Secretly Taped Audio Reveals Democratic Leadership Pressuring Progressive to
Leave Race
By Lee Fang, The Intercept
26 April 18
Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House of Representatives, has for
years been a prolific campaigner on behalf of current and potential members
of Congress. It was no surprise, then, that December found him in Colorado,
where the party has hopes of knocking off Republican incumbent Mike Coffman.
Before Donald Trump had even been inaugurated, local resistance groups began
deluging Coffmans public appearances, pressing him not to repeal the
Affordable Care Act, and putting him back on his political heels. Levi
Tillemann, an author, inventor, and former official with the Obama
administrations Energy Department, moved back home to make a run against
Coffman.
He focused his campaign on clean elections, combatting climate change,
Medicare for All, free community college, and confronting economic
inequality and monopoly power. Another candidate for the nomination, Jason
Crow, a corporate lawyer at the powerhouse Colorado firm Holland & Hart and
an Army veteran, meanwhile, appeared to have the backing of the Democratic
establishment, though it wasnt explicit. In November, it became clearer, as
Crow was named by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to the
partys Red to Blue list, which the committee specifies is not an
endorsement but does carry symbolic weight.
With Hoyer in Denver, Tillemann met the minority whip at the Hilton Denver
Downtown to make the case that the party should stay neutral in the primary
and that he had a more plausible path to victory than the same centrism that
Coffman had already beaten repeatedly.
Hoyer, however, had his own message he wanted to convey: Tillemann should
drop out.
In a frank and wide-ranging conversation, Hoyer laid down the law for
Tillemann. The decision, Tillemann was told, had been made long ago. It
wasnt personal, Hoyer insisted, and there was nothing uniquely unfair being
done to Tillemann, he explained: This is how the party does it everywhere.
Tillemann had heard the argument before from D.C. insiders and local
Democratic bigwigs, all of whom had discouraged him from challenging the
establishment favorite. The only difference was that for this conversation,
the candidate had his phone set to record.
The secretly taped audio recording, released here for the first time,
reveals how senior Democratic officials have worked to crush competitive
primaries and steer political resources, money, and other support to
hand-picked candidates in key races across the country, long before the
party publicly announces a preference. The invisible assistance boosts the
preferred candidate in fundraising and endorsements, and then that
fundraising success and those endorsements are used to justify national
party support. Meanwhile, opponents of the partys unspoken pick are driven
into paranoia, wondering if they are merely imagining that unseen hands are
working against them.
Hoyer bluntly told Tillemann that it wasnt his imagination, and that
mobilizing support for one Democratic candidate over another in a primary
isnt unusual. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., chair of the DCCC, has a policy
that early on, wed try to agree on a candidate who we thought could win the
general and give the candidate all the help we could give them, Hoyer told
Tillemann matter-of-factly.
Yeah, Im for Crow, Hoyer explained. I am for Crow because a judgment was
made very early on. I didnt know Crow. I didnt participate in the
decision. But a decision was made early on by the Colorado delegation, he
said, referencing the three House Democrats elected from Colorado.
So your position is, a decision was made very early on before voters had a
say, and thats fine because the DCCC knows better than the voters of the
6th Congressional District, and we should line up behind that candidate,
asked Tillemann during the conversation.
Thats certainly a consequence of our decision, responded Hoyer.
Staying out of primaries sounds small-D democratic, very intellectual, and
very interesting, said Hoyer. But if you stay out of primaries, and
somebody wins in the primary who cant possibly win in the general, the
Maryland representative said, citing the surprise victory of Democrat Doug
Jones over Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate election, Im not
saying youre that person. But staying out of primaries, he argued, is not
very smart strategy.
Before agreeing to provide the audio, Tillemann requested that personal
details be withheld. The Intercept selected the newsworthy aspects of the
recording for publication.
***
During the conversation, Hoyer asked Tillemann to leave the race multiple
times and make way for Crow. You keep saying I would like you to get out of
the race, and of course thats correct, Hoyer said, adding that he hoped
Tillemann would refrain from criticizing the partys chosen candidate if he
decided to stay in.
The party, notably, has a poor track record in selecting candidates that can
win the general election.
In 2006, the last cycle viewed as a wave midterm election for Democrats, the
DCCC famously became heavily involved in Democratic primaries. In that
election, just as in 2018, the party attempted to pick moderate,
business-friendly veterans, while nudging left-leaning candidates out of the
election. But some of the partys chosen primary candidates ended up losing,
and several candidates viewed as too progressive to win the general in
Republican-held districts such as John Hall, Carol Shea-Porter, and Jerry
McNerney went on to win that election with little to no DCCC support.
