The 50 Most Powerful Politicians in Washington D.C.

Posted on by Ben Scheffer

Washington D.C is known for more than just the Washington Monument, The Lincoln Memorial, The Capitol, and the White House. It is home to the Nation’s elected officials who make incredibly important decisions that affect the lives of every single American voter. They vote on bills that address important issues such as climate change, Covid, taxes, healthcare, and much more. They also reside in President Biden’s administration, helping him make important decisions on how he should run the country. Here are the 50 Most Powerful Politicians in Washington D.C.

#50 Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott

Party: Republican Home State: Florida Assumed Office: January 8, 2019, Twitter: @SenRickScott 350K followers

Scott is a Navy Veteran who once ran for Governor of Florida in 2010, defeating Bill McCollum in a tightly contested primary race and defeating Alex Sink in the general election. He would be re-elected in 2014, defeating Charlie Crist. After term limits barred him from seeking a third term, he opted to run for the U.S. Senate, defeating Bill Nelson in 2018. Scott has an A+ rating from the NRA because he signed more pro-gun bills in a single term than any other Governor in the State’s history.

#49 Vice-Chair of the Senate Republican Conference Joni Ernst 

Party Republican Home State: Iowa Assumed Office: January 3, 2015, Twitter: @SenJoniErnst 113K followers

Once considered a “long shot” to win her 2014 Senate campaign, she received many campaign donations from the Koch brothers to push her over the edge. She is a longtime critic of Obama and has been a loyal ally to Donald Trump. Ernst served in the Iowa National Guard from 2003 to 2004 and was stationed in Kuwait. She has supported defunding Planned Parenthood as well as repealing Obamacare. She has also advocated eliminating the EPA and the federal minimum wage.  

#48 Republican Policy Committee Chairman Roy Blunt

Party: Republican Home State: Missouri Assumed Office: January 3, 2011, Twitter: @RoyBlunt 125K followers

Blunt served as the Missouri Secretary of State from 1985 to 1993 and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996. He then served as the Republican Whip from 2003 to 2009. Blunt ran a victorious Senate campaign in 2010, and the following year he was elected Vice-Chairman of the Republican Conference. He is the dean of Missouri’s Congressional delegation and was elected to serve as the Policy Committee Chairman in 2018.

#47 Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso

Party: Republican Home State: Wyoming Assumed Office: June 25, 2007, Twitter: @SenJohnBarasso 150K followers

Barrasso graduated from Georgetown University, where he received his B.S. and M.D. He conducted his medical residency at Yale before moving to Wyoming to practice orthopedics. Blunt first ran for Senate in 1996, where he lost a close primary race to Mike Enzi. Barrasso got elected to the State Senate in 2002, where he would stay until he was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2007 following the death of Craig L. Thomas. He was elected to finish the late Senator’s term and then re-elected twice. He is the dean of Wyoming’s Congressional Delegation. 

#46 Vice-Chair of Policy and Communications Committee Cory Booker

Party: Democrat Home State: New Jersey Assumed Office: October 31, 2013, Twitter: @CoryBooker 4.9M followers

Booker is a former Attorney who served as Mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013. Booker also served in the Municipal Council of Newark for the Central Ward from 1998 to 2002. He won the seat by staging a 10-day hunger strike and briefly living inside of a tent to draw attention to urban development issues in the city. During his first term as Mayor, affordable housing doubled, and he won a second term in 2010. Booker was elected to the U.S. Senate during a special election in 2013 and got re-elected twice more. Booker also ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020 but did not gain any traction on the campaign trail amidst a very crowded field. 

#45 Vice Chair of Conference Elizabeth Warren

Party: Democrat Home State: Massachusetts Assumed Office: January 3, 2013, Twitter: @SenWarren 6.9M followers

Warren’s signature accomplishment would be creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is designed to handle mortgages, credit cards, and student loans and protects people from unfair or deceptive business practices. Her other bread and butter issues include student debt relief and raising taxes on the rich. Before her political career began, she was one of the most influential professors on bankruptcy law. Her public profile grew after the financial crisis of 2008 as she made very forceful stances in favor of strong banking regulations. She ran for President in 2020 and was briefly considered a front-runner for the nomination. 

