Dissatisfied House Democrats who forced Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to open up leadership of the Democratic Caucus to rank-and-file members will be watching closely over the next two years to see if they succeeded in influencing the political arm of the party that’s designed to get Democrats elected to the House.
Their discontent about the party’s performance on Election Day ultimately focused on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the chairman of which Pelosi agreed to make an elected position instead of an appointed one. But while they absolved and ultimately re-elected last cycle’s chairman, New Mexico’s Ben Ray Lujan, members also laid some of the blame on staff and consultants.
“I definitely think that we need to get in there and do a complete … re-evaluation, through every nook and cranny of the building,” said Ohio’s Tim Ryan, who unsuccessfully challenged Pelosi to lead House Democrats next Congress.
Although Pelosi re-appointed Lujan before the caucus opened up the position to any member, Ryan said critics such as himself, New York’s Kathleen Rice, Arizona’s Ruben Gallego and others didn’t make specific demands on Lujan before ultimately deciding to back him.
However, there is the sense of “hey, you got elected by us” so you better be responsive, Ryan said.
“I think clearly everyone’s paying attention now. The heat’s been ratcheted up so now the hope is he goes in there and makes some kind of decisions and if he needs to fire people… It’s gotta be that simple. And he should have the authority to do that,” Ryan said.
At one point, New York’s Sean Patrick Maloney was going to challenge Lujan in Monday’s election, but he instead accepted Lujan’s offer to conduct a review of what went wrong for Democrats in the election.
“I believe in my heart that he’s a good person [and] he’s doing a great job,” Maloney told The Hill on Friday. “Like all of us, he deserves to have help and support, and if I can bring some expertise to that, working in partnership with him, I think that’s a lot better than having some big fight and some big negative conversation that starts to become more about ego or people’s career objectives.”
But like Ryan, other Democrats want to see some heads roll.
“I am expecting him to hire a new executive director and other top [staff] and also look at all the consultants that we have — make sure [to do] a top down review and see who is there because they’ve been grandfathered in and who actually is effective,” Gallego said.
“I’m hoping that we hire qualified people that know what they’re doing and aren’t necessarily hired because of someone’s congressional office or influence,” he said.
Gallego and others alleged that they can’t assess Lujan’s performance because they don’t feel he ever was really empowered to take the reins.
“I think they were bogging themselves down with a cozy relationship that was established between staff and consultants,” he said. “This was a staffing/consultant-led D-trip.”
Maloney has put staffers, consultants and vendors in the crosshairs of his review.
“There are absolutely no limitations on the review,” Maloney told The Hill.
Even some Democratic activists have blamed the insular political consulting world for many of the party’s problems.
“While Democrats roll out the same old leaders who employ the same old losing consultants and staff, they ignore members of their most consistently loyal voting group: Black women,” political analyst Lauren Victoria Burke complained in an op-ed.
In addition to Executive Director Kelly Ward, it would seem Missy Kurek fits the bill as the type of staffers who is too tight with leadership and been there too long. She just finished her sixth cycle as deputy executive director for finance and is also Pelosi’s political director.
Ty Matsdorf is an example of the revolving door from staffer to consultant and sometimes back again. He served as deputy executive director and strategic messaging director. He took leave from his consulting job with the Messina Group, which is headed by President Obama’s former deputy chief of staff Jim Messina.
Although no specific vendor or consultant has been cited as problematic, Maloney will undoubtedly closely scrutinize those who received the most money from the DCCC.
Behind payroll, the committee’s largest expense last cycle was Integrated Direct Marketing, which received $4.4 million for “generic committee printing.”
Next was the telemarketing firm Integral Resources Inc., which also counts the Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as clients. The DCCC paid it $3.8 million.
Also in the top 20 were mail firm Big Eye Direct, telemarketers’ New Partners Teleservices, list-buying service Names in the News, ad and media buying agency Rising Tide Interactive, pollsters Global Strategy Group and general consultants Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.
The Greenberg in the consulting firm’s name is Stan Greenberg, husband of Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.
