I think there is a trend developing among Seth Moulton’s votes when it comes to protecting consumers and working Americans, and it’s not good.
Jonathan Cohn has done some amazing work breaking down recent amendment votes. One recent vote was on an amendment from Keith Ellison that would strip language from a bill relating to mobile home purchases. Manufactured homes are treated differently than traditional homes and the Republican bill would allow companies to charge very high interest rates on mobile home purchases (close to 14%). Ellison’s amendment would have retained consumer protections that apply to traditional home purchases to the manufactured home market. The amendment went down 163-245.
(Also look for very bad votes from Stephen Lynch among Cohn’s roundup. Those deserve their own post but I think most people here would agree that Lynch is often very bad.)
Moulton was one of 23 Democrats to join with Republicans to defeat Ellison’s consumer protection amendment. No other MA Dem joined with Moulton (neither did any Dem from New England).
Moulton gets a lot of press for his military service and his attacks on the Trump administration. That, plus his youth, looks, and his apparent “innovative” and “bi-partisan” approach has been enough to begin talk of higher office, including the White House. What doesn’t get a lot of press are these everyday small votes that make up a lot of a representative’s work and combine to have huge impacts on the lives of working Americans. Calling out the Trump administration as a MA representative is easy politically, and one would think so would standing on the side of the working class. In this instance Moulton chose not to stand with working Americans, and it’s not the first time he’s done this. He’s broken with Dems to loosen regulations protecting unsophisticated investors and to lessen the protections of Dodd-Frank.
I think these are the kinds of votes that should be highlighted here – they are the ones that should get attention, get people calling Congressional offices, and be remembered when an elected official asks for reelection or a promotion.
We’ve had many discussions here about the role of money in politics (right now there is one going on about Steve Mnuchin), and I think it’s important to look at these votes in the context of Moulton being the member of Congress to receive more money from Wall Street as a percentage of total donations than anyone else in Congress.
This is quite a stat:
That almost seems impossible. How is that calculated?
“… in the context of Moulton being the member of Congress to receive more money from Wall Street as a percentage of total donations than anyone else in Congress.”
I’d like to see a cite for whatever data underlies this statement. I, too, am curious about how this is derived.
Wall Street’s Fab Five.
It’s interesting to see Ro Khanna on this list as he’s evolved very quickly from a “new economy” liberal to a stalwart progressive in his short time in Congress. Seth Moulton does not appear to be making any sort of similar evolution when it comes to economic issues.
Sorry this seems a bit fuzzy.
None of this is anything to sneeze at, but how is $31,949 “much of” $255,799? Is the rest donations from individuals?
Don’t know if this helps.
https://www.opensecrets.org/resources/learn/anomalies.php?cycle=2016&type=I
I appreciate the link. It appears to me that once again some due diligence is required.
Let’s start with Seth Moulton. If you drill down into the actual data about his contributions a different picture emerges.
Mr. Moulton receives most of his contributions from individuals, rather than PACs. Looking at the most recent 2018 cycle, His contributions from PACs this cycle are dominated by “PAC for a level playing field” at $15K and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers at $10 K.
The first is the PAC sponsored by Elizabeth Warren. The latter is, presumably, organized labor. Neither strikes me as a “Wall Street” source.
A similar picture emerges from inspection of his career contributions.
Similar observations are offered in the comments from your link regarding Ro Khanna (emphasis mine):
Here is another comment:
Just because a blog piece or web article says something doesn’t make it true.
I think the PAC callout in the article is misleading, but the breakdown of donations by industry seems sound. I never implied it was PAC money. Drilling down into the data shows that Moulton receives more from people in the finance industry than those in any other industry by far and also that he receives a very small amount of money from small donations (under $200). Maybe money is not influencing the votes, but he’s making these odd votes and breaking with the party, and they just happen to be votes that the financial industry was backing.
It’s certainly worth noting. I remember when Barney Frank was off the charts in financial industry donations (when he ran the Banking Committee).
In Moulton’s case, the PACs are the leading indicator I would look at. If they’re giving him more than others, why? (They might just think he has more of a future.) But if I give him $25, it’s counted as FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) money.
Still, the point is that the PACS are NOT giving him all that much money. Most of his contributions, by a very large margin, come from Democracy Engine.
Are you looking at the same data as me?
I’m looking at the data link. I’ve selected “Career” for the “cycle”, showing the contributions from 2013-2018.
The dominant contributor, by far, that I see is “Democracy Engine” at $1,175,369 — all from individuals. Harvard University is next at $121,378, again all from individuals.
Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs, at $42,800 and $38,300, even taken together, total less than Harvard, never mind “Democracy Engine”.
It appears to me that one of us is misreading this data.
I just now looked up Democracy Engine. It’s CEO is Jonathan Zucker, ED for ActBlue.
I don’t see any evidence, yet, that Democracy Engine is a tool of Wall Street.
