Minutes after helping to preserve an appropriations bill’s possible funding for combat operations in Iraq, Joseph Kennedy III once again defended the NSA’s power to spy on us.
As The Hill puts it, an amendment to the same bill, sponsored by Rep. Thomas Massie, “would prohibit the search of government databases for information on U.S. citizens without a warrant. It would further cut off funding for the CIA and National Security Agency to build security vulnerabilities, or “backdoors,” into domestic tech products or services for surveillance purposes.”
The amendment passed, no thanks to Kennedy. In what has become a habit, he stood out from the Massachusetts House delegation and joined a small minority of conservative Democrats to vote to preserve warrantless searches and built-in spying tools in our tech merchandise.
What is he thinking?
This is not the first time he’s voted in favor of letting the NSA violate our privacy. Last summer, he raised eyebrows by helping to narrowly defeat Congress’s first attempt to push back against the recently discovered NSA spying regime. A less clear-cut vote was on last month’s controversial USA Freedom Act, a bill that was originally intended to restrict the NSA, but which wound up also officially approving some of the dragnet practices, to the point where certain major reformers dropped their support. Kennedy joined Stephen Lynch and Niki Tsongas to vote Yes.
Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny is skeptical that Massie’s amendment will survive the Senate, but it still means a lot to have the House making votes like this to rein in the out-of-control spying apparatus. We are in great need for privacy-minded political leaders who will fight to restore our endangered civil liberties, not stall reform and prop up the dangerous status quo.
Kennedy has failed to lead on this issue, much like his stubborn battle against medical marijuana, and his call to enmesh us deeper in Syria, a hawkish position now continued, it would seem, in his work to save funding for combat in Iraq.
Time for a change.
Christopher says
…though he’s descended from Bobby, right?
We think of Kennedy’s as liberal because of Ted, but Jack was conservative in national security IIRC. He must believe this stuff since it seems at odds with his constituents. Even the national ambition hypothesis seems a bit weak because opinion is shifting left nationally on some of these issues as well.
howlandlewnatick says
Ivory tower, magic name, job-for-life. Why be concerned with a national ambition? ;o)
“People in positions of power and privilege have a duty to perform at a higher level. If not them, then who?” –Kathleen Parker
Christopher says
…you apparently still go with consistent with aspirations for higher office, but as I say above I’m not convinced. Can you expand?
jconway says
Coakley was also hawkish on Iraq, the Patriot Act, and the NSA and that hasn’t stopped a good chunk of progressives from voting for her at the statewide level. In spite of this guy-barely older than me and barely out of law school-having zero qualifications-he got to replace one of our brightest House members by virtue of his last name, good looks, deep pockets, and the ignorance of the unwashed masses. Don’t doubt that if we have Governor Baker our party elders will foist him upon us as a young, electable, fresh face. Assuming Hillary is out by 2024, he’d be halfway through his second term and roughly around Jack’s age. This scenario basically applies if Ed doesn’t run again in 2020. Either way, he will have a cleared field and an open seat to gain a national profile.
Christopher says
…in attaining those national ambitions when it seems that public sentiment is shifting in the opposite direction.
jconway says
He wants to be taken seriously on “national security” issues by the Acela corridor and the chattering class. Hawks get on Sunday show, hawks get to address think tanks, hawks get to claim bipartisanship, hawks win primaries and general elections since they get the big money. Doves-even incredibly astute ones like Andrew Bacevich-get relegated to occasional globe columns and the Moyers show. Being wrong on Iraq actually helps you get on tv these days….
Christopher says
…but elective office is still the prerogative of the voters and the Camelot-nostalgia generation is aging. Not sure why doves can’t be bipartisan too.
jconway says
The Camelot nostalgia will go along way with the likes of Chris Matthews and O’Reilly alike-and with the primary voters who backed HRC over Obama in 2008. It will help him with white working class Catholics in the Midwest who think a “Kennedy Democrat” and “Reagan Democrat” are synonymous terms (don’t ask me why but they do). It will help him in NH.
