RINOcracy supports Katie Hill for Congress
The first question readers are apt to have is ”Who is Katie Hill?” followed by “What is she running for?” and “Why should I care?” The answers are that Katie Hill is an accomplished young woman who is running for Congress from California’s 25th Congressional District. I do not live in the 25th District, but in the adjacent 26th, and I am sure that few if any readers are residents of the 25th. Nevertheless I believe that you should be aware of Ms. Hill’s candidacy and consider supporting her because her race is one of the “toss-ups” which will determine the control of the House of Representatives. That is the principal reason I am supporting a Democratic candidate for Congress for the first time in my life.
Whether support for Katie Hill is a transition or just a detour for me remains to be seen. However that turns out, the decision to support Ms. Hill was not a difficult one. To begin with, she is young but well-qualified and would bring energy and a positive attitude to Washington. Hill has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from California State University Northridge, and has served as Executive Director of PATH (People Assisting the Homeless), a non-profit developing affordable and supportive places for people to live. Her campaign website further pointed out, “As its Executive Director, Katie raised PATH from a local force for good in Los Angeles with a $5M budget to the largest non-profit provider of homes for the homeless in the state of California, operating with yearly operations of over $50M.”
Katie Hill’s positions on various issues are set out on her campaign website which readers are invited to visit. Not surprisingly, Hill’s positions largely mirror the “heretical” (for a Republican) views of RINOcracy.com on social issues such as abortion, gay rights and gun control. I particularly liked her statement (0:53 sec) on guns:
On other issues, some of her positions may strike even some RINOs as overly progressive, but in this election that is not the point. On this occasion, the point of overriding importance is that giving Democrats control of the House appears to be the only available lever to provide a check on the abuses of our reckless president. Indeed the Los Angeles Times, in reporting on the race between Hill and the Republican incumbent, Steve Knight, wrote “Never mind the candidates. In a key midterm contest, it’s all about Trump.”
In his recent guest blog for these pages, Sandy Treadwell, a former senior Republican official and party leader in New York, insisted that he is still a Republican, but expressed the hope that “Democrats will win both houses of Congress in November.” Treadwell was not the first Republican or conservative to express such a hope. George Will wrote an eloquent column titled “Vote against the GOP this November,” in which he explained that the Republican caucuses in Congress, having abandoned their constitutional responsibilities, must be substantially reduced in size:
Ryan and many other Republicans have become the president’s poodles, not because James Madison’s system has failed but because today’s abject careerists have failed to be worthy of it. As explained in Federalist 51: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Congressional Republicans (congressional Democrats are equally supine toward Democratic presidents) have no higher ambition than to placate this president. By leaving dormant the powers inherent in their institution, they vitiate the Constitution’s vital principle: the separation of powers.
Similar arguments have been made by respected conservatives such as Steve Schmidt, Jennifer Rubin, Joe Scarborough and Max Boot who, like Will, have chosen to leave the Republican Party. But it is not necessary to leave the Party to realize that a stunning defeat for Republicans in November, in the House and possibly the Senate, would be good not only for the country but for the party. Bill Kristol, Editor-at-large of the Weekly Standard, appearing on “Morning Joe” with Joe Scarborough made the following observation:
“It’s obviously important if Democrats win the House and/or the Senate and changes the dynamics for the next two years. But the day after election day for Republicans, something you and I have talked about a lot, Joe, is very important.”
“That’s the moment where Republicans stop justifying the vote in 2016 for Donald Trump,” he continued. “They stop justifying working with Trump over the last couple of years. Gorsuch, the tax cuts, whatever. And they have to confront the issue, do you want to renominate Donald Trump for four more years? Are you confident enough that this is going well, that you’re going to sign on for another term.
Clearly it is not sufficient simply to wish for Democratic success in November and do nothing. For readers who may be disposed to take some action, their efforts and financial support should probably be concentrated on races that appear to be in doubt. Katie Hill’s is one such race, but there are others. According to the most recent report from Larry Sabato, there are 36 seats rated as toss-ups, 34 presently held by Republicans and 2 held by Democrats, that are toss-ups. If you are inclined to contribute in support of a Democratic victory, those are the places to do it, and a direct link to support Katie Hill is here:
Thanks so much for your excellent post. Sadly, progressive Republicans are retiring from Congress.
Katie will certainly get my support, along
with other Dems on your toss-up list who will stand up to Trump and all that he represents.
Country comes before party!
Another reason to vote for a Democratic Senate is to ensure that Supreme Court Justice Kennedy’s seat is filled by a great lawyer, not a political hack. Trump’s nominee (Judge Kavannah) does not measure up. His views on the presidency (ie immune from investigation) are unconstitutional and his aversion to environmental protection is indefensible. We have yet to find out if he supported torture policies during his service in the G.W. Bush White House.
The Supreme Court is the guardian of our liberties, the last line of defense against a tyrannical president.