#44 Chairwoman of Policy and Communication Committee Debbie Stabenow

Party: Democrat Home State: Michigan Assumed Office: January 3, 2001 @SenStabenow 136K followers

Stabenow became Michigan’s first female Senator after she defeated incumbent Republican Spencer Abraham. Before her victory, she served in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Michigan’s 8th congressional district. She chaired the Senate Agriculture Committee from 2011 to 2015 and became Chair of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee in 2017.

#43 Assistant Democratic Leader Patty Murray

Party: Democrat Home State: Washington Assumed Office: January 3, 1993, Twitter: @PattyMurray 467K followers

Murray is a retired educator who has been serving in the U.S. Senate for almost 30 years and is Washington’s first female Senator. Her background in education includes teaching pre-school and community college. She is an advocate of environmental and education issues. She served one term in the Washington State Senate before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1993. She was re-elected four times and plans to run for a sixth term in 2022.

#42 Chief of Staff Ron Klain

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: January 20, 2021, Twitter @RonaldKlain 406K followers

Klain is currently serving under his third administration, where he was named Chief of Staff under Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden. He also worked as Obama’s Ebola Response Coordinator. When he worked in the Clinton White House, he oversaw judicial nominations and directed judicial selection efforts that got Ruth Bader Ginsberg confirmed to the Supreme Court.  

#41 Presidential Science Advisor and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Eric Lander.

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: June 2, 2021, Twitter:eric_lander 66.7K followers

Lander is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School, and a Rhodes Scholar. He co-chaired President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In 2004 TIME magazine named him as one of their 100 most influential people. In 2013 he was awarded the first Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, and in 2016, the Semantic Scholar A.I. program ranked him as #1 on its list of biomedical researchers. 

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#40 Administrator of the Small Business administration Isabel Guzman

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: March 17, 2021, Twitter: @IsabelCGuzman 4,929 followers

Guzman will be the 27th person to serve her position. Her responsibilities will include leading a workforce of over 9,000 SBA employees and administering the SBA’s portfolio of loans, investments, disaster assistance, contracting, and counseling. Additionally, she will implement critical financial relief for small businesses impacted by the pandemic through the economic disaster loan program, paycheck protection program, and additional support in the American Rescue Program.

#39 Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Dr. Cicilila Rouse

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: March 12, 2021, Twitter: @CeciliaERouse 22.3K followers

Rouse served in the National Economic Council under President Clinton and was one of President Obama’s economic advisors from 2009 to 2011. She is the Dean of Princeton’s School of Public International Affairs and the founding director of the University’s Education Research Section. She is a member of the National Academy of Education. Her primary research interests are in labor economics with a focus on the economics of education. 

#38 United States Ambassador to the United Nations Linda-Thomas Greenfield

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: February 25th, 2021 Twitter: @LindaT_G 199K followers

Greenfield’s 34-year Foreign Service career includes ambassadorship to Liberia (2008-2012) and foreign postings in Switzerland, Pakistan, Kenya, The Gambia, and Jamaica. In addition to the Bureau of Human Resources, she has worked with the Bureau of African Affairs. She served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, where she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary. 

#37 United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: March 21, 2021, Twitter: @AmbassadorTai 24.4K followers

She served as the chief trade counsel for the United States House Committee on Ways and Means. She served in the Trade Representative’s Office of General Counsel, where she worked on trade cases at the World Trade Organization, and she was named chief trade counsel in 2017. During her tenure on the Ways and Means Committee, she played a significant role in the House’s negotiations with the Trump administration with the United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement. The Associated Press called her a problem-solving-pragmatist on her trade policy.

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#36 Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines 

Party: Democrat Assumed Office:  January 21, 2021, Twitter: @WRLD46 133 followers

Daines has a lot of experience in National Security; during the Obama administration, she served as the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor from 2015 to 2017. During this time, she led the National Security Council Deputies Committee. From 2013 to 2015, Haines was Deputy Director of the CIA and the first woman to hold both positions. Over the past 20 years, she has worked in all three branches of government. 

#35 Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Michael Regan

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: March 11, 2021, Twitter: Michael_S_Regan 27.1K followers

Regan is the first black man and the second person of color to lead the EPA. He is a resident of Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he developed a passion for the environment while hunting and fishing with his father and grandfather exploring the waters and coastal plains of North Carolina. Before he was named head of the EPA, Regan served as the Secretary of Environmental Quality. Under his leadership, he secured the largest coal ash cleanup in U.S. history. He also established North Carolina’s first Environmental Justice and Equity Board to better environmental protection and community empowerment.  