Our best bet would be stopping him in Iowa which has a very dovish caucus. That’s our best bet against HRC in 2016. Otherwise, it’s a juggernaut of social liberalism covering up economic and security positions that are to the right of the party, ensuring Wall Street and Silicon Valley money (JK3 already has a lot of Hollywood and Valley connections to boot). And if it’s Kennedy v Rubio 2024, Rubio will be a sufficient boogeyman to scare us into submission. We gotta start primarying people on these kinds of issues now or the post-9/11 security state will become permanent .
fenway49 says
He is my Rep and a likable guy but I would not support anyone so enamored of this shredding of our Constitution for any higher office.
SomervilleTom says
“I would not support anyone so enamored of this shredding of our Constitution for any higher office.”
Precisely.
striker57 says
Congressman Kennedy has neither a Primary or Final election opponent. Not so sure his District is all that upset by his positions on these particular issues.
Christopher says
Especially in a primary it’s almost a form of heresy to challenge a Kennedy, but if he feels inoculated the only other explanation is that he sincerely holds those views.
jconway says
Both parties are becoming quite dynastic these days, but progressives should favor bold ideas, new faces, and egalitarian origins and commitments over wealthy heirs and heiresses who have noblesse oblige.
Also no one has ever tried running against a Kennedy in a primary since Eddie McCormack-I might have supported Seti Warren had he run against JK3-particularly because he is far more qualified and experienced-but nobody came. And against a nutter like Beilat-he wasn’t given much of a general election fight either. And he will keep having the freedom to buck the base and build that centrist national profile on economic, law and order, and security issues-while keeping the left at bay by his friendship with Jason Collins and being a Catholic for choice.
striker57 says
Congressman Kennedy has a strong base within Organied Labor as well. His family heritage got him in the door when he decided to run but he earned support with his positions on worker issues. He reached out to my unon as he was considering a run, took the time to sit with members and their families, answering questions and buiding knowledge on key issues.
Congresman Kennedy’s first term, from a workers’ issue perspective, has been successful. There is little a first term Dem can do within the minority position on votes (the few the Speaker allows) but he has walked picket lines, stood up on worker rights fughts and been accessible to Labor.
llp33 says
support the government’s abuse of our privacy? Is outrageous surveillance necessary for labor rights?
striker57 says
The first priority of the union is collective bargaining and jobs. Attempting to link privacy and surveillance issues to the main tasks of a Labor Organization is a false debate.
Union members, like any citizen, have the opportunity to take positions on privacy and the NSA and the such. And they have organizations that they can support / join to address these issues.
Congressman Kennedy has been great on the issues the members task my union to stand up for on their behalf.
mimolette says
In general, I can’t argue with you: a labor union’s mission is centered around jobs and collective bargaining rights, and it’s not as though those aren’t under serious pressure. And if your union and allies can get young Mr. Famousname to stand up to things like fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership and similar bad trade treaties, it would also do a good deal for privacy and speech rights.
But the underlying question that needs to be asked, I think, is this: Given that the labor movement’s priorities as a movement are rightfully labor priorities, and given a candidate like Kennedy who’s been good on those issues but terrible on a lot of others, what would it take for your union to either remain neutral or back another candidate? I realize it’s a moot point for this cycle, but it’s unlikely to be one we’ll never face again, and I can’t imagine that yours is the only district in the country that might have this particular sort of dilemma.
striker57 says
Unions traditionally set a series of issues that we rank elected officials around (Labor votes). Those issues range from basic collective bargaining rights to OSHA funding to trade agreements to defense of existing wage and hour laws (the federal Davis-Bacon law for example), pensions and others. Issues that directly impact workers paychecks, safety and futures.
Those issues are discussed before an endorsement and when elected officials vote on those issues (in comparison to their stated support to earned an endorsement) they are the basis for future support.
Given that situation I do have a hard time seeing us stay out of of or working against a candidate / elected official who votes in support of the issues my union (or any union) has indicated as Labor votes. The message to elected officials needs to be consistent. Your voting record on our issues is how we evaluate you in the future.
That said, Congressman Kennedy has my support and will continue to have my support based on a pro-work voting record. No system is perfect and no elected officials makes every voter happy.
