PA-Sen: A Real Race

While Joe Sestak may not have formally announced his campaign for US Senate, he's raising money at a clip that would be completely unnecessary for a House seat. He raised over a million dollars in the second quarter and has $4.2 million in the bank. By contrast, Arlen Specter raised $1.7 million but had a high burn rate, adding only $800,000 to his cash on hand. That war chest is impressive - $7.5 million dollars. But Sestak has enough to remain competitive. $4 million dollars can buy a lot of ads and build a substantial organization, and we're only just beginning.

The point is that, unlike past primary efforts, this is a real race, and given that Carolyn Maloney just pissed away her credibility up in New York, it's the race that progressives should focus on.

(I harbor no illusions that Sestak would hesitate from stabbing progressives in the back on health care himself, if he had to. But the mere threat of a primary by him is already doing the job of keeping conservative Dems in line, which is the point of these kinds of challenges.)

Senate Primary Challenges A Go-Go

With the second quarter fundraising out of the way, now is the perfect opportunity for candidates to jump in and announce their intentions to run. In Pennsylvania and New York, that's what we're seeing.

Joe Sestak's candidacy is the worst-kept secret in America, and he again vowed to run in an interview with the Wayne Independent.

A congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs will challenge U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic Senate primary.

In an interview with The Wayne Independent Wednesday morning, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa.,confirmed his intention to run against Specter, a long-time Republican who switched to the Democratic party earlier this year.

“I am going to get into the race against Arlen Specter ... for senator,” said Sestak in his first media interview as part of a three-week tour through all of the Commonwealth’s 67 counties.

Sestak is a good campaigner and a smart politician and I expect him to do well. In fact, I predicted a victory last week.

Now there's another primary challenger, in New York State to go against Kirsten Gillibrand, the appointed replacement of Hillary Clinton. Carolyn Maloney will run.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney has decided to take on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the 2010 Democratic primary, refusing to bow to party leaders who want her to stay out, the Daily News has learned.

"She's definitely decided to run," said a senior Maloney adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity. "She's in it."

Previously, New York poohbahs like Chuck Schumer and the White House cleared aspirants out of the way. Maloney would not be moved. In general I think that's healthy. Gillibrand has a good voting record as a Senator, but I reject the appointment process as undemocratic and think that appointees should have to work for their position. With Ted Kaufman not running in Delaware, Roland Burris toast in Illinois, and this primary, 3 of the 4 appointees will either not run or have challenges next year, and Michael Bennet certainly ought to have one in Colorado.

They may be expensive, they can potentially be divisive, but they allow the voters a voice rather than having representatives anointed from on high. That's always a good thing.

NY-Sen: More White House Maneuverings To Stop Primaries

Carolyn Maloney represents most of the east side of Manhattan and Queens in Congress. She's been really good on women's issues and gay rights, but as a member of the Financial Services Committee and a Congresswoman from Manhattan, she gets lots of cash from Wall Street interests. Nonetheless, she has a decent record on the middle class and just shepherded through the landmark Credit Card Bill Of Rights reform. She's good but not great on labor rights or foreign policy. A good rundown on her record is here.

She wants to run for Senate to primary Kirsten Gillibrand. Both women could put their credentials before the voters and let them decide. But the White House doesn't want that, and they're trying to keep Maloney out of the race.

Vice President Biden this week sat down with Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) to urge her not to run for Senate.

Maloney has been making initial moves toward challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in the 2010 Democratic primary, hiring public relations strategists and fundraisers in both Washington and New York.

It would be a primary national Democrats had hoped to avoid. Earlier this week, Biden sat down with Maloney in New York City and urged her not to run, according to a senior White House official.

"We've made it clear we're behind Sen. Gillibrand," the official said.

I intuitively understand why national Democrats want to avoid a primary. Money is finite and why have a bruising primary, etc. But that's just not democracy. The Senate appointments process, which should be abolished, allows a constituency of one to make a decision affecting millions. Senators should have to face the voters and earn the votes. I don't know who I would support in such a race - Gillibrand has been pretty decent since coming to the Senate - but the voters ought to decide. In the long run, it would be better for whoever wins to have their candidacies affirmed by the base of the party.