#34 Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: February 2, 2021, Twitter: @SecMayorkas 47.7K followers

Mayorkas is the first Latino to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security and has a 30-year career as a law enforcement official and a nationally recognized lawyer in the public sector. He served as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2016 and Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from 2009 to 2013. During his tenure there, he led the development of DACA, negotiated cybersecurity and homeland security agreements with foreign governments, led the department’s response to the Ebola outbreak, and developed an emergency relief program for orphaned children during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. 

#33 Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: February 9, 2021, Twitter: @DenisMcDonnough 42.4K followers

Secretary McDonough served as President Obama’s Chief of Staff; he managed the White House staff and worked across the cabinet to advance Obama’s agenda. McDonough confronted management issues facing the federal government, devised and enforced goals and performance standards to preserve the Obama-Biden administration’s ethical and practical operations criteria. Before being Chief of Staff, he served as Principal Deputy National Security Advisor, Chief of Staff of National Security Staff, and chaired the National Securities Council Deputies Committee.  

#32 Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: March 2, 2021, Twitter: @teachcardona 74K followers

Cardona is the previous Commissioner of Education in Connecticut, where he faced an unprecedented battle of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and safely reopening the State’s schools. He accomplished this by providing schools with guidelines and oversight to provide meaningful opportunities for students while prioritizing public health. He arranged for students to have access to technology to assist them with remote learning. His team also collaborated with Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence to provide free social and emotional learning courses.  

#31 Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: January 25, 2021, Twitter: @JenGranholm 165K followers

Granholm assists the DOE in helping Joe Biden reach his goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and advancing cutting-edge clean energy technologies, plus creating millions of decent-paying union clean energy jobs and building an equitable clean energy future. She also promotes American leadership in scientific discovery, maintaining the nuclear deterrent and reducing atomic danger, and remediating the environmental harm caused by legacy defense programs.   

 

#30 Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg

Party: Democrat Home State: Indiana Assumed Office: February 3, 2021, Twitter: @PeteButtigieg 3.4M followers

Before becoming Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg was a two-term mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He is also a graduate of Harvard, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Buttigieg has also served seven years in the U.S. Navy Reserve, taking a leave of absence for a deployment in Afghanistan. While he was Mayor, income grew, poverty fell, and unemployment got cut in half. His leadership sparked city-wide job growth and facilitated innovative public partnerships like Commuters Trust, a benefits program designed to improve the city’s transportation experience for workers. 

#29 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge

Party: Democrat Home State: Ohio Assumed Office: March 10th, 2021 Twitter: @RepMarciaFudge 54.1K followers

Throughout her career Secretary Fudge has worked hard to assist low-income families, seniors, and communities across the country. She represented Ohio in the House of Representatives from 2008 to 2021 and is the former Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. When she was Mayor of Warrensville Heights, she worked with local officials to protect citizens against predatory lending and addressed the city’s foreclosure crisis by forming a partnership that helped residents maintain the financial security needed to keep or buy a home.

#28 Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: March 19, 2021, Twitter: @XavierBecera 56.9K followers

Becerra is the 25th Secretary of Health and Human Services and the first Latino to hold the position and will work with Joe Biden to assure that every American has access to healthcare. He served over 20 years in the House of Representatives, and he was the ranking member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security and the Subcommittee of Health. He introduced the Medicare Savings Program Improvement Act of 2007 that expanded cost-sharing subsidies for low-income seniors on Medicare and Medicaid by increasing the resources they could receive.

#27 Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: March 23, 2021, Twitter: @SecMartyWalsh 15.2K followers

Before joining the Biden administration, Walsh was the 54th Mayor of Boston who was elected twice. Mayor Walsh significantly strengthened the city’s schools as he funded extended learning, added hundreds of pre-kindergarten seats, and secured tuition-free community college. Walsh also upgraded the city’s digital infrastructure and used technology to transform government services. At the same time, he created opportunities for low-income workers such as the “learn and earn” apprenticeship program of financial empowerment. His administration significantly addressed housing as he set records for affordable middle-class homes. He built a state-of-the-art homeless shelter putting the city on the right path to ending homelessness. 

