So Clinton’s replacement in the Senate will be Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, a conservative Democrat who has often voted with Republicans on immigration issues and LGBT issues. From Wayne Barrett in The Village Voice:
Gillibrand has described her own voting record as “one of the most conservative in the state.” She opposes any path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, supports renewing the Bush tax cuts for individuals earning up to $1 million annually, and voted for the Bush-backed FISA bill that permits wiretapping of international calls. She was one of four Democratic freshmen in the country, and the only Democrat in the New York delegation, to vote for the Bush administration’s bill to extend funding for the Iraq war shortly after she entered congress in 2007.
Gillibrand is against drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants, and co-sponsored the SAVE act, a right-wing proposal intended to make life harder for undocumented immigrants, without facilitating legal immigration or addressing economic conditions driving immigration. (The SAVE act was also terrible politics for the Democratic party.)
On LGBT issues, Gillibrand has “voted against the repealing of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ legislation, opposed legislation that would grant equal tax treatment for employer-provided health coverage for domestic partners, opposed legislation to grant same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and permanent residents the same immigration benefits of married couples, and opposed legislation to permit state Medicaid programs to cover low-income, HIV-positive Americans before they develop AIDS.”
On the other hand, as Liss points out, now that Gillibrand is facing a statewide Senate race in 2010, she’s abruptly discovered her inner gay rights activist:
“After talking to Kirsten Gillibrand, I am very happy to say that New York is poised to have its first U.S. Senator who supports marriage equality for same-sex couples,” said Van Capelle. “She also supports the full repeal of the federal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) law, repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) and passage of legislation outlawing discrimination against transgender people. While we had a productive discussion about a whole range of LGBT concerns, I was particularly happy to hear where she stands on these issues.”
Hooray for lack of principles! Hopefully she’ll flop just as flippily on immigration issues.
Nonetheless, I’d rather have a real progressive in that seat. Hopefully she’ll be challenged in the 2010 primary.
One more bad thing about this selection — as Scott points out, her House seat isn’t a safe seat for Democrats, and this increases Republican odds of taking that seat.
UPDATE: It turns out that Gillibrand didn’t vote against any of those four LGBT issues, because they were never brought to a vote. (Thanks to Timothy at Box Turtle Bulletin for pointing this out to me.)
She did, however, turn down the chance to co-sponsor all four of those bills. All four of the bills had over a hundred Democratic co-sponsors, so they weren’t small or obscure bills; and according to HRC’s Congressional Scorecard (pdf link), Gillibrand has the worst record of supporting GLBT issues of any New York Democrat. So it’s fair to say that Gillibrand has been the least supportive Representative of any Dem from New York.
Nonetheless, she hasn’t actually voted against these things, so it’s not as bad as it at first appeared.
(On the other hand, her record on immigration issues does seem to be just as awful as it at first appeared.)
Dammit!!! He should have chosen Maloney!!! This just sucks.
Boy, I’m glad so many of my fellow liberals worked to block Caroline Kennedy from getting the job. That worked out great.
I will say that Gillibrand is allegedly flip-flopping already on DADT and marriage equality; I don’t know whether to be glad that at least she’s taking a step in the right direction, or annoyed at her ability to turn on a dime when the mood strikes.
“Dammit!!! He should have chosen Maloney!!! This just sucks”
Honestly, this was the problem all along. He was never going to pick Maloney, because no Governor of New York would dream of removing the Chair of the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions from the chamber, especially when they’ve got a cache of seniority to boot. Maloney was never a contender, and that online progressives don’t seem to understand these sorts of semi-institutional politics enough to have realized this, and went around attacking the most liberal contender (Kennedy) in favor of someone who was never really in the picture (Maloney) is arguably the biggest reason Paterson was ultimately able to wait the process out and appoint his first choice, Gillibrand.
The ultimate lesson progressives ought to take away from this is that they have a lot to learn about politics still.
This is awesome. I have learned today that I am the voice of all liberals!! Woot! What should I do next with all this power?!?!
I mean, just because I have a special affinity for Carolyn Maloney (she is my personal hero) and would have loved to have seen her selected as Clinton’s replacement (but never went around promoting that, just one time mentioned my disappointment after the fact), and even though I never personally said one single word about Kennedy – good or bad – I’m going to get all the credit (both good and bad) for what “liberals” have and haven’t done. Phew, that’s a lot of power.
bean–
I’m not talking about generally being supportive of a candidate, or even making an argument as to why Kennedy was not an ideal pick. But there were plenty of progressives, led by but not limited to Jane Hamsher, who attacked Kennedy as if she was the unholy spawn of John Cornyn and Michele Bachmann. That was always ridiculous. Kennedy may not have been ideal — I was always agnostic on her — but she’s better than the ultimate pick. In trying for perfect, they killed off the chance of good.
