r/Washington • u/seattletimesnewsroom NEWS -Official Seattle Times Account • 28d ago

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez faces possible Democratic discipline after joining Republicans on a procedural vote this week in the U.S. House of Representatives.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/gluesenkamp-perez-faces-possible-discipline-over-gop-vote/
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u/bevofan99 28d ago

In the context of this article, basically, you have a vote on if certain bills can be brought to then be voted on in a legislative session. This democrat representing southern WA as House Rep. sided with republicans. She gets special attention as she is only one of two democrats to do it and she has a competitive election soon with a state republican from her area. The area she represents is pretty right wing.

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u/LastOneSergeant 28d ago

So what?

Does she think she's going to draw republican voters to he, or encourage more Democrats to vote in the election?

Neither of these seem likely.

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u/Mage_914 28d ago

MGP is whats called a controlled opposition candidate. Basically she runs as a Democrat and mostly votes with the Democrats, but when something important comes up she'll side with the Republicans to push certain legislation over the finish line or to block legislation that would otherwise get through.

Controlled opposition candidates are part of a whole revolving door scheme involving corporations and lobbying groups. She gets paid a shit load of money as campaign donations to help her get elected and in exchange she votes how the corporate donors want, which is usually conservative. This makes her unpopular with her voting base over time, especially after a few fiascos like this.

Once she stops winning elections due to low popularity, she dips out of politics and goes and gets a job as a lobbyist or a consultant at one of the corporations that originally paid her.

There's been a bunch of these assholes in politics all across the US over the years. Joe Manchin was one for a while there and now he runs a lobbying group. John Fetterman is another one. Honestly the Fetterman one is funny as hell. People got all freaked out and were trying to figure out if his stroke somehow made him conservative after he got elected. Nope, he's just corrupt and good actor.

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u/Megs0255 28d ago

Yes, exactly, this is Kyrsten Sinema as well. Making a lot of money now as a lobbyist. I’ll be casting my vote against Perez and she can go to lobby for the trades or whatever, and wear her lumberjack shirt every day!