Congressional Black Caucus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus (1971)

The Congressional Black Caucus is the association of African-American members of Congress of the United States . The caucus, founded in 1971, has become an influential group that intervenes in the legislative process through articulation of interests. Most of the members belong to the Democratic Party .

prehistory

After the Reconstruction , few Afro-Americans had political positions because of the Jim Crow laws , which changed with the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century. As Charles Diggs 1955 Michigan into the United States House of Representatives moved in, he noticed that African Americans barely articulate their interests in Congress and the previous two African American in the House, William Dawson ( Illinois ) and Adam Clayton Powell ( New York ), hardly exchanged. These three MPs in the 84th Congress represented the largest number of African Americans sitting together in Congress since the Reconstruction.

At the initiative of Diggs' at the beginning of the 91st Congress in 1969, the Democratic Select Committee (DSC) was set up, in which the now nine Afro-American MPs should exchange information and coordinate with the leadership of the House of Representatives. The informal group met irregularly and did not have its own financial resources. The then newly elected MPs Bill Clay ( Missouri ), Louis Stokes ( Ohio ) and Shirley Chisholm (New York), whose election by creating a majority African-American congressional districts as a result of the Voting Rights Act had been promoted, supported the creation of a more efficient representation of their interests. The African-Americans, who have long been marginalized in institutionalized politics and are unrepresented in many places, should be given a hearing in such an association.

Origin and direction

Charles Diggs, the first chairman
Charles Rangel, the namesake
Louis Stokes, the vice chairman

At the beginning of the 92nd Congress in 1971, there were 13 African Americans in the House of Representatives, more than ever before. On February 2, 1971, the DSC met and, at Clay's suggestion, decided to found a non-partisan, formal network of African-American congressmen. The newly elected MP Charles B. Rangel proposed the name "Congressional Black Caucus", Charles Diggs was elected as the first chairman. He declared: "Black people have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies ... just permanent interests" (black people have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, but simply permanent interests), which became the guideline in the first few years and the motto of the association. Clay later recalled that the large electoral potential represented by the members of the caucus should primarily be converted into influence for economic betterment. Most members of the group were not elected to Congress through the support of trade unions or other interest groups and were therefore more free in their decision-making and politics than most other MPs.

The caucus first caused a stir in January 1971, when President Richard Nixon refused to receive the group, which then boycotted its State of the Union Address . Nixon finally invited the group to the White House in March 1971 , which was widely reported by the press in the US and made the caucus widely known. The group then often used similar strategies to attract attention and soon earned the reputation of being an irritating moment in Congress. Great expectations accompanied the founding phase when some observers expected that the caucus would develop as a collective into the national mouthpiece of the united interests of African Americans across the country. The caucus picked up and distributed information from all parts of the African American community and interest groups, but was unable to live up to high expectations due to internal disputes and disagreements. Diggs tried to organize a national meeting of African American people in 1972, which the caucus refused because some members feared they would not have control over the ensuing development. Shirley Chisholm's presidential candidacy in 1972 also caused tensions; As the only female founding member of the caucus, she felt insufficiently supported, as only two other members publicly spoke out in favor of her candidacy, Ron Dellums and Parren Mitchell . Chisholm has been criticized for establishing contacts with representatives of other social groups and thus questioning the unified mission of the caucus and placing gender over race .

The caucus therefore moved away from the model of collective representation of all African Americans under the leadership of Louis Stokes, who had replaced Diggs as chairman in 1972. Its members saw themselves increasingly only as representatives of their respective constituencies, withdrew from national attention and concentrated on their expertise in legislation for the needs of the respective voters. According to the political scientist Marguerite Ross Barnett, the caucus also became more professional around 1975, in that it no longer primarily reacted to developments, but instead developed its own ideas for legislation. According to political scientist Carol Swain, the tension between the demands of collective political leadership on African American issues and individual representation remained prevalent until the 1990s.

Membership and Influence

Many of the early members of the caucus had taken part in the civil rights movement outside of institutionalized politics, while later members were more technocratic-oriented, using expertise in legislation to shape the system from within. In 1975, the white Pete Stark , who represented a congressional constituency in Oakland , California with a large proportion of African American populations, applied for admission to the caucus, which was rejected for reasons of symbolism of only African American members. This unwritten rule was upheld, even if whites were occasionally accepted as non-voting associates. Most recently, Steve Cohen , who won an African-American constituency in Tennessee in the 2006 election with a promise to join the caucus, was not accepted.

