Tag: Carl Heastie

For years, a breakaway faction of Democrats helped Republicans control the state Senate in New York, one of the country’s most liberal states. IDC members blame Felder for Republican control, claiming they have moderated a GOP agenda that would pass with Felder’s help anyway. But progressive activists, some of whom are backing a primary challenge against Felder as well, have lambasted the IDC members as “Trump Democrats.” They note that GOP control of the Senate, enabled in part by the IDC, has prevented progressive climate action and single-payer health care bills that passed the state Assembly from coming up for a vote, and stalled or diluted other liberal legislation. IDC-enabled GOP domination of the state Senate prevents Democratic Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a black woman, from playing the leadership role in negotiations that Democrats’ numerical majority would otherwise afford her. Biaggi is one of seven Democrats challenging IDC members with the backing of major progressive organizations like the Working Families Party. Cuomo, often blamed for failing to leverage his power against the IDC and Felder, has also elicited a left-leaning primary challenge from Cynthia Nixon, an actress and progressive education activist. A condition of the deal is that neither former IDC members, nor mainline Senate Democrats would back primary challenges against incumbent members. In an open letter to IDC members on Wednesday in which Biaggi and the six other candidates affirmed their decision to stay in the race, they argued that IDC members “cannot undo the damage that [they] have done by blocking a single Democratic state Senator in the room to advocate for common-sense progressive priorities.” Intent on punishing IDC members and securing a more progressive Senate delegation for its own sake, the grassroots coalition No IDC New York and the labor-backed New York Working Families Party are both maintaining their support for the IDC challengers. “If you’ve set your own house on fire and watched it burn for eight years, finally turning on a hose doesn’t make you a hero,” Nixon said. “And the common enemy is defeating Trump and Ryan and McConnell and defeating their agenda and taking over the New York state Senate so we can protect the state the way it needs to be protected.” However, Cuomo also revealed at the press conference that his re-election campaign would be coordinating closely with the campaigns efforts of Senate and Assembly Democrats.