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#26 Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: March 3, 2021, Twitter: @SecRaimondo 16.3K followers

Gina Raimondo is the 40th U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and her goal is to spur good-paying jobs, empower entrepreneurs to grow, and help American workers and businesses compete. She is the first female Governor of Rhode Island, where she served two terms. While she was Governor, she made record investments in the State’s infrastructure. She also fought hard to create economic opportunities for all Rhode Islanders. Early in her administration, she launched a workforce development program that develops pro-business partnerships to address challenges in the workplace. 

#25 Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: February 24, 2021Twitter: @SecVilsack 26.9K followers

Vilsack served as the 30th Secretary of Agriculture under the Obama administration. He worked hard to strengthen the American Agriculture economy, built vibrant economies, and created markets for innovation in Rural America. He also invested heavily in rural infrastructure and renewable energy. Under his leadership, the USDA supported farmers who drove America’s rural economy forward and supplied a safe, nutritious food supply for the American people. The USDA also provided healthier school meals to benefit 50 million children. 

#24 Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland

Party: Democrat Home State: New Mexico Twitter: @DebHaalandNM 293K followers

Deb Haaland is the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary. She comes from a military family. Her father served 30 years in the U.S. military and was awarded the Silver Star for saving six of his fellow soldiers in Vietnam. She ran her enterprise selling and producing Pueblo Salsa; she has served as a tribal administrator at San Felipe Pueblo and became the first woman elected to the Laguna Development Corporation Board of Directors. She oversees business operations, the second largest tribal gaming enterprise in New Mexico. She is one of the first Native American women to serve in congress, and she focuses largely on environmental justice and climate change.

#23 Budget Committee Chairman Senator Bernie Sanders

Party: Democrat Home State: Vermont Assumed Office: January 3, 2007, Twitter: @BernieSanders 15.2M followers

Senator Sanders has had a very long and consistent career in Washington. He has served as Vermont’s congressional representative from 1991 to 2006, and he has been one of the State’s Senators since 2007. He has been an advocate for Medicare for All, Free College, raising taxes on the rich, and campaign finance reform for the duration of his long career. His bold policy stance has won him the respect of millions of younger voters all over the country, and his policy ideas were able to move the Overton window to the left, helping birth groups like Justice Democrats and Our Revolution.  

#22 Attorney General Merrick Garland

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: March 11, 2021

Garland is the 86th Attorney General of the United States; he was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Obama in 2016 but was blocked from serving on the court in an unprecedented move by Mitch McConnell for 293 and was never able to serve as a Supreme Court Justice. The seat was filled by Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by President Trump in 2017. Garland was nominated for his current position by President Biden in January of 2021 and was confirmed by a 70 to 30 vote two months later.

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#21 Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: January 22, 2021, Twitter: @SecDef 339K followers

Austin has a 41-year career in the Army, including command at the corps, division battalion, and brigade levels. He was awarded the Silver Star for his leadership in the Army’s Third Infantry Division during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has also battled ISIS in Iraq and Syria and retired from the Army in April of 2016. Since retirement, he serves on the Board of Directors of Raytheon Technologies. 

#20 Secretary of the Treasury Dr. Janet Yellen

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: January 26, 2021, Twitter: @SecYellen 289K followers

The former economist took office after almost 50 years working in academics; Yellen is the first person in U.S. history to have led the White House Council of Economic Advisors, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department. She graduated from Brown University in 1967 and was an assistant professor at Harvard until 1976, when she began working at the Federal Reserve Board. Three years after President Clinton appointed her to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, he named her Chair of the White House of Economic Advisors. She has since served as Vice-Chair and Chair of the Federal Reserve under the Obama administration. 

#19 Senator Kyrsten Sinema

Party: Democrat Home State: Arizona Assumed Office: January 3, 2019, Twitter: @kyrstensinema 163K followers

Sinema began her career working with the Arizona Green Party and rose to prominence for her LGBT rights activism and opposition to the war on terror. She left the Green Party in 2004 and joined the Arizona Democratic Party, where she got elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012. She is a member of the blue dog coalition and the bipartisan problem solvers caucus as she holds one of the more right-wing voting records compared to her fellow Democrats. She and Joe Manchin are two of the eight Democrats who opposed the $15/hour minimum wage bill this winter. 