Should Congressman Kennedy face an opponent in 2016 and his record on workers’ economic issues is the same, I’ll be proud to support him again (and again, and again).
mimolette says
That’s the question here. I can’t imagine that any interest group is going to refuse to endorse a candidate who’s solid on their issues in favor of one who’s opposed, or even one who’s squishy. The problem only arises if you have, say, a Kennedy challenger whose commitments to organized labor are as good or better, and who’s also good on issues like the national security state and its powers, where Kennedy is proving to be awful.
I understand that it could be awkward to withhold an endorsement of somebody who has a track record in office when the possible replacement is somebody untried, no matter how good they seem to be. And I understand that no one will want to alienate a politician they expect to win the election. Nevertheless, in theory, what would it take? Labor issues don’t exist in a vacuum, after all, and I’d assume that sooner or later there’s some point at which the union would be able to say, “All right, no, Candidate X would be better.” Or is this merely an idealistic dream?
Christopher says
…many organizations such as this default to endorsing the incumbent provided that he or she has met a certain threshold of favorable votes. A challenger will not necessarily have a proven record to back up his or her stated commitments.
llp33 says
You complain about my “false debate,” yet continue to elide the subject of my post and what jconway added–namely that Kennedy is utterly illiberal on vital issues like government surveillance. Your only contributions here have been to trumpet Kennedy as a labor success and to downplay the idea that his district would be upset about his authoritarian policies. His labor stance doesn’t justify them, any more than being prochoice does.
When our politicians act unacceptably, I would hope we can all do more than take an “I’ve got mine, Jack” attitude.
striker57 says
were in response to the end of your post:
You don’t like his votes on the privacy / surveillance issues and you think its time to change Congressman. I simply maintain that outside your box, my box says his votes warrant his re-election.
As for your our questions – “does your support the government’s abuse of our privacy? Is outrageous surveillance necessary for labor rights?”
To the best of my knowledge the members of my Union have not asked us to take a position on this. I do know we oppose the abuse of immigrant and undocumented workers, I do know we support an increase in the federal minimum wage, I do know my Union supports earned sick time. All of these issues are rights and benefits members of my Union already enjoy. So I’d say our support goes passed the “I’ve got mine, Jack” concept.
And I’ll challenge your statement that “His labor stance doesn’t justify them, any more than being prochoice does”. His stance on worker / Labor issues justifies his re-election for my Union and while I can’t speak for them, IMO pro-choice organizations will stick with the candidate that has voted for them on the floor of the Congress rather than a challenger who has no record.
As for the his district, I don’t live there but have been actively involved on the grassroots level in several Mayors, State Reps and State Senate races within the 4th. I hear about jobs, I hear about the economy, I hear about transportation and energy issues when I work those races. Surveillance not so much.
You made the claim that it’s time for a change. I answered that claim.
llp33 says
would you tell mimolette that “No system is perfect and no elected officials makes every voter happy”, striker57?
Maybe your union goes beyond “I’ve got mine, Jack,” but you yourself don’t sound like it, judging by your replies here. You haven’t even commented on (let alone criticized) Kennedy’s right-wing votes on surveillance (the focus of my article). But he’s good on unions, so he’s OK in your book. Sounds like you’d still vote for him even if he turned into a squish on abortion and gay rights.
I’m prochoice, pro-labor & pro-gay, and I refuse to believe that requires supporting an authoritarian politician, especially in a district as liberal as Kennedy’s.
Your races for mayor and state rep won’t deal much with issues like the NSA, Syria, and medical pot, but not only is Kennedy wrong on them, his voters don’t support his positions. However, given the difficulties any primary challenger or GOPer would face, it remains to be seen whether he’ll get in trouble for it.
Personally, I’d welcome alternatives at this point.
jconway says
It’s incumbent on us to let JK3 know we are displeased with his leadership and votes on some of these issues, I even would argue it might be disqualifying for future offices-I wouldn’t consider a primary challenge over these things. Like striker said-on economic and social issues he is a progressive. But-we need to hold him accountable on security and civil liberty issues-and we do that by pounding the offices phone and getting his people to know we are upset. Ideally, people in the district.
mimolette says
If, as you suggest way upthread, he’s looking to use the family name and the prominence it gives him automatically to position himself as a Very Serious Person whose gravitas on issues like the security state should make all the DC players think of him as a rising young star, destined for higher office, then he’s deriving a significant benefit from taking this constellation of wrongheaded and dangerous positions. There’s no obvious reason why he shouldn’t do it forever, especially since he’ll continue to get all the praise for being good on labor and (some) social issues. There’s no incentive for him ever to do anything more than write a nice form letter that his office can send out to people who write him asking that he take civil liberties seriously, and only minimal incentive for him to bother to do that much.
