A political organization co-founded by former staffers of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are taking aim at moderate Democrats in an attempt to clear the way for their far-left legislative goals.
The No Excuses PAC was founded by Saikat Chakrabarti, the former chief of staff for Ocasio-Cortez, and Corbin Trent, the former communications director for the socialist democrat, and Zack Exley, who also co-founded Justice Democrats with his two political partners.
One of the stated goals of No Excuses is to replace Democrats Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona with far-left progressives who will help push their agenda.
Manchin and Sinema are the Democratic holdouts who are keeping the legislative filibuster alive and preventing the Democratic caucus from passing legislation to which Republicans object.
“The only real way to pressure any of these folks and hold them accountable to their promises is to threaten their power, and threaten the seat that they hold and threaten their re-election,” Chakrabarti said to Politico.
“We sort of have this theory that the voters in Arizona and the voters in West Virginia would care more about action,” he added, “they care more about jobs and their community and money in their pockets than they do about an arcane Senate rule called the filibuster.”
Both Manchin and Sinema aren’t up for election until 2024, but the progressive plotters say it will take a lot of time to mount the right kind of challenge to defeat them.
“Finding and training good candidates takes time,” said Chakrabarti. “Doing that in two years when you already need a campaign started is very hard.”
Republicans were able to secure an agreement to keep the filibuster in the Senate through the machinations of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“I’m glad we’ve stepped back from this cliff,” said McConnell about the campaign to end the filibuster.
“Taking that plunge would not be some progressive dream, it would be a nightmare,” he added. “I guarantee it.”
Here’s more about the fight over the filibuster:
Schumer spins Senate filibuster defeat as a win over McConnell
www.youtube.com