- Members of the Congressional Black Caucus don’t expect special treatment from Obama -- but they do want more from him than they’re getting, according to one aide. Photo: AP
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are headed to the White House for a meeting on jobs Thursday, and they’ll have a few words to say about how President Barack Obama is doing his.
The 43-member caucus is fighting through one of the most difficult periods in its 39-year history, and some members and aides said they’re getting far too little support from the nation’s first black president — a man they once believed would be their strongest champion.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) told POLITICO that White House officials are “not listening” to black lawmakers.
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) said “there’s not enough attention to poor people.”
And Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) said: “While I respect President Obama, delivering victories for his political future should be the least of our worries on Capitol Hill.”
Aides to CBC members said tensions between black lawmakers and the White House have risen in recent months as the caucus has tried to address the extraordinarily high unemployment rate among African-Americans, while navigating a succession of ethical issues — including the ethics committee ruling that cost CBC member Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee last week.
Privately, lawmakers and aides rattle off a series of grievances with the White House — and particularly with chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior aide Valerie Jarrett.
A CBC aide said that Jarrett has canceled lunch plans with the caucus eight times and that her office is slow to return calls and pays more attention to longtime supporters than to senior CBC members.
A White House aide said Jarrett is not the White House point person for the CBC but has met with members on several occasions. Jarrett also visited CBC Chairman Barbara Lee’s district two weeks ago and did several events, according to the aide.
Caucus members were outraged after Jarrett called Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) last summer and pushed him to support the president’s agenda by voting to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The conversation quickly grew heated and ended with both parties feeling frustrated, according to a CBC aide. Obama himself immediately called back to ask why Ellison was giving Jarrett such a hard time, the aide said.
Several months later, Conyers said Obama called and accused him of “demeaning” him by criticizing White House polices on health care and Afghanistan.
That report didn’t sit well with many African-American lawmakers, aides and lobbyists, who revere Conyers as an elder statesman.
“Conyers has been in Congress longer than Barack Obama could spell,” said a black strategist close to both the White House and Congress. “If he’s making a complaint, it’s a shot across the bow, and you might want to pay attention to that.”
CBC members and aides felt slighted when civil rights leaders the Rev. Al Sharpton, Marc Morial and Benjamin Jealous got a White House meeting on jobs before they did — despite the fact that the CBC had been requesting such a meeting. And White House efforts to push embattled New York Gov. David Paterson out of the gubernatorial race rubbed some CBC members the wrong way.
After repeated requests for comment about the CBC’s concerns, White House spokesman Corey Ealons told POLITICO Wednesday night: “President Obama continues to seek out the best solutions to address the nation’s toughest challenges and values every opportunity to discuss these issues with Chairwoman Lee and members of the Congressional Black Caucus. We look forward to continued work with the CBC on important matters including enacting health insurance reform, creating new jobs and developing a world-class education system.”
An aide for a senior CBC member said members of the caucus don’t expect special treatment from Obama. But they do want more from him than they’re getting.
“None of these members think they are going to be onstage with Obama having a black party, but they desperately want to have a relationship,” said the aide. “Everything that is going on right now is pitting the black president against the CBC, and the CBC doesn’t have enough of a bully pulpit to win the fight.”
Black strategists and lobbyists complain that no one at the White House understands the delicate politics of the CBC or how to make behind-the-scenes overtures that could mollify members.
Jarrett is from Chicago and has little history with either Washington or the CBC. Members of the caucus have long been distrustful of Emanuel. And even Obama, they noted, was an infrequent participant in caucus events during his tenure in the Senate.
“They don’t have a person they can go to,” said a former CBC aide.
Lawmakers said other administration officials — including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood — have been responsive. And CBC Chairwoman Lee (D-Calif.) had praise for administration officials as a whole.
“They’re very receptive, very open,” she said. “How to get [jobs help for African-Americans] done in this political environment is the issue. But we definitely have been meeting with administration officials.”
Still, CBC aides and black scholars said there are relatively easy things the Obama administration could be doing to curry favor with the CBC, including adding more staffers with CBC experience and making sure to include CBC members in high-profile meetings. For example, they said that CBC member Donna Christensen (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) — a physician and the CBC’s leader on health care — should have been included in the White House health care summit.
CBC members said they expect a wide-ranging discussion at the White House on Thursday.
“Suffice it to say, the president will hear the concerns of the CBC,” Hastings told POLITICO.
But unlike previous presidents, Obama doesn’t need to win over the CBC in order to pick up support in the black community. Polls show that 96 percent of black voters view him favorably — a number the CBC members probably can’t match themselves.
“I can’t imagine that any one member of the caucus can come within 15 points of the president in terms of the favorability,” said Michael Fauntroy, a public policy professor at George Mason University. “The sense I get is that people are far more protective of President Obama than they are of their own representatives that they have known for 20 years.”
That point isn’t lost on Obama, who brought up his polling numbers when April Ryan of American Urban Radio Network asked him in December about grumblings among the black leadership.
“I think if you look at the polling, in terms of the attitudes of the African-American community, there’s overwhelming support for what we’ve tried to do,” said Obama.
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