurred because members didn’t understand the difference between funding the DNC, DCCC, DSCC, States and other organizations.
What I learned from the experience is that there has to be a campaign of sorts to advance of the debate on the floor at the DNC Meeting. Should Pelosi run this amendment again, and I expect she will, then I think we have to put a mail or outreach campaign behind it to detail to inform members well in advance of the meeting of how this would impact the DNC.
The result:
The result is now in Tom Perez hand. He certainly could appoint corporate lobbyists to the DNC, it is his prerogative and there is no stop to that. Members can certainly watch for that, but it is not as though this morning we woke up crawling with corporate lobbyists.
The receipt of corporate money is a harder one to manage because of the issues of what constitutes corporate money. From the floor, one member argued that hotel room discounts for our weekend would count as corporate giving into the DNC under this proposal. I don’t think so, I think that negotiated discounts are not corporate giving.
Having been through a few rules based fights over the last few years, I understand the need for complete clarity. So, I think there are ways to make superficial changes and advance this again, and I believe she will do so.. because I sure as hell would.
I commented to another we should just build a phone book and say: “These corporations and their affiliates are expressly forbidden, see attachment B” with a few hundred page long document.
For those TL/DR:
No, we didn’t vote “in favor” of corporate money. That vote wasn’t on the ballot.
No, we didn’t “vote against” the resolution in the technical sense because we didn’t even get there, we tabled debate so we didn’t debate the resolution on the merits.
Yes, I stood in favor of the resolution, because I felt the resolution was the right idea.
Yes, I would stand in favor of the resolution again.
Yes, currently, all corporate giving is allowed.
No, that doesn’t mean Tom Perez is out actively recruiting lobbyists.
Christine Pelosi offered her thoughts:
She also has offered this thought: this was originally introduced on January 14, and she has discussed it at several forums, so this is not a new or out of the blue proposal. There was also an indication by all campaigns they would at least allow debate on this. While no campaign — to my knowledge — whipped against debate, neither campaign whipped in favor of extended debate either.