LIZ ‘TRYING TO PLANT A FLAG’
Anti-corruption bid viewed as geared toward ’20
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s package of “anti-corruption” measures announced yesterday on a national stage is being seen as an effort to build a populist platform and position herself as the Bernie Sanders of the 2020 presidential race.
“The goal for 2020 is to outBernie Bernie without sounding like a kook,” Republican political strategist Brad Marston told the Herald yesterday.
Warren, speaking to the National Press Club in Washington yesterday morning, spoke out against what she characterized as the corrosive influence of out-of-control lobbyists and the “revolving door” between them, corporations and federal politicians. Warren, who’s seen as a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, held up President Trump as an example of how badly she says things have gone.
“The Trump era has given us the most nakedly corrupt leadership this nation has seen in our lifetime,” Warren said. “But they are not the cause of the rot — they’re just the biggest, stinkiest example of it.”
The proposal would impose a lifetime ban on lobbying across senior levels of all three branches of government, starting with presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, federal judges and cabinet secretaries. It would also ban other federal employees from lobbying their former office, department, branch of Congress or agency for years.
Current lobbyists, meanwhile, would be barred from taking government jobs for extended periods of time after lobbying. She also would force federal appellate courts to livestream audio of their proceedings and establish an independent office of public integrity that would have new investigative and disciplinary powers.
Todd Domke, a former Republican now acting as an independent political consultant in opposition to Trump, said he expects Warren’s pitch to gain serious traction.
“Under Trump, the swamp has gotten swampier. Many people around him are criminals,” Domke said, referring to the conviction of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and guilty pleas by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
“The timing is perfect,” Domke said. “It is the best winning message for Democratic candidates: corruption, because it sums up so many of the vulnerabilities of the Trump administration.”
But Marston said he doesn’t think adding to the government bureaucracy and vilifying corporations is a winning political formula.
“I kind of like the way the economy is going,” Marston said. “I’m not sure you want run against corporate America when the unemployment rate is at a record low.”
Ryan Williams, a former campaign staffer for GOP contender Mitt Romney, dismissed Warren’s proposals as “fairly standard textbook liberal orthodoxy” aimed at cementing her status among the Sanders-loving left wing of the party.
“She’s trying to plant a flag in the ground,” Williams said. But he said it comes across as “tone deaf.”
“It’s fairly foolish to launch an anti-Washington policy proposal from a gathering in Washington in front of Washington insiders,” Williams said.