Black, Latino Dems torch DCCC for lack of diversity - Senior lawmakers of color have privately clashed with DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos.House Democrats’ campaign arm is locked in a long-simmering battle with prominent black and Hispanic lawmakers who believe the party committee and its chairwoman have shortchanged people of color.
Senior Hispanic and black members of Congress have privately clashed with Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) over her personnel decisions, what they say are tone-deaf comments on race and whether she's lived up to the promises she made during the campaign to win the chairmanship of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.“There is not one person of color — black or brown, that I’m aware of — at any position of authority or decision-making in the DCCC,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. “It is shocking, it is shocking, and something needs to be done about it.”
Bustos sought a meeting with Fudge, and Fudge said no.
“Until they show me they are serious about diversity, there’s no reason for me to meet with them,” Fudge said.
And Fudge isn’t alone. Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers, aides and strategists detailed months of frustration and unanswered questions about Bustos’ efforts to retain staffers of color in top positions, boost Latino voter outreach and hire firms run by people of color. They said Bustos was tactless when challenged by lawmakers of color.
“The overall plan for Latino outreach seems to be some 1980s playbook, which doesn't work anymore,” Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said.The DCCC declined to make Bustos available for an interview but said the “DCCC has continued to increase diversity amongst our staff.”
“Anyone seeking to divide our party and stoke infighting between Democrats at a time when Donald Trump is in the White House is undermining our ability to protect the majority,” DCCC spokesman Jared Smith said.
A DCCC aide also said “nearly 50 percent of the senior staff identifies as racially diverse” but they declined to name a senior staffer who is a person of color. In addition, they said 42 percent of the DCCC's entire staff identifies as racially diverse and 55 percent of the staff are women. And the DCCC said that 13 out of 27 senior staffers identify as African American, Asian or Pacific Islander, or Latino.
The DCCC and its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee, demand hundreds of thousands of dollars in dues from sitting lawmakers, which makes them an easy target for ire.
But the depth of discontent with the DCCC and some of the problems it has faced in the early days of this Democratic majority are out of the ordinary, raising concerns in the party ahead of a tough fight to hold on to the House.
The latest sign of DCCC dysfunction: an exodus of key aides.Bustos’ then chief of staff, Jalisa Washington — an African American woman — left the committee after just two months for a job with Kamala Harris' presidential campaign. Sonia Kim, the committee’s director of mail, left for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Just last week, Nancy Zdunkewicz, the committee’s polling director, left too.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said concern about diversity among the senior ranks of the DCCC is one of “the biggest issues” he tried to deal with as CBC chairman nearly a decade ago and that it remains a problem.
“My hope is that the CBC will be as concerned about the Latino deficit in the staff at the DCCC as we would about an African American" deficit, Cleaver said.“There is not one person of color — black or brown, that I’m aware of — at any position of authority or decision making in the DCCC,” Rep. Marcia Fudge said. The complaints from members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are, by far, the loudest and most significant. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) has met with Bustos multiple times, including this week, to relay ongoing CHC concerns about staff diversity at the campaign arm. Aguilar declined to comment for this story.
CHC members were incensed in late June when The Washington Free Beacon published a story revealing that DCCC aide Tayhlor Coleman sent a series of derogatory tweets roughly a decade ago, including one that was portrayed as her being afraid of Mexicans. Coleman publicly apologized for the tweets late last month.