I’m not in his district, so there’s nothing I can do about him. If I were, though, I’d be looking for a candidate. We don’t have a lot of other meaningful checks on our elected representatives; if they can take our votes for granted and know it, that’s the ball game.
striker57 says
Recruiting a candidate for a suscide mission isn’t always the first best strategy. Ted Kennedy and Ed Markey started their political careers as pro-life candidates. President Obama didn’t support marriage equality at the start. IMHO it wasn’t the threat of a candidate running against them that brought change in their positions – it was the hard work of good people advocating for their position that faciliated a change in policy for these candidates.
Congressman Kennedy stands up for the vast majority of progressive issues we discuss on BMG. In this day and age that makes him a damn good Congressman in my book. And one that I’d try talking with if I had a disagreement.
mimolette says
Given the history of state power, surveillance, and the labor movement overall, I’m surprised, to say the very least. Given that the historical default is for this kind of power to be used to break workers’ movements, from the earliest days on through anti-globalization initiatives and Occupy, I’d have expected it to rank higher among labor issues. It may not be an immediate bread-and-butter issue, but it’s a menace to working people’s interests, and one that will only grow if it isn’t checked. And that’s even before we get to the way civil liberties are fundamental to, well, liberty.
On the pure strategy question, certainly if you think you have any chance of persuading an officeholder whose positions you otherwise like, persuasion is a better first step than deciding that someone needs to be replaced. But if persuasion isn’t effective in fairly short order, simply hoping that your officeholder’s views will some day “evolve” is to write those issues off, and clear the field for the people bringing pressure to bear on the other side. It’s one thing to give your Representative a pass on a bunch of issues in a jurisdiction where no one who fully supports all your positions could be elected, but this is Massachusetts. Where’s the downside in imposing a little market discipline?
striker57 says
llp33, you can offer all the pretend scenarios and “what ifs” your little heart desires. I deal with realities. The reality is Congressman Kennedy is a progressive on the vast majority of issues most BMGers care about. The reality is he has no opposition this cycle.
You want to find an alternative in 2016 . . have at. I’ll spend my time making sure Bill Keating, Niki Tsongas, John Tierney, Carol Shea Porter, Annie Kuster, Chellie Pingree, and Peter Welch all get re-elected to Congress and Emily Cain wins an open seat. And working for Jeanne Shaheen and Ed Markey to return to the Senate. Being pro-choice, pro-labor, pro-GLBTQ, pro-immigrant rights, anti-climate change deniers, touchy feely green energy kinda guy, I think incumbents who support those issues and have challengers are a priority (selfish bastard who has his already, Jack, that I am).
jconway had it right -you want to get Congressman Kennedy’s attention on privacy and surveillence organize his constituency and make your case to him. Going right to the threat mode pretty much ensures an elected official won’t hear you.
We all have our make or break issues. Privacy and surveillance appears to be yours. Workers, jobs and the economy set my voting agenda. I can count the number of elected officials I agree with on every issue on the fingers of one hand (Bernie Sanders heads that list with Elizabeth Warren, John Tierney and Mike Capuano – I don’t have one for my thumb yet) so I often find myself supporting less than perfect candidates.
(Speaking of alternatives, I think Rand Paul is with you on the privacy and surveillance stuff.)
I do appreciate and respect your passion on these issues. Keep up the good fight.
JimC says
With the caveat that llp33 hit you first, unfairly, I think it’s important that Democrats discuss these things without invoking Rand Paul.
llp33 says
you sure like to promote myths and evade the questions people have asked you in this thread, striker57. Politicians react to incentives and threats, not because we ask pretty please. That includes Obama, who came round on gay marriage only after gay donors threatened to sit out his re-election.
