The Raucous Caucus

When the nation's newest Congresswoman arrived in Maine in August to campaign for a fellow Democrat seeking an open House seat, she tossed aside the cautious talking points peddled by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Maryland's Donna Edwards, who won a House seat in a June special election, was talking about how she and candidate Chellie Pingree would shake up Washington come January. Topic A: renewing the Constitution. Recalling her third House vote, on a rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--which majority leader Steny Hoyer wanted Democrats to back despite its failure to address privacy concerns adequately--Edwards told Pingree backers in Cape Elizabeth, "I had to walk up to him on the floor of the United States Congress, and I had to tell him, 'Steny, I will not vote for that FISA bill. And I won't do it because I think that there is a way to protect the security of the United States, and there is a way to gather intelligence, that doesn't intrude on...the rights of the American public. And we haven't done that with FISA.' And I told him that and then I went right over and cast my vote against that."

To the cheers of Maine Democrats who, like their compatriots across the country, recognize that Washington will change only if the party's Congressional caucus develops an edgier, more aggressively progressive stance, Edwards continued, "I know that Chellie Pingree is gonna be that kind of stand-up, I've-got-a-little-backbone Democrat." That's not just rhetoric; before they became candidates, Edwards and Pingree worked together as Washington outsiders promoting campaign finance, election and media reforms that put them decidedly at odds with the Bush administration and some of their fellow Democrats.

Edwards and Pingree are members of a loose sorority of Democratic women inspired to run for Congress by a shared sense that their party should do more to end the occupation in Iraq, defend civil liberties and stand up for economic justice. These women look likely to prevail in a year when Democrats are set to expand their House majority dramatically--perhaps flipping as many as the thirty-one GOP seats the party won in 2006, which gave it narrow control of the chamber.

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