#18 Senator Joe Manchin

Party: Democrat Home State: West Virginia Assumed Office: November 15, 2010, Twitter: @Sen_JoeManchin 269K followers

Joe Manchin is one of the most influential people in the Senate because he can sway the deadlocked Senate to either pass a bill Joe Biden wants to sign via reconciliation or watch it die before it can even reach Biden’s desk. Manchin has since expressed he does not want to get rid of or reform the filibuster, meaning that it will require 60 votes to pass a bill Biden would like to sign into law rather than 51. This process would require reconciliation, something Manchin opposes.

#17 Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

Party: Democrat Assumed Office: January 26, 2021, Twitter: @SecBlinken 694K followers

Blinken is currently serving as the 71st Secretary of State under President Biden; he served as deputy national security advisor and deputy secretary of State under the Obama administration. During the Clinton years, he served in the state department and senior positions in the National Security Council. He also supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He also helped the Obama administration with their Afghanistan policy and dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. 

#16 President Pro-Tempore Patrick Leahy 

Party: Democrat Home State: Vermont Assumed Office: January 3, 1975, Twitter:@SenatorLeahy 230K followers

Senator Leahy previously served as the Pro-Tempore from 2012 to 2015 and is the last of the Senate’s Watergate Babies” who were the first Democrats elected to congress following Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Leahy is also the longest-serving U.S. Senator and the first Democratic Senator from Vermont. He is the former Chairman of the Agriculture and Judiciary Committees. Leahy is a longtime supporter of the NAACP and a big proponent of affirmative action. He has called for a moratorium on the death penalty and more DNA testing for death row inmates. He believes the role of prisons should be to rehabilitate rather than punish first-time offenders. 

#15 Congressman Gary Palmer 

Party: Republican Home State: Alabama Assumed Office: January 3, 2015, Twitter: @USRepGaryPalmer 21.3K followers

Palmer Heads the Conference Forum for Policy Development, and he represents Alabama’s sixth largest congressional district. The district includes the wealthier parts of Birmingham, as well as most of the city’s suburbs. He has also co-founded and served as President of the Alabama Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank. He is a member of the Freedom Caucus, and since 2019, he has been the Chairman of the Republican Party Committee. 

#14 Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik 

Party: Republican Home State: New York Assumed Office: January 3, 2015, Twitter: @RepStefanik 223K followers

Stefanik is the third-ranking House Republican after the party ousted Liz Cheney from leadership earlier this spring. She was elected to congress in 2014 at the age of 30 and is the youngest woman ever elected to congress. She was initially elected as a moderate but has moved further to the right over time and has become a strong supporter of Donald Trump, defending him during his first impeachment trial. She also supported the former President following his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and objected to Pennsylvania’s electoral college votes following the insurrection at the Capital.

#13 Minority Whip Steve Scalise

Party: Republican Home State: Louisiana Assumed Office: May 3, 2008, Twitter: @SteveScalise 461K followers

Scalise is a strong opponent of gun control, and he boasts an A+ rating from the NRA, although he was shot during a baseball practice saying he is still a gun-rights supporter. He also supported Donald Trump’s ban on citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. Scalise also opposes legalizing marijuana claiming that it is a gateway drug. 

#12 Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy

Party: Republican Home State: California Assumed Office: January 3, 2007, Twitter: @GOPLeader 1.2M followers

McCarthy is the current minority House Leader and served as the Majority House leader from 2014 to 2019. He also serves as Chairman of California Young Republicans and Young Republican National Federation. He is a staunch defender of Donald Trump and refused to concede the election claiming fraud and took part in the efforts to overturn the results. McCarthy is a massive proponent of the second amendment and opposes all gun restrictions. 

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#11 Republican Whip John Thune

Party: Republican Home State: South Dakota Assumed Office: January 3, 2005, Twitter: @SenJohnThune 111K followers

Thune has worked in politics and civic organizations since he completed his MBA degree. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives for South Dakota from 1997 to 2003. Thune served as the Chief Deputy Whip from 2007 to 2009 and as Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee from 2009 to 2012. He holds the third-ranking position in the Senate.

#10 Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin 

Party: Democrat Home State: Illinois Assumed Office: January 3, 1997, Twitter: @SenatorDurbin 726K followers

Senator Durbin is one of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate and is second to only Chuck Schumer. He has held the position of Majority Whip since 2005 and chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. Durbin is also the dean of Illinois’s congressional delegates. Durbin has supported overturning Citizens United, and he has helped introduce the Voter Empowerment Act to modernize and inform every voter.