We’re sort of in loud agreement here. I don’t think Democracy Engine is a tool of Wall Street. My point is, in looking at “Wall Street” money, the PACs are more indicative (because they’re policy driven) than the individuals (unless the individuals are outlandish, like Sheldon Adelsen virtually bankrolling Newt Gingrich last cycle). So in short I think Moulton’s donations are fine, but I would like to know if Wall Street PACs are giving him more than others, and why that is. Like I said, they might just think he has more of a future than some others in Congress.
Look at Top Industries. Securities and Investment is the largest industry that is an industry. It is weird that when you look at 2016 or 2018, “Democracy Engine” as a donor and “Democratic/Liberal” as an industry do not register, although they do for the career view.
Compared to other MA Reps, both the percentage of money from “Securities and Investment” and the total dollar amount from individuals in that industry are much much greater. I don’t think it’s easily explained by living in a district with a lot of donors in that industry.
To be clear, the data doesn’t show some kind of clear industry capture as you often see with Republicans and Oil and gas or some other industries. I think the data does show a clear anomaly among support from individuals in a particular industry that cannot be easily explained by the makeup of the state or district. Coupling that with his odd votes raises a lot of questions. Is he doing what his donors want to see? Maybe. Or maybe he is just bad on these issues and has an affinity for those in this industry – he did work in the industry and public described himself as a “pretty centrist guy” when considering an independent run in 2012. I don’t think he should be run out of town but I know I likely wouldn’t support him in a primary against a progressive if I lived in the district. I think the more concerning thing is that these votes and his funders won’t come up as much in future races. I know there are many Democrats who would love to run someone like this against Trump based solely on his perfectly promotable resume (you know he went to Harvard twice, right? Right?) without digging too much into his positions.
Also, he praised Michael Morell last week for quitting the Kennedy School after they invited Chelsea Manning as a fellow.
The fact that inviting CIA torture defender Morell is not at all controversial compared to inviting Manning says so much about how bad our political landscape (and also how bad Harvard as an institution) is.
@ praising Michael Morell:
I agree. That entire story strikes me as shameful. I find it shameful that Ms. Manning was herself tortured. I think the invite of Harvard was appropriate, and I think their subsequent retraction reflected gutless cowardice. I think a more appropriate response to Mr. Morell’s temper-tantrum would have been for Harvard (and the rest of the civilized world) to say “Goodbye and good luck”.
I’m glad that I don’t have to decide whether or not to vote for Mr. Moulton. So far as I know, my own rep (Mike Capuano) has no such issues — that makes my life as a voter and registered Democrat much easier.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Moulton’s name shows up on a statewide ballot sometime soon. And if it does, I suspect that there will be a lot more praise of “bipartisanship” than any really investigation of his votes going around in the press.
For me, “bipartisanship” in the context of today’s GOP is one of the worst words a Democrat can utter.
@ doubleman: Ok, I understand what you’re looking at now.
I, frankly, don’t see any way to tie the numbers on this page together. For example, in the chart at the bottom (“Source of Funds (Campaign Committee), 2013 – 2018”), I see “Individual Contributions” totally $5,601,613. I see NO other numbers that come even CLOSE to that.
I don’t understand the difference between “Top Contributors” and “Top Industries”.
Perhaps we should find something much more specific before concluding, from what we see here, that Mr. Moulton (or any of the other five of the original piece) has done anything improper or even unsavory.
Perhaps our cynicism just goes in different ways. My cynicism leads me to suspect that the opensecrets.org staff were/are looking for something provocative to attract clicks (and perhaps donations). Yours perhaps tends towards suspicion of Mr. Moulton (which I am certainly sympathetic to).
At the end of the day, I just don’t see anything particularly troublesome here.
Much more concerning are the votes chipping away at consumer protections. Those are bad on their own without considering donor questions. With the lunacy that the GOP House has passed, it is not hard at all to be consistently with the party. Yes, it’s a small sample but those are not hard votes if your concern is protecting working Americans. When he’s voted with Republicans, he’s been joined by a small number of usually the most conservative Dem members. He’s also a member of the New Democrat Coalition, which is just a DLC reboot.
Yeah, Seth is a member of a pro-business anti labor group of Democrats who call themselves, NewDemPAC
If you removed the word “Democrat” from their web site, it would be indistinguishable from a standard GOP web site in many, many ways.
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Just as a point of interest, he just got married.
Tierney has a 96% liberal rating and Moulton has a 92% rating according to the National Journal. He is ever so slightly more conservative on some defense and business issues. Which need I remind BMG, is a big reason he was able to keep that seat in Democratic hands during a horrible cycle by appearing a little more maverick than the do nothing backbencher who always voted with Pelosi.
I think if Moulton wants to run for President as a bipartisan problem solver he will have a hard time breaking out of the pack against similar more well known folks like Cory Booker, or more seasoned purple state Governors like Bullock and Hickenlooper. If he wants to run as a populist veteran like Kander did, he will have a fighting chance. Especially since I don’t see other veterans running.
I think new blood is what our state and national party needs now and he’s worth watching and rooting for. He’s also worth holding accountable. Same goes for Joe Kennedy III, someone who’s converted me into believing in the Kennedys again.