Many members of the caucus stayed in Congress for decades, significantly longer than the average for all MPs, which gave them special weight, among other things because of the seniority rule in the allocation of leadership positions. Since the mid-1970s, under the leadership of Charles Rangel, the caucus ensured that African-Americans were represented in all particularly important committees of the House of Representatives, and in some committees they took over the chairmanship. Although only 20 African-Americans were represented in the 99th Congress from 1985 onwards, five of them presided over committees (and two special committees and 16 subcommittees). In 1971, John Conyers challenged the parliamentary group leader Carl Albert in a symbolic gesture and was defeated by 20 to 220 votes, other members of the caucus soon joined the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee , which prepares the legislative work ( Barbara Jordan , Ralph Metcalfe , Harold E. Ford ) , In 1983 Charles Rangel was appointed deputy Whip , William H. Gray became Majority Whip in 1989 and thus received the third highest leadership position of the Democrats in the House of Representatives. In the aftermath of the Watergate affair , there were generally many corruption investigations in which African Americans were significantly over-represented. Between 1981 and 1993, half of the caucus members were the subject of preliminary investigations or indictments, although few of them were convicted. Of the 465 inquiries into political corruption that the Justice Department conducted between 1983 and 1988, 14 percent were directed against African-American politicians, even though they only made up 3 percent of the MPs. Most of them were subsequently re-elected, which speaks for the strong loyalty of their electorate.

In the 1990s, the number of African American MPs rose sharply to around 40 (as it had in 1977), adding to the weight of the caucus, even though African Americans remained severely underrepresented in Congress. As in the Carter administration , many members of the caucus were critical of government policies under President Bill Clinton even though they belonged to the same party. While most of the previous African-American MPs had been men from northern cities, more women and politicians came from the southern states and suburbs and rural areas. The tensions within the group increased, the topics were diversified, for example to southern interests such as space travel or tobacco growing. When the Republicans regained a majority in the House of Representatives in 1995 after decades, the caucus lost its importance because of the few African Americans among the Republicans. In early 2007, after twelve years in the minority in the 110th Congress , the Democrats regained a majority, which also allowed the power of the caucus to grow again, especially since all of its members were now Democrats. The seniority principle brought 22 of the then 43 African Americans in the House of Representatives to leadership positions in committees. In 2007, Republican MP Tom Tancredo called for the caucus to be abolished as he contradicted the idea of ​​a “color-blind” society. The group tries to secure its influence on decision-making processes, especially in the Democratic Party, and protested in 2016 against attempts by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to break the power of the so-called superdelegates in the intra-party primaries . In the 115th Congress in 2017, a member of the Republican belonged to the caucus, Mia Love ( Utah ). No Republican was a member of the caucus between 2013 ( when Allen West left ) and 2015. Love said she wanted to join the caucus in order to change it from within because the group has so far been stirring up emotions such as fear and racism . Many Republicans reject the caucus as a sign of identity politics ; Politicians like Tim Scott , Will Hurd and JC Watts turned down membership.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office (March 2017)

Relations between the caucus and the president have been strained during Donald Trump's presidency . If they had met Donald Trump in the White House in March 2017 - which had also happened with previous presidents at times - seven of the 48 members of the State of the Union Address stayed away in January 2018, who appeared to protest against the Trump administration , by all wearing African kente fabrics. They criticized the president's rhetoric of ridiculing NFL players' protests against racist police violence and calling African states “shit hole countries”, as well as Trump political decisions that disadvantage African Americans, such as restricting affirmative action . Barbara Lee and Hakeem Jeffries ran for the leadership position of chairman of the House Democratic Caucus in November 2018 after the Democrats regained a majority in the House after the 2018 election . Politico evaluated the fight candidacy between Bass and Jeffries as a sign of the growing influence of the Congressional Black Caucus, but also of its generational conflicts: With his candidacy, the then 48-year-old Jeffries circumvented the unwritten rule of seniority against the then 72-year-old Lee and prevailed . With Chair Maxine Waters on the Finance Committee and Elijah Cummings on the Control Committee, and five of six subcommittees of the Finance Committee chaired by African American MPs, members of the Congressional Black Caucus in the 116th Congress exert a great deal of influence over the regulation of the financial industry, which is one of the The last industries had been desegregated and caused disproportionately many difficulties for African Americans in the financial crisis from 2007 onwards . The growing influence of the caucus is also reflected in the fact that many of the top executives of caucus members became lobbyists in the financial sector.

Nelson Mandela visiting the Congressional Black Caucus in the Library of Congress in 1994 , Kweisi Mfume to his right , photo by Maureen Keating

The caucus campaigned in Congress in particular for the economic development of Afro-American communities and repeatedly called for additional funds for these tasks. The group's successes are the 1973 Act , which granted Washington, DC limited autonomy, and the proclamation of Martin Luther King's birthday as a holiday on his 100th birthday in 1983 ( Martin Luther King Day ). In 1986, with his help, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act was enforced against a veto by President Reagan, which called for sanctions against apartheid and helped release Nelson Mandela from custody. In 1994 the caucus introduced a law that provided for the return of the ousted by a coup President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti and decisively influenced Bill Clinton's policy on this matter. In 2005 a comprehensive aid package initiated by the caucus for the victims of Hurricane Katrina failed in Congress, but forced the George W. Bush administration to intensify its aid measures.

