Not long ago I strongly disagreed with a diarist who advocated a 2014 primary for IL-10 Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider. I disagreed because Schneider won by a small margin, and former Rep. Bob Dold, a Mark Kirk clone with a significant war chest and existing campaign operation, was the most likely opponent. Now we know that Dold will be Schneider's opponent, but despite that, I think I might be changing my mind on primary-ing Brad Schneider. I think it's something that progressives, liberals and other Democrats have to carefully consider.
I'll confess that I never supported Schneider. I didn't favor his main primary opponent, Ilya Sheyman, either. But little of that matters any more because Schneider trounced Sheyman in the primary, and squeaked by Dold in the general. He was the elected representative, and a Democrat at that, so he deserved a chance. I took a wait and see approach, and sometimes even defended Schneider.
I have taken into consideration that Schneider is in the House minority, That limits the issues he is able to vote on because, as we all know, Republicans control what comes up for a vote, mostly votes to repeal health care. But, Schneider still votes, and there is a record out there.
Here are his committee appointments:
House Committee on Foreign Affairs Member, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade
Member, Subcommittee on The Middle East and North Africa
House Committee on Small Business Member, Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access
Member, Subcommittee on Health and Technology
Schneider's Record: Your Basic Meh Democrat
According to GovTrak, he's only missed one vote so far, so we can say he shows up. He's also never voted to repeal health care reform, but he's shown no leadership to improve on the current law, and has shown no interest in single-payer, Medicare for All.
To his credit, Schneider has not been a complete disaster to progressive and liberal causes. His record is not completely horrible on climate change and energy issues. He voted against Paul Ryan's budget that drastically cut the EPA, the Department of the Interior and the Energy Department, and further subsidized oil companies. Schneider also voted to set some limits on Keystone contracts. He voted against the Northern Route Approval Act, and against some nonsense to declare the project wonderful while voting to seek a terrorist threat assessment of the project. However, he inexplicably failed to co-sponsor the moratorium on strip mining (H.R. 526).
Also to his credit, Schneider voted against H.R. 1406 -- the "Working Families Flexibility Act", meaning that working families need to be flexible about losing overtime pay. Sadly, he's failed to co-sponsor the bill to increase the minimum wage (H.R. 1010).
Schneider did not take the Republican bait on the Full Faith and Credit Act (H.R. 807) which prioritized bond holders and other creditors before programs that help people, while supporting the White House gimmick, The No Budget No Pay Act (at least a Democratic proposal, and it pissed off the FreedomWorks crowd). Schneider did not take the bait on the Skills Act either. H.R. 803 gutted job search services for workers young and old, farm workers, disabled workers, women, workers who speak English as a second language, and low-income workers. He tried, with his fellow Democrats, to hit tax delinquent contractors (H.R. 249). Schneider says he's for comprehensive immigration reform, but failed to co-sponsor H.R.519, and says he's looking for a bipartisan approach whatever that means.
Worrisome
And here's where I get worried about Schneider. He's intentionally going after the title of "Bipartisan Guy" in a Congress where bipartisan means standing down on progressive and liberal issues, and working on Republican initiatives.
Schneider didn't support the Back to Work Budget. If we cannot even try to put a progressive budget on the table, they why do we bother with anything else?
Also, Schneider did not support restrictions on tax haven abuses, including money laundering (H.R. 1554), and putting some corporate tax cheats back on the taxpayer rolls. This isn't just a liberal shot in the dark. It has 55 co-sponsors, but not Schneider.
He's not too interested in checking military spending either, ignoring Ed Markey's "Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act" (H.R. 1506). The bill would cut, or block new funding for, new long-ranger bomber aircraft, nuclear-powered submarines, and cut the number of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles. Since he's on the Nonproliferation committee, I would have hoped for better from him.
So what has he been doing? Schneider's opus is an amendment to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act to give independent contractors security clearance for cyber threats (H. Amdt. 44). Given the big story of the past few days about independent contractor's security clearance and Internet usage, I have to wonder why he chose this as his pet project.
Moreover, This is All He Has to Say to Me as a Consitutent
With all that's going on in the country, what am I hearing about from my Democratic representative, Brad Schneider? For the most part almost nothing. However, lately he's told me how happy he is to work with Republicans. First, he sent out a social media message about his pride in joining the No Labels Caucus. It's on his website too. If you don't remember No Labels, here are the Kos posts on the group. It's basically Third Way, Republican economics stripped of the social and religious crazy. As Marcos himself pointed out, it's not even popular, so it's not exactly a brilliant scheme to beat the Republicans in the district.
The next message I and my fellow District Democrats received was Schneider's proud interview with Patch describing how he's working with Republicans to increase Israel's military edge. He's also working on Mark Kirk-like sanctions against Iran with none other than Mark Kirk.
The big jobs legislation he's working on is an old idea that died in 2011, the America Works Act. The bill creates a skills registry, and sends education dollars to schools that teach skills employers put on the registry. It's one of those bills that doesn't satisfy anybody. It's a jobs bill that's not really a jobs bill, and arguably harms higher education in the country by pushing us away from real education to basic skills education--and those questionable private colleges with the late night infomercials. What bothers me about this is that it just nips at the edges of a real jobs problem in this country, what most of these Third Way, No Labels initiatives are all about. Do a little, so you don't have to do anything that matters.
So, basically Brad Schneider pledges to work with right-wing Democrats, and Republicans on the Republican agenda, or at least make sure the Democratic agenda is modest and status quo, another Republican strategic initiative. If we expect any change, we're not going to see it from Brad Schneider.
Can IL-10 Do Better?
I have to admit, I'm not sure. My bottom line for a candidate is that if you have to say something to support your candidate that sounds stupid like "that 24-year old has spend his entire life supporting progressive causes," then you probably should re-think your candidate. So, no. I'm not begging for the return of young Ilya.
I'm not expecting to agree with my representative on each and every issue, but I do want someone who will talk to me, and people who feel the way I do about the issues. And I want my representative to basically share my values, and care something about the average working person in the district. I also want someone I can trust, and hopefully respect. It's hard to respect a politician running on the idea of doing very little to help people who are suffering, arming the world more, and supporting security measures that create no security while taking away our right to privacy.
I'm interested what the Illinoisans on Kos think is the prognosis for IL-10. If you're not from Illinois, give us some advice here. What do you think?