House Democrats’ campaign arm is officially ending its controversial ban on political consultants who work with candidates challenging sitting Democratic incumbents in primaries, clinching a major victory for progressives.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the newly installed chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, officially reversed the policy on Tuesday morning. He initially pledged to nix it during his campaign for the chair role and finalized it this week.
Though it was in place for fewer than two years, it still stymied some liberal primary challengers and incensed the left, which celebrated its end.
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“It’s an enormous win,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in a recent interview, before Maloney’s decision was formally announced, noting the move would open “a door for our party to leverage strength from all parts of it.”
“The escalation and aggression against the progressive wing of the party with an explicit forward-facing ‘blacklist’ created a lot of dissuasion against candidates even considering grassroots organizing firms,” she said.
Enacted in 2019, the new policy forbade the committee from contracting with or recommending to any House campaign a consultant or firm who worked to primary a sitting Democratic incumbent. It spurred an unexpectedly strong backlash — but was popular with members who are more prone to primary challenges and don’t want their party apparatus, to which they pay dues, to enable their opponents.
The ban had long been an informal practice at the DCCC, but codifying it sent progressives into a tailspin. Coming just months after Ocasio-Cortez felled a member of Democratic leadership in 2018, the groups that propelled her to Congress claimed it was an establishment attempt to blunt their movement.
“We have primaries to make sure we have the best and the brightest in every party,” said Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.), who successfully ousted a Democratic incumbent last year even after the new policy forced several of her consultants to quit suddenly. “So primaries should be unencumbered by outside forces.”
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