You don’t know what candidates in other races I spend time on. You don’t know whether I’ve already approached Kennedy on various issues. And evidently you’re unaware that I’ve written several BMG posts about his shortcomings over the last year, which did not begin with calls to replace him. I wrote them to raise important issues, hold his feet to the fire and, by this point in time, to recognize that one way of making progress on vital issues is to find better representation.
I’m proud not only of my articles but of how much stimulating discussion they led to on BMG. They also revealed, however, that even some BMGers may respond to challenges only by condescending to critics and repeatedly ducking the issues.
SomervilleTom says
Like global warming, issues like privacy and surveillance tend to crossover into a great many superficially unrelated issues.
While I get and understand your priorities, I want to remind you of a simple question/observation: who do you think will top the list of surveillance targets if there is a significant labor action pending or in progress?
One huge problem with the government having this data is the moral hazard it presents to the government — especially local police. I think that as soon as a labor organization starts to mobilize for a job action — strike, slow-down, whatever — or organize in a resistant employer friendly with local officials, that organization will finding nothing “false” at all about this debate.
I would expect to see both “official” actions — extra “attention” at job sites from local police, legal harassment, hostile press releases ready to go — and “unofficial” actions. Unofficial actions like leaks to the press of embarrassing personal details about labor leaders (affairs, financial issues, etc) — the myriad of nasty and effective vulnerabilities every person has, and that “privacy” exists to protect.
In short, I think there is nothing “false” about the debate over privacy and surveillance issues, especially for a labor organization.
JimC says
The district is not that liberal. Barney Frank’s margins of victory were getting more narrow.
It would be helpful to know what he objected to in the bill; from the description it sounds like something I’d vote for, but his mileage may have varied for a legitimate reason.
He doesn’t need to cast any particular votes to aspire to higher office. If he aspires to higher office, all he has to do is snap his fingers. So I’d need serious proof of that, as a motive.
JimC says
I’m not trying to be a wet blanket, or to defend JKIII. The reason I’m commenting at all is because the issue is so important, so the question is worth asking. I just think it should be posed fairly.
fenway49 says
2000: won 75-21
2002: unopposed
2004: won 78-22 (no Republican, but Chuck Morse ran as an independent)
2006: unopposed
2008: won 68-25
2010: won 54-43 in a horrible year for Democrats.
One instance does not make a pattern.
JimC says
Your data just proved my point, and yet you assert it did not.
He went from 78 to 68 to 54. His margin should have increased in the non-presidential year, but it declined. The district moved.
And yes, it was a horrible year for Democrats, but we didn’t lose a single office-holder.
fenway49 says
His total history:
1980: 52%
1982: 60%
1984: 74%
1986: 89%*
1988: 70%
1990: 66%
1992: 68%
1994: 99%*
1996: 72%
1998: 98%*
2000: 75%
2002: 99%*
2004: 78%*
2006: 98%*
2008: 68%
2010: 54%
*No Republican named on ballot.
I see him pretty steadily northward of 2/3 of the vote, at which point it hardly matters whether it’s 68 or 78. Those numbers will vary a bit based on who’s on the ballot and national trends. For example, he got 78 in 2004 with a write-in opponent and no Republican. If there’d been an actual name on the ballot against him it would have been more like 68. I don’t see much difference between 78-21 in 2004 and 68-25 (a huge win anyway) in 2008, when the numbers came down because an independent pulled 7%.
The only real outlier is the last race. It’s true that we didn’t lose a Democratic single office-holder in Massachusetts in 2010, but that includes Barney Frank. For him, and for many others, the margin was lower than usual but they still won.
And I don’t think liberal Democrats tend to do better in non-presidential years. Quite the opposite. In Barney’s case it’s hard to test since the last time the GOP ran someone against him in a midterm year, before Bielat, was 1990, when he won 66-34 over John Soto.
jconway says
Or else Tierney should be voting just as ‘moderately’ on these issues-which he isn’t. That district and Keating’s are significantly more ‘conservative’ or ‘swingy’ than this one.
Either he honestly believes in these votes, or he honestly believes these votes are needed for credibility if he seeks national office or attention. Either way, it’s not a good sign.