Three days after Congresswoman Cori Bush took office to represent the voters of Missouri’s First Congressional District, the Capitol insurrection occurred. As she begins her second term, Bush said she’s just as committed to holding former president Donald Trump and all those who participated in the violent rebellion accountable.
Although Republicans reclaimed the majority, Bush is surprisingly upbeat about the role Democrats will play in the 118th Congress. The next two years, she said, will be an opportunity to challenge nonsensical legislation and chaotic and destructive GOP policymakers. Most importantly, Bush added, Democrats will further remind Republicans why there was no “Red Wave” in the House and Senate and why voter’s lives, priorities, and futures are better off under Democratic leadership.
“That election showed that we have to double down on the politics that actually improve the lives of Black and brown communities,” Bush said. “We must look at how we are advancing the priorities of Black communities, women, young people, the elderly, and others. When we speak to that, people will show up at the polls.”
Bush said she had heard about an upcoming red tsunami since she entered office in 2020. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, opening the door for state bans on abortions, she had serious doubts about the GOP’s massive takeover.
“I was thinking, ‘you don’t think we’re going to galvanize around this issue to protect our rights?”’ Bush recalled. “As it turned out, there was no red wave; there was a red trickle, like a leaky faucet.”
Voters, Bush added, realized more things they valued were at stake, not just abortions.
“Yes, it was about abortion, but people pushed it further, thinking, ‘OK, I’m standing to make sure people have a right to govern their own bodies but also if we allow this to happen, what comes next? Will there be bans on contraception or marriage equality or interracial marriage?’”
Bush said attacks on voters’ rights also played a role in the GOP’s under-performance in the midterm elections and will be an issue in the 2024 elections.
“People saw suppression happening. It was an across-the-board movement,” she asserted. “What we were able to do was help people see that whatever their reason was at the moment, protecting your rights, your freedoms were on the ballot.”
Part of Bush’s optimism about the next two years of governance is based on what she’s observed on the other side of the political aisle. Trump’s election denialism, antics of MAGA extremists like U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz will lead to a productive next two years for Democrats, she said.
“What you’ve seen on TV is who they are. They’re talking about impeaching President Biden and investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop. They keep talking about things like ‘replacement theory’ where Black and brown people are replacing whites in this country. We know these folks are full of hate.
“So,” Bush continued, “we get to investigate all those things. We’re going to challenge it, uncover the untruths and be able to really galvanize and mobilize folks to see what’s really happening with that leadership.”
Interestingly, Bush defined the Democrats’ minority role in the House as a powerful place to dispel GOP conspiracy theories and disinformation.
“Now that we are in the minority, we get to showcase even more how, with their failed leadership, they can’t govern. We get to show how all they really want to do is push forward this white supremacist agenda that props up a Donald Trump presidency. We get to show how his supporters are moving up into these seats of power on local, state, and federal levels all across the country. We get to uncover all the lies, the disinformation and misinformation that they’re putting out.”
Democrats have already started stressing the hypocrisies of the GOP’s proposed rules package. For example, Republican’s claim that they want to address government spending and the national debt.
Yet, the so-called “Family and Small Business Protection Act” which will rescind $72 billion of the $80 billion for the IRS is estimated to raise the deficit by more than $114 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Those numbers plus the fact that McCarthy made a significant concession that allows one member of Congress to remove him as speaker will breed division and confusion on any legislative action, Bush said.
“The possibility of there being disarray or chaos in the House over this issue is a very real thing, especially considering that one person can expel the speaker of the House. And keep in mind, the first thing they decided to do was give tax breaks to the wealthy.”
The GOP’s call for a select subcommittee on the “weaponization of the federal government” is but another issue Bush said Democrats will counter with facts. The proposal, she said, is in direct response to House resolution (HR 25) that calls for the investigation and expulsion of any member of Congress who “participated, aided or abetted the violent insurrection.”
“Many of us on the Democratic side call it the ‘Insurrection Protection Committee,’” Bush said with a laugh. “And that’s what it is. You have members of Congress who want to get at information to make sure they or their friends aren’t investigated so they won’t end up in prison.
“I find this attack on the FBI and the DOJ interesting because it comes from the same people who say they support law enforcement, but they also want to defund the FBI.”
After defining the oversight committee proposal as a “political stunt,” Bush said she’s looking forward to debating it and genuinely examining how the federal government “has actually, historically and systematically been weaponized against black and brown communities,” not white, violent right-wingers.
Bush suspects Rep. Greene would join the House Oversight Committee as part of her deal in endorsing Kevin McCarthy as Speaker. Greene, Bush stressed, “She’s spoken out quite a bit about those in prison from charges related to the January 6th insurrection. She’s talked about how they’ve been unfairly imprisoned and how she wants prison reform and all those things.”
Bush said she plans to use Greene’s rhetoric as they engage on the “weaponization of the federal government” issue.
“So now we’ll be able to directly speak to one another and, for me, the forefront of those conversations will be white supremacy and racism. She (Greene) upholds it and wants to see it increase.”
As of now, Bush said McCarthy has shown no indication of kicking her off the House Judiciary or Oversight Committees.
“Speaker McCarthy hasn’t alluded to that at all,” Bush affirmed. “Also, I know that the Black Caucus and Minority leader (Hakeem) Jeffries are working hard to keep me on those committees. Now, what happens later on-as I’m on those committees, speaking truth to power-we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Although it was bipartisan yet dominated by Democrats, Bush believes the House Select Committee convened to Investigate the January 6th attacks influenced voters and impacted the midterm election results. That sort of informational fact-based tool, she emphasized, will serve Democrats well up until the 2024 elections.
“If and when we’re able to take the majority back and hold the senate in 2024, we will be able to do so much more,” Bush said, adding: “We can use this time to prepare so in 2025 when the president, vice president and new congress is sworn in, we’ll be ready and able to take care of the people of this country who have the greatest need.”