#9 Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries

Party: Democrat Home State: New York Assumed Office: January 3, 2013, Twitter: @RepJeffries 407K followers

Jeffries is a former attorney who has worked for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, then Viacom and CBS before being elected to the New York State Assembly from 2007 to 2012, representing the states 57th district. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2013 and had been chairing the House Democratic Caucus since 2019, representing a district that covers eastern Brooklyn and southwest Queens. 

#8 Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark

Party: Democrat Home State: Massachusetts Assumed Office: December 12, 2013, Twitter: @RepKClark 90.2K followers

Clark is a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 2008 to 2011 and the Massachusetts Senate from 2011 to 2013. She won a special election in 2013, which earned her a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as she succeeded now-Senator Ed Markey, and she sits on the House Appropriations Committee. She is the fourth-ranking member in the House leadership

#7 House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn

Party: Democrat Home State: South Carolina Assumed Office: January 3, 1993, Twitter: @WhipClyburn 149K followers

Clyburn is a two-time majority whip, with his current term beginning in 2019 and his first term lasting from 2007 to 2011. He is the third-ranking House Democrat behind Pelosi and Hoyer and serves as the Dean of South Carolina’s congressional delegation. Clyburn’s endorsement of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign helped turn the race on its head after Biden had three embarrassing losses to begin the race. Biden then won South Carolina and later Super Tuesday by massive numbers putting him in the driver’s seat for the nomination.  

#6 Majority House Leader Steny Hoyer

Party: Democrat Home State: Maryland Assumed Office: May 19, 1981, Twitter: @LeaderHoyer 157K followers

Since 2003 Hoyer has been the second-ranking House Democrat behind Nancy Pelosi. Hoyer is currently serving his second time serving as House Majority Leader, with his first stint running from 2007 to 2011. He has also served as Minority Whip under Pelosi twice from 2003 to 2007 and 2011 to 2019.

#5 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell 

Party: Republican Home State: Kentucky Assumed Office: January 3, 1985, Twitter: @LeaderMcConnell 2M followers

McConnell said Republicans had not given up hope for a bipartisan infrastructure bill when talks concluded earlier this week with fellow Republicans. The proposal is expected to cost around $900 billion, but the group has yet to lock in a top-line figure. There is also widespread skepticism that the proposal will reach the required 60-vote threshold required for it to pass. Democrats want to pass it using reconciliation, allowing them to bypass the 60 vote filibuster using only 51 votes. 

#4 Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer

Party: Democrat Home State: New York Assumed Office: January 3, 1999, Twitter: @SenSchumer 3.2M followers

Schumer does not support Medicare for All and says that all efforts should be directed towards improving Obamacare to make healthcare more affordable and accessible to all Americans. Schumer also believes in passing stronger gun laws to protect our citizens. He also considers himself to be pro-choice as is in favor of protecting planned parenthood’s budget. He also opposes the death penalty, saying that it is expensive, outdated, and doesn’t benefit society.

#3 Speaker Nancy Pelosi     

Party: Democrat Home State: California Assumed Office: June 2, 1987, Twitter: @SpeakerPelosi 7.1M followers

Pelosi is a strong voting rights advocate; she has supported the “For the People Act,” which has election reforms such as making election day a national holiday. She believes that we need more gun control laws in this country, including stricter background checks to make it harder for criminals to obtain a firearm. 

#2 Vice President Kamala Harris

Party: Democrat Home State: California Assumed Office: January 20, 2021, Twitter: @KamalaHarris 18.5M followers

When on the campaign trail during the Democratic Primary, Harris said she favored a middle-class tax cut, raised taxes on corporations, and advocated for increasing the estate tax. Harris has also voiced support for codifying Roe v. Wade because she believes reproductive rights are constitutional rights and supports federal funding for planned parenthood. Harris cast a tie-breaking vote for the Covid Stimulus bill that was passed in February of 2021. In her first international trip as Vice President visiting Guatemala and Mexico in an attempt to address the causes of increased migration from South and Central America to the United States, she warned migrants that they should not make the trip. 