Doug, thanks for this. The Ojai Valley Democratic club actively supports Katie Hill. Your subscribers might also be interested in learning about Andrew Janz who is running to replace Devin Nunes in CA22. Janz is a young prosecutor who was motivated to challenge Nunes because of Nunes’s words and actions designed to frustrate Congress’s ability to get to the truth about the 2016 election.
We have been an ardent supporter of Julia Brownley, CA-26, ever since she first ran. Frankly, I didn’t know about Katie Hill. But Doug’s column, and a little Internet search, have convinced me to write a check. Like Mr. Billingsley, I have considered myself a Progressive Democrat. I also came from a long line of conservative Mid-Western Republicans. And a closeted conservative lurks inside me. Today, I am having a party identity crisis. I am vehemently Anti-Trump (it pains me to write his name) but I am also compassing toward being a Deficit Hawk. Because of my concern about what appear to be toxic short sighted policies (like kissing Putin’s ass, relaxing restrictions on green house gasses and other emmissions, one-sided tax giveaways, ridiculous tarrifs, an insane wall, unbridled assault weapon sales and countless other Trump-Republican obsenities) I will defitiely vote Democratic this Fall. However, if we are fortunate enough to get a Democratic majority in the House and/or Senate, it is up to all of us to hold our representatives responsible for policy that chips away at our national debt, expands affordable medical care, etc.I am now getting off my soap box.
Thanks so much for your comment.
Fiscal responsibility is indeed critical to the welfare of our country and its future. But Trump and his followers are not deficit hawks. The recent so-called tax reform legislation will blow a hole in the budget to reduce taxes on those most able to pay them. What we really need are both wiser taxation and spending policies. Neither major party has put forward realistic proposals to balance the federal budget while at the same time promoting the general welfare. That being said, thoughtful voters have no choice but to vote democratic in the mid-terms. Trump and his followers must be defeated in the interest of the rule of law. If, as seems likely, Republicans take a thumping in the mid-terms, they will hopefully move towards progressive and responsible governance. Furthermore, the GOP will never again nominate a demogogue to run for President.
I thoroughly appreciate and support the views put forward here. I am a progressive Democrat, but my father was a Republican, my grandparents were Republicans, most of my aunts and uncles are (alas, still) Republicans (uneasy Republicans, granted). . . . none of ’em ever supported ‘weaponizing’ race as a means by which to rip our country into two divisive factions. (Until, perhaps, today). I didn’t agree with much of my family on economic issues, or on a number of social issues, but I never felt that I had to bow my head in shame when I referenced my family’s Republican leanings. Today, whenever I meet someone who is still a member of the Republican party, I fear the I am inclined to automatically assume they are a racist. This is a dreadful, indeed a calamitous occurence, and one that risks, I believe, destroying the Republican party. I believe strongly in the theoretical strength of a two party system, if only because the nature of a two party system, with fringe parties relegated to where they tend to belong, on the fringe, is that it moderates, that it pulls people towards the center, and towards compromise. I believe, too, that it is imperative that Democrats understand that it would be extraordinarily damaging to our country if the Republican Party lost its ability to compete in National elections and became something equivalent to M. L. Pen’s quasi-fascist party in France; a permanent minority of kooks and cultists that waged a perpetual political war against a dominant party that, inevitably,
ossifies and calcifies because it doesn’t face legitimate electoral threats . . . . . . This, to me, is as terrifying a prospect as the standard issue fear progressives have of decades of hard right Republican dominance. California illustrates what will happen when a political party is viewed as being philosophically inimical to the civil rights of an ethnic group: the R. party is all but tummy up in this state, and were this to happen on a national level I think we’d truly risk coming asunder. Demographics suggest that it is an inevitability that this country will become more ‘non-white than white’, whether that takes 10, 15, or 25 years: unless the R. party is prepared to so suppress the right to vote as to transform this country into an authoritarian state, it will eventually be incapable of winning national elections: they will have so alienated the majority of people in this country as to become existentially unpalatable, perhaps forever more . . . The Republican party, and the Democratic party, are both fighting, ultimately, for the survival of a two party system, and that demands, in this election cycle, and the next one, in all likelihood, that good faith conservatives, of the Burkean persuasion, and liberals with an understanding of what the historical significance of conservatism means, band together to elect people like Katie Hill. Might I suggest throwing a small house party in support of Katie, or whichever D. Congressional candidate you’d prefer? Invite 20 people. Potluck. Open some wine, share some campaign materials. 50 bucks a pop. Candidate won’t appear, they need to save themselves for bigger bashes – but 2 grand gets raked in, and you can end the event by asking all of your guests to go out and throw their own house parties . . . metastasize fundraising on a local level, on a grassroots level – it’s going to take all of us, doing everything we can, to save our country. xox
A really powerful, compelling statement why partisanship, whatever one’s persuasion, is not the relevant factor in the upcoming elections, it’s voting to restore more integrity and informed judgment to leadership than is possible with Trump. Trump is destroying the vitality and future of GOP as much as he is weakening that of the nation’s well-being, and the primary patriotic need now is countering his influence. Thanks, Doug, for underscoring this reality.
Exactly. Thanks Bill. -Roger
Doug, thank you. I will contribute.
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