Will the Green New Deal Go for Vote Again?
Texas' congressional primaries adjacent calendar month could be a key signal for how Dark-green New Deal-supporting progressives are faring nether President Biden and with unified Democratic control of Congress.
The March one primaries volition include immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros' 2d bid to unseat Rep. Henry Cuellar (D) in South Texas' 28th District. Cisneros is running to Cuellar's left and has the support of progressives similar the Sunrise Motility and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-North.Y.). Cuellar is one of the oil and natural gas industry's top Democratic allies.
A Texas race that isn't getting as much attention involves onetime Austin City Council fellow member Greg Casar, who is running for an open seat in the 35th District, which includes parts of Austin and San Antonio and some areas betwixt. He is running a campaign to the left of land Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D).
"Are progressives in ascension? Or is the establishment able to block them?" asked Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University. "If you desire to know where the Autonomous Party is, betwixt [districts] 35 and 28, you'll get a good signal."
Texas will also hold high-contour contests for state-level races in 2022, including governor, chaser general and railroad commissioner, the latter of which regulates the state's oil and gas manufacture. But progressives are putting significant effort into the state's congressional races, the offset primaries in the U.South. for the 2022 midterm elections.
The reapportionment process gave Texas two new congressional seats going into the 2022 midterm elections.
The Republican-controlled state Legislature wrote a new map that largely kept the partisan makeup of the seats like to the last map, but fabricated districts much less competitive, with merely three seats that are likely to be close in the November general elections.
If no candidate gets a majority of the votes in their March 1 chief, the pinnacle two finishers will proceed to a May 24 runoff.
28th Commune
The race between Cisneros and Cuellar has garnered some of the most national attention of any principal this year.
Cuellar, ane of the most conservative Democrats in the House and frequent target of progressive ire, beat back Cisneros' kickoff challenge in 2022 by less than 4 percentage points. This fourth dimension, afterward redistricting put more liberal San Antonio voters into the district, the challenger might have a better take a chance.
But one additional reason for the attention is an ongoing federal investigation into Cuellar, reportedly over his alleged ties to Azerbaijan, including its oil industry. The FBI raided his Laredo dwelling and campaign office last calendar month. Despite these troubles, Cuellar reaffirmed his intention to seek another congressional term (Climatewire, Jan. 26).
"At that place is an ongoing investigation that will show there was no wrongdoing on my part," he said in a video that he shot in front of his babyhood home weeks earlier the primary.
"This is my home, my community and why I got into politics. Zilch can distract me from being laser-focused on getting the job done for you and South Texas, the way I always have."
Cuellar has been a consistent friend of the oil and gas industry. In the 2022 election cycle, he ranked No. 2 among congressional Democrats in entrada contributions from oil and gas employees and political action committees, backside only fellow Texas Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, according to an OpenSecrets analysis.
He's also stood up for the industry's priorities, bucking his party on issues like the Keystone XL pipeline and fees for methyl hydride emissions from oil and gas drilling. Most recently, he objected to the suggestion from some of his colleagues that halting rough oil exports would reduce gasoline prices (Energywire, Dec. ten, 2021).
Just he's besides stood up for some big climate policies. In September, he declared that while most of President Biden'due south social spending agenda must be paid for without calculation to the arrears, climate change can be an exception (Climatewire, Sept. 8, 2021).
Cisneros, meanwhile, is running on a message like to her 2022 bid, arguing that Cuellar's values — such every bit his opposition to abortion rights and the Protecting the Right to Organize Act — don't align with the 28th District.
"South Texas was only waiting for someone to exist able to step upward and run confronting Cuellar, considering he's actually out of pace with the values of our commune, and I think the results from our election last fourth dimension around shows that," Cisneros said last calendar week on MSNBC's "The Mehdi Hasan Show."
"What'southward different this time is the fact that we're not starting from scratch, that people know who I am, what I'm running for," she said. "The fact that I'm proposing bold policies that are going to encounter the challenges of everyday Due south Texans. And I can speak to those issues, because I've faced them myself. I was raised in the district."
She's being supported in her fight past the Sunrise Movement, which in the 2022 ballot cycle was i of her earliest national endorsements.
