Earlier this month, Washington Post political reporters James Hohmann and Elise Viebeck revealed that the paper had gotten ahold of a leaked contract that Republican congressional candidates are expected to sign if they want to participate in the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Patriot Program, which is designed to help candidates in competitive districts.
The contract raised eyebrows because it included a requirement that members of Congress and their chiefs of staff provide “detailed, written legislative strategy that provides short-, intermediate- and long-term legislative goals, including political justification for those goals.”
As it turns out, Southern Arizona Congresswoman Martha McSally is among the Republicans who are participating in the Patriot Program and Democrats are focusing on the NRCC document as evidence that McSally is not as independent as she made herself out to be during her successful campaign to unseat Democrat Ron Barber last year.
State lawmaker Victoria Steele, a Democrat who wants to challenge McSally next year, said via email that “McSally pledged to be an independent voice—that’s turned out to be a false promise. Not even halfway through her first term, she’s gone Washington and sold out the people in her district.”
And Democrat Matt Heinz, a former state lawmaker who also wants a shot against McSally, said that he found it “very disturbing that any representative would be beholden to D.C. party bosses and not to the voters who put them in office.”
Heinz called on McSally to publicly reveal any documents she signed with the NRCC.
“If Martha McSally wants to renew her contract with Southern Arizona voters, she should reveal the details of whatever she signed with the National Republican Congressional Committee to see what those promises were,” Heinz said.
Team McSally declined to release a copy of any agreement between her and the NRCC but pushed back against accusations that the NRCC is controlling McSally’s priorities. McSally spokesman Patrick Ptak told the Weekly that neither McSally nor anyone on the congressional staff signed the Patriot Program agreement.
“Both the NRCC and DCCC (Democrat campaign committee) provide valuable assistance for both members and candidates in their campaigns,” Ptak said via email. “Like her predecessor, Ron Barber, and other Arizona members of Congress like Congresswomen Sinema and Kirkpatrick (all three participate(d) in the equivalent DCCC Frontline program), Martha has received help from her party’s campaign committee. However in this case, Martha did not feel the need to sign the Patriot Program plan, though she has and continues to work with them for her campaign.”
Ptak added that the “NRCC along with her 700,000-plus constituents and anyone else who has listened to Martha over the last 3.5 years is aware of what her priorities are. However, there was no back and forth discussion between the NRCC and Martha about what Martha’s priorities should be, and at no point did the NRCC approve, edit, or provide any input whatsoever into what Martha deemed as her priorities.”
Democratic strategists concede that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee works closely with candidates in the Frontline Program, which is similar to the NRCC’s Patriot Program. In both cases, party strategists want to see that candidates in tough districts are raising money, hiring professional campaign staff and taking other steps to position themselves for victory, with the thinking that if the national campaign committee will be providing campaign resources, the candidate needs to be running a solid campaign.
But Dems say the Patriot Program is crossing the line by asking members of Congress and their staffers to sign agreements regarding legislative work—and the Post’s revelation about the contract has made headlines around the country.
At least one Republican strategist agrees that the NRCC went too far with the contract. Roll Call reports:
Still, some Republican consultants who have worked on House and Senate campaigns said they are frustrated such a document exists at all. They said drawing up such a document wasn’t worth the risk it might be leaked, as it was last week to The Washington Post.
“Members of the Patriot Program will be having to either defend that memo or distance themselves from that memo,” said Chip Lake, a longtime Republican consultant from Georgia. “No committee should put their candidates in that position, and this committee did.”
Lake said he took specific offense to the legislative plan line, saying it was an “arrogant” thing to ask for, and assumed members of Congress and their staff were “idiots.”
“That is an official legislative action and it has no business being in a party committee memo,” Lake said.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2015.
Ah those Democrats…where were they when Barber was KISSING Pelosis’ Backside?? OH thats right, NOWHERE to be seen.. or heard from…. Well I live in Tucson and I’m voting McSally… NOT you two -faced Democrats…. Tucson First, McSally I Trust.
No politician should ever sign any sort of pact or agreement. They have sworn to represent the people of their state or country and that alone is the only agreement they should be held to.
Dems agree to be pro abortion. Regardless of what the public wants. Give it a rest.