Organization and chair

Building of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
Karen Bass, Chair from 2019

The Congressional Black Caucus was one of over 470 Congressional Member Organizations (CBO) registered in the Committee on House Administration in the 115th Congress . Since the 104th Congress , the caucus no longer receives independent funding, but is financed by contributions that are made available to the individual members in public funds. Employees who work for the caucus are therefore employed by individual MPs; the caucus itself is not organizationally regarded as an independent institution. In 1976 the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation was established, a not-for-profit foundation. It promotes education, economic development, health and projects in Africa . Since then, there has also been the CBC Fellows Program , which aims to open up career opportunities in the political field for African American students.

The chairs of the caucus are usually appointed every two years after the election to the House of Representatives and are usually elected for the duration of a congress, i.e. for two years. Previous chairmen were:

literature

  • Renard H. Marable: Congressional Black Caucus and American Foreign Policy. National Defense University, Washington DC 1994 (PDF) .
  • Robert Singh: The Congressional Black Caucus in the United States Congress 1971–1990. In: Parliaments. Volume 14, 1994, No. 1, pp. 65-91 (abstract) .
  • Neil Pinney, George Serra: The Congressional Black Caucus and Vote Cohesion: Placing the Caucus Within House Voting Patterns. In: Political Research Quarterly. Volume 52, 1999, No. 3, pp. 583-608 (PDF) .
  • Kareem Crayton: The Changing Face of the Congressional Black Caucus. In: Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal. Volume 19, 2010, pp. 473-500 (PDF) .

Web links

Commons : Congressional Black Caucus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Black Americans in Congress: The Negroes' Temporary Farewell: Jim Crow and the Exclusion of African Americans from Congress, 1887-1929 and Keeping the Faith: African Americans Return to Congress, 1929-1970. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives.
  2. ↑ For the entire section Black Americans in Congress: Creation and Evolution of the Congressional Black Caucus. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives.
  3. ↑ For the entire section Black Americans in Congress: Creation and Evolution of the Congressional Black Caucus. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives.
  4. ^ Black Americans in Congress: Background and Precongressional Experience and Congressional Black Caucus Chairmen and Chairwomen, 1971 – Present. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives.
  5. ^ Black Americans in Congress: Creation and Evolution of the Congressional Black Caucus. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives.
  6. ^ Josephine Hearn: Black Caucus: Whites Not Allowed. In: Politico , January 22, 2007.
  7. ^ Black Americans in Congress: Institutional Advancement and Conclusion. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives.
  8. ^ Black Americans in Congress: Crafting An Identity on Capitol Hill. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives.
  9. ^ Black Americans in Congress: Crafting An Identity on Capitol Hill and Conclusion. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives.
  10. ^ Tancredo: Abolish Black, Hispanic Caucuses. In: NBC News , Jan 25, 2007.
  11. ↑ Daniel Strauss: Sanders collides with black lawmakers. In: Politico , September 16, 2016. See also Nolan D. McCaskill, John Bresnahan: CBC votes no confidence in Democratic Chair Perez. In: Politico , November 14, 2018.
  12. ^ Nia-Malika Henderson: Mia Love joins a group she promised to dismantle. In: The Washington Post , Jan. 6, 2015.
  13. ^ Josephine Hearn: Black Caucus to Make Rare White House Visit. In: Politico 13 February, 2007.
  14. ↑ David Weigel, John Wagner: Congressional Black Caucus leaders meet with Trump, push for policy proposals not photo ops. In: The Washington Post , March 22, 2017; PR Lockhart: At Trump's State of the Union, the silence of the Congressional Black Caucus spoke volumes. In: Vox.com , February 1, 2018; Mike Lillis: Congressional Black Caucus bashes Trump's move to scrap affirmative action. In: The Hill , July 3, 2018.
  15. ↑ Elizabeth Landers, Ashley Killough: Congressional Black Caucus seeks a top Democratic leadership spot. In: CNN.com , November 1, 2018; Nolan D. McCaskill, John Bresnahan: The chairman fight pits old guard vs. new generation of black leaders. In: Politico , November 20, 2018; KC Washington: Hakeem Jeffries (1970-). In: Black Past , April 17, 2019.
  16. ↑ Alex Gangitano: Former Congressional Black Caucus staffers flex clout on K Street. In: The Hill , May 29, 2019.
  17. ^ Black Americans in Congress: Legislative Interests. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives.
  18. ^ Congressional Black Caucus history. In: The Hill , September 18, 2013.
  19. ↑ Kenneth J. Cooper: GOP moves to restrict caucus funds. In: The Washington Post , December 7, 1994.
  20. ↑ Ida A. Brudnick, Jennifer E. Manning: African American members of the United States Congress: 1870-2018. Congressional Research Service , April 26, 2018, p. 12 f. (PDF) .
  21. ^ Congressional Black Caucus history. In: The Hill , September 18, 2013.
  22. ^ Black Americans in Congress: Congressional Black Caucus Chairmen and Chairwomen, 1971 – Present. In: History, Art & Archives , House of Representatives; Melissa Harris-Perry: Karen Bass Is Leading the Congressional Black Caucus Into the Future. In: Elle , December 20, 2018.