"We're running because we believe we deserve amend," she said in Nov at an issue hosted past Sunrise to promote her entrada. "Nosotros're running because we deserve true representation that isn't going to be bought out by corporate interests. Nosotros're running because nosotros deserve all kinds of investments in our community that has been forgotten for so long."
She said running against "Big Oil'southward favorite Democrat" in 2022 was tough. "At that place'south a lack of investment in job variety here; i of the very few pathways to the middle course here in Texas includes oil and gas jobs. And because we accept a regime that refuses to believe in u.s.a. and diversify the kinds of jobs we accept here, they're making us dependent on oil and gas, and that's very much by design."
Cisneros likewise has the bankroll of Justice Democrats, Emily's List, MoveOn and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Ocasio-Cortez is traveling to San Antonio on February. 12 to host a rally for both Cisneros and Casar.
But while the 28th District became safer for Democrats in the most contempo redistricting, it might not exist completely safety, especially if the midterms turn out to exist a wave election for the Republicans.
"It has nearly a 10-betoken Autonomous advantage, but Cisneros is sufficiently far to the left that I would assume that national Republicans would get into the race if she were the candidate versus if Cuellar were the candidate," said Jones, the Rice University professor.
Jones predicted that if Cisneros wins the Democratic primary and either former police officeholder Willie Vasquez Ng or former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) Cassy Garcia wins the Republican primary, the race could exist within reach for the GOP.
35th District
Casar is progressives' other chief ally in the Lonely Star State's congressional primaries. The 35th District is safely Democratic, so the winner of the primary is likely going to Congress. And information technology'due south empty, since incumbent Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D) decided to run in the 37th District instead.
Casar, another Sunrise Movement endorsee, backs the Dark-green New Deal also. He's running mainly on his progressive tape in the Austin City Quango, including authoring legislation that required employers to offer paid sick exit in the metropolis — a policy later blocked by the state Legislature.
"We've been working alongside activists throughout the I-35 corridor to build that progressive ability, and that'due south the work I've been doing for years," he said in an interview on "Impairment Report," a web series from the Young Turks.
He's also fabricated the Texas electric filigree crisis of last twelvemonth a role of his bid for Congress.
"People are worried that in Texas, there might be a storm, and we could only not have water or heat again for days," he said in the interview. "We see [Gov. Greg Abbott (R)] taking million-dollar contributions from the natural gas industry correct after he writes a loophole for them to not have to protect their supplies for future storms."
Casar'due south chief opponent is Rodriguez, who helped lead last twelvemonth's trip by dozens of Democrats in the Legislature to Washington to deny Republicans the quorum needed to pass anti-ballgame legislation — which later passed into law.
Rodriguez is presenting himself every bit a more practical progressive who tin can attain real change.
"I'thou running for Congress because I desire to provide working Texans with the economic and educational opportunities that can benefit your families and offer a better future for their kids," he said in launching his campaign in November. "I'm running for Congress because we need strong, progressive leadership that will go things washed on issues that matter most to our time to come."
Rodriguez has the support of the centrist New Democrat Coalition and Texas Democrats similar Reps. Marc Veasey and Al Green. He has similar positions to Casar, just has shown a willingness to work with Republicans in the Legislature, according to The Austin Relate.
Other races to watch
Other congressional races this year include the 30th Commune, which Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D), chair of the House Science, Space and Technology Commission, represented for iii decades before announcing last year that she will retire.
Land Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D) appears likely to get the virtually votes in the primary, and has the back up of key Democrats including Johnson. But since it's a crowded contest, she could come up curt of the majority vote needed in the March contest to avoid going to a top-two runoff in May.
The most at-risk Republican incumbent in the chief is Rep. Van Taylor. He voted last yr to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by supporters of onetime President Trump, attracting the ire of Trump's supporters. Taylor's chief GOP opponent is former Collin County Judge Keith Cocky, who has been a song critic of Taylor over the commission vote.
The 8th District race, where House Ways and Ways ranking fellow member Kevin Brady (R) is retiring, has attracted competing high-contour GOP endorsements. Morgan Luttrell, a old Navy SEAL and twin brother of "Lone Survivor" author Marcus Luttrell, has the backing of former Free energy Secretary and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), amid others.
Christian Collins, a quondam campaign aide to Brady and Cruz, has support from Cruz, too as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and others.
Source: https://www.eenews.net/articles/texas-primaries-test-green-new-deal-champions/
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