The suggestion that Tillemann might end up being a spoiler like Roy Moore,
an extremist with a history of soliciting minors, may seem far-fetched.
Tillemann, while studying for his Ph.D., founded an energy efficient engine
design company, and in 2012, was appointed by President Barack Obama to
advise the Energy Department. Though he has positioned himself as a
grassroots populist aligned with local resistance activist groups, if
anything he is simultaneously a legacy of the Democratic establishment, as
the grandson of the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., on his mothers side and
the grandson of former Colorado Lt. Gov. Nancy Dick on his fathers side. He
grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Denver. He also speaks Chinese,
Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese an asset, he says, for the rapidly
diversifying 6th District.
Crow spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention to support the repeal
of the militarys Dont Ask, Dont Tell policy. He previously served on
the Colorado Board of Veterans Affairs and advised both the Obama
administration and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on veterans
issues. Crows first television advertisement focuses on Coffmans support
from the gun lobby, but conservatives have fired back to note that Crows
law firm lobbies against gun control on behalf of gun manufacturers in
Colorado.
Crows work representing corporations accused of misconduct may become a
liability in the campaign. Legal filings list Crows name on lawsuits
defending payday lender Western Sky Financial and fracking firm Slawson
Exploration.
***
In races in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Texas, Nebraska, California, and
beyond, progressive candidates are finding that the DCCC has mobilized
support for moderate candidates with access to early campaign cash at the
expense of progressives. As weve reported, many first-time candidates are
told by the DCCC that before they can even be considered, they have to
perform the rolodex test to show they can raise $250,000 or more from the
contact list on their phone.
In February, the DCCC made the unusual move to release opposition research,
the term of art for political dirt, against activist Laura Moser, who the
party viewed as too liberal to win in the 7th Congressional District of
Texas, a Houston-area seat. The strategy, however, appeared to backfire.
Moser placed second in the Texas Democratic primary, meaning shell have a
shot at the nomination in the May 22 runoff.
Tillemann says the decision to record the conversation came after months of
hints that party officials did not want him as the candidate. Though he
notified the party of his intention to run, he had trouble gaining an
audience with senior DCCC officials, obtaining polling data promised by the
DCCC, or even gaining access to resumes of Democratic campaign staff. The
party continued to promise neutrality while inviting only Crow to a
candidate training seminar, Tillemann alleges.
In February of last year, Tillemann reached out over email to DCCC officials
as he explored a bid and maintained contact with party staff through the
launch of his campaign; he says he was continually stonewalled as he sought
candidate resources. Nearly six months after the initial contact, with
Tillemanns internal complaints growing more forceful, the party committee
offered some perfunctory assistance in exchange for access to details about
campaign financials and organizing. The offer came after a heated exchange
between Tillemann and a DCCC official at a campaign event, in which
Tillemann argued that the party was more interested in boosting Crow than
beating Coffman.
While the DCCC still promised neutrality, publicly disclosed campaign
donations confirmed Tillemanns suspicions. In June 2017, a political action
committee controlled by Luján, the DCCC chair, donated $1,000 to Crow. That
month, PACs controlled by Hoyer also donated two checks for a combined total
of $2,000 to Crow.
We were put in a situation time and time again where what was communicated
to us behind closed doors and what was communicated to the public was at
odds, says Tillemann of his decision to tape the conversation with Hoyer.
The breach of personal decorum, Tillemann adds, was much less important
than the fundamental principle at stake in our democracy in 2018.
Mariel Saez, a spokesperson for Hoyer, said that we do not comment on
private meetings. Mr. Hoyer supports Crow and donated to him last year, but
he hasnt engaged in the race since then. Crow did not respond to a request
for comment, and the DCCC declined to comment.
***
But the dynamics described in the audio tape and by Tillemann resonated with
other former candidates in the district.
The party did not give me the resources that they gave Jason Crow, says
David Aarestad, an attorney who had been running for the nomination for the
6th District. Aarestad dropped out of the race in March and endorsed Crow.
It was the D-trip. I was given extensive promises in March of last year
that they would not do anything to favor one candidate over another, that
they had learned from the mistakes made during the Bernie-Hillary fallout,
and that they would do everything the same for all of the candidates, says
Aarestad. But, they made polling data available to Crow that they did not
make available to me. They made other resources available to Crow that they
did not make available to me, such as email lists for fundraising purposes.
