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Sunday, July 09, 2023

The Nation, July 7, 2023: "Mondaire Jones Is Back—Precisely When Democrats Need Him --- One of the most progressive members of the 117th Congress is ready to return and fight for an expanded Supreme Court."

Link, quote:

After a week that saw the United States Supreme Court reject precedents and popular sentiment in order to impose an extreme agenda on everything from campus diversity to student loan debt forgiveness to discrimination against same-sex couples, Americans are firmly focused on the threat posed by the high court’s lopsided right-wing majority. There’s a desperation for ideas about how to respond to a judicial crisis that will only get worse if Democrats fail to act decisively.

Luckily, a progressive Democrat who has a clear sense of what to do is seeking to return to Congress. Former US representative Mondaire Jones announced Wednesday that he’s running again for a New York House seat representing much of the Hudson Valley region he previously served.

[...]

Acknowledging that “some people in my party got mad” when he challenged insider approaches to politics, Jones says, “I have never been Washington’s choice, because I stand up to corruption.”

Jones will face a primary challenge next year from a more centrist Democrat—in this case, Liz Whitmer Gereghty, the sister of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

But Jones is starting strong, with endorsements from more than 100 local elected officials and party chairs, along with five key state legislators. The endorsements serve as a reminder that Jones grew up in Rockland County and has maintained ties to the district. He also has a message that is far more attuned to the sentiments of grassroots Democrats at a time when the Supreme Court is very much on the minds of voters who have grown frustrated with cautious Democrats. At a time when, as the former representative says, “marriage equality and so many other freedoms are on the chopping block,” there should be a lot of interest in a Democrat who has a history of responding to atrocious Supreme Court rulings and who asserts, “If the filibuster obstructs us, we will abolish it. If the Supreme Court objects, we will expand it.”

Amen.

To those timorous souls who might object to packing the Court as nothing beyond a callous and naked political move; give Leonard Leo and his cash pot a dose of their own medicine. It will make Leo and Federalist Society backers better people.