Progressive Democrats Call For Steny Hoyer’s Resignation After Secret Recording Emerges

washingtontimes ^ | April 26, 2018 | Seth McLaughlin

[MarvinStinson]

Liberal groups demanded the resignation of a top House Democrat on Thursday after he was caught on a secret recording trying to strong-arm a progressive candidate to nix his congressional campaign and clear the way for party leaders’ preferred pick to win.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, told Levi Tillemann, a Democrat running in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, to drop out because “a judgment was made very early on” that opposing candidate Jason Crow, an Army veteran, was the party’s choice to take on a vulnerable Republican.

The recording, which Mr. Tillemann released to the Intercept news website, has infuriated pressure groups who say it’s the latest example of party leaders undercutting progressives, just as they did in the 2016 presidential race by backing Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont.

“There is a battle for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party, and Steny Hoyer and his corporate cronies already lost,” said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which quickly sent out a fundraising email over the dustup.

In the edited recording, secretly taped in December, Mr. Hoyer signaled the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party organization dedicated to winning House races, had picked sides.

“So your position is a decision was made very early on before voters had a say, that’s fine because the DCCC knows better than the voters of the 6th Congressional District, and we should line up behind that candidate?” Mr. Tillemann asks.

Mr. Hoyer responds, “That’s certainly a consequence of our decision.”

[Katya]

its particularly hilarious post Bernie v Clinton, the progressive left still hasn’t caught on “how” things are arranged in the backrooms...