Maloney says that she might run for the position in 2010.
Hell, I’d actually like to see Kennedy run. The bad taste in my mouth about her didn’t come from her politics, it came from the combination of ‘legacy appeal’ and ‘appointed to office’.
Like, if we’re going to start seeing ruling noble families in this country, at the very least we should actually elect them.
That said, of course Maloney would be better.
—Myca
Jeff, are you and Brien the same person?
Oh, and ftr and fwiw — I am NOT a liberal. I am a feminist. I actually find it rather insulting to be grouped in with liberals.
…opposed legislation to permit state Medicaid programs to cover low-income, HIV-positive Americans before they develop AIDS.
WTF!?!
This may not be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of, because I’ve heard that in the 1950s the Soviet Union used nuclear explosives to strip mine for salt, and there is always young earth creationism. But this has to be in the top ten.
This is not, as it sounds here, a right-wing proposal to eliminate or generally reduce Medicaid. This is covering people likely to be eligible for Medicaid anyway when they get a disabling disease for which the treatment is extremely expensive but can keep you alive for almost your natural life-span.
In other words, doesn’t this SAVE MONEY? If you can save money AND be compassionate, where is the downside? Can ANYONE defend this?
Yeah, her nomination had a queasy factor to it. Though when it comes to ruling noble families, some of them were elected. The King George family comes to mind.
Bean, I’m certain Jeff and Brien are not the same person.
Jeff, with all due respect: Are you saying that liberals should have refrained from criticizing the potential Kennedy appointment, because things could be even worse? That doesn’t make much sense to me, especially when you’re talking about bloggers. Kennedy’s nomination deserved to be criticized (or praised) on its own merits. She seems like an extremely weak candidate (in terms of what she’s actually like when she deals with the press and the public); would we really be better off NOT finding that out until she was facing a Republican in an election?
The cause of Gillibrand’s appointment isn’t that liberals criticized Kennedy (on fairly legitimate grounds). It’s that we have a system in which replacement Senators are appointed, rather than elected. I think it makes more sense to editorialize against the appointment system, rather than criticizing liberals for speaking their minds.
@4
It’s not like you’re the only person to back Maloney. Off the top of my head, NOW endorsed her, and Dana Goldstein and Digby were championing her. I think she was Hamsher’s top choice too. There was a lot of liberal support for her nomination, even though there was zero chance of it happening.
@7
Is the worst anyone can say about Kennedy that her dad was an ok President, one uncle was a progressive trailblazer, and her other uncle is one of the most effective progressive lawmakers in the history of the United States? That her family is a bona fide progressive institution?
Why start now? The last progressive to hold that seat is dead.
The question isn’t whether that’s, “the worst anyone can say,” Brien.
The question is whether having politically famous relatives means you ought to be given a senate seat without an election.
I say no.
Now it may well be that in an actual election, I would be convinced to vote for her. I’m not saying anything bad about her politics, I’m just saying that coming from her family’s she’s already got enough of a political advantage in running for office where we ought not to ‘do away with the formality of an election.’
—Myca
@16
But none of that is really relevant given that the process was already established. It’s not like anyone was trying to dispense with elections especially for her, or that any of the other prospective appointees weren’t playing under the same system. And this is why, I think, progressives lose so many of these fights; for the most part we’re just not comfortable with politics. We’d rather debate the merits of appointments vs. special elections or wring our hands over whether we have a problem with political dynasties. In the meantime, everyone else is dealing with politics in the current situation. Which means that progressives can’t win, because they’re not even in the game.
I’m not saying your concerns aren’t without merit, I’m all for having those discussions at the appropriate time. But in the meantime, if we’re going to have any sort of voice in the process, we’re going to actually have to be engaged in the process as it’s currently configured. You can’t just spend your time on the sidelines because you don’t like the rules of the game and go home wondering why you never win.
I was born in Massachusetts in the shadow of the Kennedy clan. Tom Lerher joked that when Robert Kennedy was Senator from New York it made Massachusetts the only state with 3 Senators. Then out here in Illinois I’ve seen sons succeed fathers as the Mayor of Chicago (at least his term wasn’t a direct hand off from his dad), our Cook County President (I wouldn’t be surprised if Cook County’s got a budget that exceeds some states) and my own Congressional seat. Not to mention the Bushes. I’m tired of this crap. Why the hell do people vote for this?
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Kirsten Gillibrand has voted with a majority of her Democratic colleagues 93.8% of the time during the current Congress. This percentage does not include votes in which Gillibrand did not vote. (from the washington post congressional database)
So much for the theory she often votes with the GOP!
Bad information disseminated as real facts! I wonder if ANY so-called journalist gets a 93.8% agreement with their cohorts in the trade or their bosses?!?
93%? Gee, that makes her consistent record of regressive voting on undocumented migrants perfectly all right, then.
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