As for the White House, surely they have more to do than to stop Democrats from choosing their legislative representatives.

...Carolyn McCarthy, who's from Long Island and who people often confuse with Maloney, isn't running. So Maloney-Gillibrand would look to be a one-on-one race.

Can Meaningful Credit Card Legislation Pass Congress?

There really isn't a better populist issue for the President to take on than the issue of usurious credit card fees and rates. The industry has essentially gotten away with murder for decades, and given the populist fury whipped up on both sides of the aisle even the corporate-loving Republicans will have a hard time voting against this one.

WASHINGTON — President Obama threw his support on Thursday behind legislation that would keep banks from imposing higher fees and interest rates on credit card users, and said terms must be “written in plain language and be in plain sight.”

“The days of any-time, any-reason rate hikes and late-fee traps have to end,” the president said at the White House after meeting with top executives from the nation’s largest credit card companies, a session Mr. Obama called “constructive.”

“No more fine print, no more confusing terms and conditions,” the president said, following up on campaign pledges to try to curtail high fees and rates and chop away at the thickets of fine print in credit card statements.

The meeting came as the House was preparing to adopt new restrictions on credit cards. Lawmakers said on Thursday that they had agreed to make some amendments to the legislation that were being sought by senior White House officials. One provision would require the credit card companies to apply consumer payments first to any debt that has the highest interest rate.

This is a move they always pull. If you get behind on one payment, whatever you pay in the future only pays off the lowest-rate debt.

That would be additional to the rules that the Federal Reserve already has adopted regarding the industry. The bill codifying those rules into law, along with several other provisions, has already passed the House.

On Wednesday the House Financial Services committee overwhelmingly approved a bill that would reduce many fees and limit the ability of the credit card companies to charge penalties. The bill, sponsored by Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, was adopted 48 to 19.

The bill put into law most of the credit card restrictions adopted last year by the Federal Reserve, and also imposed some new rules on the industry. It would, for instance, prohibit the companies from marketing credit cards to minors. It also would require the companies to provide more information to regulators and permit consumers to order companies to set their credit limits at amounts lower than the card company was willing to offer.

Congressional aides said the measure could reach the House floor as early as next week, and they predicted swift passage.

A similar bill was adopted by the Senate banking committee three weeks ago, but its narrow passage and opposition from all of the committee’s Republican members indicated that it faced an uphill battle.

It's always the Senate, isn't it? Not to mention the fact that the Representatives from South Dakota and Delaware, the "offshore tax havens" of the credit card industry, aren't likely to go along with much of anything. And in the Senate they hold far more power relative to their population than they should. Unicameral legislature FTW! We'll see the limits of what the President can pull off here.

Incidentally, Carolyn Maloney, who is a great progressive fighter, is seriously considering a primary challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in New York. If she does it, she'll have my support.

Taxation Everyone Can Believe In

Congress is showing that they can think of options when it comes to AIG. This is from Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Chairwoman of the Joint Economic Committee:

Like many of you, I was outraged to learn over the weekend that AIG is paying out another $165 million in bonus compensation. For a company that has required $170 billion in U.S. taxpayer assistance and is 80% owned by the United States Government, this is clearly unacceptable. That is why I will be introducing legislation that will instruct the Secretary of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service to develop guidelines that tax at 100% any bonus compensation that is not directly related to a commission for any recipient of TARP funds where the United States government is the majority owner of the company. This will allow AIG to continue to meet their "contractual obligation" to pay these bonuses, but will ensure that the recipients are not allowed to keep this money.

Gary Peters (D-MI) has a similar proposal. As Chris Bowers notes, it would be hard in the current political environment for any member of Congress to vote against like this. The added bonus (for us, this time!) is that a vote would ferret out the real corporate whores, and because of the profile of this issue, everyone would know their names.

I hope the Congress chooses not to wait for the White House to come up with a solution. The Treasury and the Federal Reserve knew about this since the fall, and Obama's economic team had ample opportunity to design something that would work. It's time for the lawmakers to step in. They have no reason to wait for the White House to take the lead.