Black caucus in a 2020 quandary
Group in ‘beautifully uncomfortable’ position vetting candidates
Democratic presidential candidates are dealing with a primary-within-the-primary for support of the nation’s most influential black lawmakers. It reflects the increasing power of black leaders within the Democratic Party and the importance of their communities.
It also puts the Congressional Black Caucus in the awkward position of having to choose among some of its own members — Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris — and other longtime allies, including former Vice President Joe Biden.
“It is beautifully uncomfortable to be in this spot,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-MO., who’s received calls for support since the debates from two top-tier candidates. It’s a departure, Cleaver said, from the years when “the CBC members had one choice and it was the person who had strong civil rights credentials.”
With seven months to go before the first primary votes are cast, most CBC members are still undecided, including powerful and influential lawmakers like Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters of California, House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings of Maryland, Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina and civil rights icon John Lewis of Georgia.
Those who have endorsed candidates have split chiefly between two: Harris and Biden, who has deep ties to the African-american community. As of Wednesday, Harris had seven endorsements from CBC members and Biden had five. Booker had the backing of two CBC members from his home state of New Jersey.
Harris, Biden and others have been wooing CBC members through formal phone calls and in-person meetings, as well as casual conversation in the halls of Congress, according to interviews with lawmakers and their allies. Harris and Booker have attended some weekly CBC meetings in the Capitol.
In other campaign news:
Harris said federally mandated school busing is only necessary in cases where local governments are actively opposing integration.
In the 1960s and ’70s, institutions “were literally working against integration of our schools,” she told reporters before an event in Indianola, Iowa. That’s why she supported busing then, she said, but now she thinks it should just be a “tool” available to local governments and school districts to address segregation.
Biden said President Donald Trump’s Fourth of July spectacle in Washington “misses the point.”
The president’s event was “designed more to stroke his ego than celebrate American ideals,” Biden told supporters in Marshalltown, Iowa.