Democrats agree that it isn’t their place to tell others how to live their lives, unlike some folks. Right, Debbie T?
Living wage, social justice, free college, free healthcare, wealth tax, windfall profit tax, gun control, abortion “rights’,….no not much Ldonyo.
That is not as long as they can steal someone else’s earnings.
It is interesting that McSally deletes comments of constituents who criticize her but has no problem with people from other districts that sing her praises
Was Debbie T actually telling people how to live, or how to stop killing babies so that they may live?
Actually Ron Barber was a Blue Dog who angered Pelosi more often than not with his votes. Much the same way Gabby Giffords did.
Need I say Obamacare, Gabby? If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.
bwahhahahahahahaha…you fools.
You can call it Obamacare(s) or you can call it ACA, but I now have health insurance. So who’s the fool now – bwahhahahahahahaha!
You because your rates will double or other taxpayers will be punished for you. That’s how socialism works.
The hubby, who is an Independent, answered a survey on our landline the other night, that was from the McSally campaign assuming that Victoria Steele would be McSally’s opponent. Because this is a swing district, it will forever be filled by a politician who will try to toe the line and not anger either side too much. Voting anti-science and against women’s reproductive autonomy may be McSally’s undoing.
Thanks to the Post for alerting the nation and to the Weekly for alerting its readership of the particulars of one party’s effort to impose tight reins on its Members of Congress and candidates. Regardless or whether blood oaths are demanded, it is abundantly obvious to anyone involved in congressional campaigns, even at the grunt stuff envelopes, knock on doors level, that the National committees want candidates who not only can win elections but will behave once in office. And that behavior need not conform to the particular needs of the district they represent.
We in southern Arizona have been fortunate to be served — yes, they did their best to serve us according to their insights — by local representatives who understood and were part of their districts –from Mo Udall to Jim McNulty to Jim Kolbe to Gabby Giffords to Ron Barber. As for Martha McSally, it remains to be seen.
I don’t approve of the tactics of NRCC or DCCC but can hardly blame them since they work within a system in which the almighty dollar is the one thing required to run an effective campaign in a situation that didn’t begin with Citizens United but is epitomized by the Supreme Court’s infamous decision that corporations are people and money equals speech. If we are able to pass a constitutional amendment that negates Citizens United and then work toward a limitation on campaign contributions to people living in the constituency — CD 2 residents alone funding a CD 2 campaign — we can have a Congress in which our representatives do actually represent the people who have elected them. They would be able to — would have to — sit down at the Capitol and work out answers to our nation’s problems in ways that take into account the needs and desires of the people of every one of the 435 districts. Think about it.
That’s nice that you have healthcare fishfry. My nephew lost his coverage, was moved to the ACA plan, had an accident and they refused air evac bills leaving him to file bankruptcy on $39,000 of uncovered expenses and deductibles. His old plan would have cost him $500 deduct and $300 for emergency air transportation.
My deductible has been increased to $10,000. It is no longer health insurance, it’s final expense coverage.
Or let’s call it what it is…redistribution of earnings AWAY from the person that earned it.
I really have a lot of sympathy for the people whose deductibles went up and how people were refused certain coverages, but remember that almost ANY pre-existing condition excluded you from even getting health insurance prior to the ACA being passed. Tell me how taxpayers weren’t liable for premiums going up in the past because people didn’t have health insurance and would need medical care at emergency rooms. I think it’s appalling when people are so bent out of shape that healthcare is available to all.
The real problem is that reasonable people could have put together solutions. Politicians muck it up and we are left worse off in some cases. Remember how they said you are one medical problem away from bankruptcy? Now a whole new group has been forced to join that demographic. And we trusted them. New people more bankruptcies.
Your explanation doesn’t hold water. Insurance is now available to all and rates are going up faster than ever.
This is from the Charlotte Observer here in NC:
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the state’s largest health insurer, said Monday it is seeking an average 25.7 percent rate increase for customers covered under the Affordable Care Act.
The proposed rate hike is double last year’s 13.5 percent increase approved for Blue Cross, an indication that health insurance costs continue to rise despite the federal health care law. The Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010 to expand coverage and also to stem runaway health care costs.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/health-care/article22807026.html#storylink=cpy