Pandemic Could Restart Momentum To Progressive Agenda That Floundered During 2020 Primary Race
Proposals for government-sponsored health care and universal basic income carry are more compelling during a pandemic that has devastated the economy and led to millions of job losses than they did when the country was thriving. But on Capitol Hill, progressives might be shouldered out of relief package negotiations.
San Francisco Chronicle:
Coronavirus Pandemic Could Push Politics To The Left, Progressives Hope
Six months ago, government-sponsored income and health care sounded like pipe dreams from failed presidential candidates. In a post-coronavirus world, progressives hope, they aren’t so far-fetched. The pandemic has already brought bipartisan support to left-wing policies that would have been off the table before 2020, including direct stimulus payments to Americans, an expansion of unemployment coverage and a requirement that many companies offer paid sick leave.Now progressives see an opportunity to build on those gains, potentially pushing policy to the left for the long term. (Kopan, 5/3)
The New York Times:
After The Virus: California Liberals Say Returning To Normal Won’t Be Enough
Housing for the homeless. Criminal justice reform. Addressing the digital divide for schoolchildren in rural areas. Propelled by the urgency of the coronavirus crisis, and despite severe economic headwinds, liberal Californians see this moment as an opening to push through an agenda that addresses some of the state’s most intractable and long-debated problems. (Arango and Fuller, 5/4)
Politico:
Progressives Struggle To Wield Power In Coronavirus Fight
Shortly before the House voted to funnel another $500 billion in federal funds to coronavirus relief, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the chamber’s floor and ripped into Republicans. “It is a joke when Republicans say that they have urgency around this bill,” Ocasio-Cortez shouted into the microphone, mask in hand, as she pointed toward the GOP side of the aisle. “If you had urgency, you would legislate like rent was due on May 1.” (Ferris and Caygle, 5/4)
The New York Times:
For A.O.C., ‘Existential Crises’ As Her District Becomes The Coronavirus Epicenter
The dash to overnight millennial celebrity can take abrupt detours. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the democratic socialist from the Bronx, was propelled from an anonymous existence as a bartender after her upset victory in 2018 straight onto magazine covers, late-night TV and the top of every partisan love-hate list in America. It made her perhaps the most exposed and fixated-on House freshman in history. Today, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress — known simply as A.O.C. — owns another distinction, this one far grimmer: She represents the nation’s most devastated hot zone of the coronavirus outbreak. (Leibovich, 5/4)