Gabriel McArthur, another former candidate for the 6th District, says the
DCCC never contacted him, even though he was the first candidate to enter
the race. He says the party exercises influence not just over candidate
selection, but how political money and media coverage operates in the state.
McArthur says he had the most detailed policies on his campaign website, but
could never gain serious media coverage for his race. While Crow for much of
last year had no issues page on his campaign website, McArthur noted that
the establishment favorite appeared to easily win endorsement after
endorsement from local liberal groups and politicians along with fawning
coverage from local media.
Jason Crow has been hoisted up as the chosen candidate the entire time. The
party officers say we need centrists to win against Mike Coffman, thats
just the way it is, says McArthur, a former Bernie Sanders delegate to the
2016 Democratic National Convention.
Democratic consultants, McArthur says, have told him to focus more on
fundraising than publicizing his policy agenda. The money isnt the real
problem the problem is that the Democrats lack any real agenda, says
McArthur.
When the DCCC publicly added Crow to its Red to Blue list of front-line
candidates in November, the move further embittered local Colorado Democrats
who had been assured the party was remaining neutral in the primary. State
Party Chair Morgan Carroll, the Democratic nominee in the 6th District in
2016, wrote on Facebook, The DCCC verbally said they would be neutral and
in practice just endorsed one of the candidates in CD6.
The suburban district is being widely watched as one of the most important
seats Democrats need to flip to regain the majority. Obama won the district
in 2012 by 5 percentage points, and Hillary Clinton won it by 9 percent in
2016. But the incumbent, Coffman, has proved resilient, winning crossover
votes by projecting a moderate image. He defeated Democratic challengers in
the last two election cycles by a wide margin.
Hoyer has for years been a mainstay of House Democratic leadership,
tantalizingly close to the speakership. Soon after being elected to Congress
in 1981, he became a protégé of then-Rep. Tony Coelho, D-Calif., a
business-friendly lawmaker who had just become chair of the DCCC. Coelho
famously transformed the DCCC into the big-money operation it is today,
rebuking the Democratic Partys longstanding alliance with labor unions and
activists in favor of raising millions of dollars from corporate lobbyists.
Under Coelho, one DCCC brochure assured donors courteous and direct access
to Democratic lawmakers. The DCCC encouraged candidates to focus on raising
cash from corporate PACs and building relationships with business executives
as the easiest path to office. Coelho resigned in 1989 following an ethics
scandal, but not before giving a boost to Hoyer, his lieutenant who was
quickly rising through the ranks of leadership.
Hoyer, exploiting his own role as the caucus point person for K Street, won
the election as House Democratic whip in 2002. According to reports in Roll
Call and the Washington Post, Hoyer regularly invites corporate lobbyists
for weekly lunches with the caucus and helps to headline private donor
retreats for the party. During the 2006 midterms, he worked closely with the
DCCC to raise prodigious sums of corporate PAC cash for party election
efforts, further cementing his role as a power player in the party.
***
For the 2018 midterm cycle, the party has not only courted moderate
Democrats and formed a renewed partnership with the conservative Blue Dog
caucus for candidate recruitment, but has discouraged candidates from
embracing populist ideas, such as single-payer health care.
For Tillemann, however, the partys closeness with the corporate elite is
the very reason why the DCCC continues to lose general elections.
They squash progressive candidates. They destroy the diversity of ideas in
their caucus. They keep ideas like Medicare for All, free community
college, or impeaching Donald Trump from having a significant role in the
national conversation, says Tillemann. The issues that resonate most with
voters are not the issues that the DCCC is telling candidates to focus on.
Is he worried that even if he is successful in his campaign, that hes
already betrayed one of the most powerful Democrats, making him an outsider
as soon as he arrives in Washington?
To a certain extent, people like Elizabeth Warren and people like Bernie
Sanders have been ostracized by the party, and they have been marginalized
by the establishment to the extent that is possible, says Tillemann. But
the fact of the matter is that the people are crying out for genuine
leaders, and the people are crying out for a solution to inequality and
systemic injustice, and to the extent that I am fighting for those
solutions, then I think there will be a powerful constituency for that.
Im proud to be on the side of truth, he added. Im proud to be on the
right side of democracy, and Im proud to be on the right side of free and
fair elections.
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