#1 President Joe Biden

Party: Democrat Home State: Delaware Assumed Office: January 20, 2021, Twitter: @JoeBiden 30.5M followers

Since becoming President this January, President Biden was able to pass the covid stimulus bill that provided $1,400 checks to millions of Americans in need. He also reversed many of Trump’s policies, such as his transgender military ban, and brought the U.S. back into the Paris Climate Agreement. He has also exceeded his goal of vaccinating 100 million people in his first 100 days, as we have seen over 200 million in that period. Under the Biden/Harris administration, the Federal Government has currently spent $4.8 trillion. Two-thirds of those expenses must go to programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and $1.9 trillion of that has gone to the Covid Stimulus bill. 

 

The War in Afghanistan, a withdrawal 20 years later

Posted on by Ben Scheffer

 

After the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States began the war on terror in October of 2001 when President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan. The mission was to kill and capture Osama Bin Laden and to defeat the Taliban. 20 years later Bin Laden has been dead for a decade and the Taliban have only increased their presence in Afghanistan. This April, President Joe Biden announced that the United States will completely withdraw from Afghanistan on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. In that time support for the war has plunged. After two decades of endless war spread across four different administrations, why are we pulling out so late?

What has been going on in Afghanistan?

In December of 2019 the Afghanistan Papers were released and in them were several Government documents detailing that US Officials were lying about the war in Afghanistan. The documents were collected in several hundred interviews by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. (SIGAR) In the documents collected they show U.S. officials making optimistic pronouncements that they knew were false and they hid evidence detailing that the war was unwinnable. Three Star Army General Douglas Lute said “We were devoid of any fundamental understanding of Afganistan, we had no idea what we were doing.” Since 2001, the United States has deployed more than 775,000 troops to Afghanistan, we have seen 2,300 die and 20,589 combat troops have been wounded. In addition to the US service members lost there have also been over 100,000 civilian casualties in Afghanistan and a $2.4 trillion price tag as a massive consequence of 20 years of endless war.

The interviews also detail how during the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations their military commanders were unable to prevail in Afghanistan. US officials acknowledged that their fighting strategies were heinously flawed and Washington had wasted enormous amounts of money trying to rebuild Afghanistan into a modern nation. The documents published contradicted public statements made by Presidents and US Military commanders who assured the American people year after year that progress was being made and it was a war worth fighting. Several of those who were interviewed detailed that the US government had been deliberately lying about the war in Afghanistan. They said that it was common at not only the US military headquarters in Kubal, but the White House to distort statistics to make it look like America was winning the war when they knew it was not the case. “Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible.” Colonel Bob Crowly said. Secretary of Defense David Rumsfeld wrote a memo six months into the war stating “We are never going to get out of Afghanistan unless we take care to see that something is going on that will provide the stability that will be necessary for us to leave. Help.” he wrote.

How is this similar to Vietnam?

Much like the Pentagon Papers that were released in 1971 detailing the government’s deceit with the war in Vietnam, the Afghanistan papers are doing a very similar thing today. The initial goal of invading Afghanistan was to retaliate for the 9/11 attacks. As the war went on the goals and overall mission kept changing. Some U.S. officials wanted to turn Afghanistan into a democracy, some people wanted to transform its culture and elevate women’s rights, and others wanted to reshape the regional balance of power between Iran, Russia, and Pakistan. U.S. military commanders struggled to comprehend who they were fighting, was it al-Qaeda or the Taliban? What are they supposed to do about the Islamic State or other jihadists? As a result of the confusion, the US could not tell who their allies and enemies were. In September of 2003, Rumsfeld wrote “I have no visibility who the bad guys are. We are woefully deficient in human intelligence.”

No matter whose administration was in charge whether it be Bush, Obama, or Trump they all failed to avoid the trap of “nation-building” in Afghanistan. US officials tried to set up a democratic government in Kabul from scratch which would prove to be a foreign concept to the Afghan people. The biggest similarity between Vietnam and Afghanistan would be public manipulation on the part of U.S. military officials. No matter how the war was going, even if it was going badly those in charge would emphasize how they are making progress. For example in October of 2006 Rumsfeld’s speechwriters delivered a paper titled “Afghanistan: Five Years Later” it highlighted 50 promising facts and figures as to why the US should feel optimistic about the war. Despite the stunning lack of progress on the battlefield, U.S. generals have all reported that the war was progressing well. Major General Jeffery Schloesser told reporters that “we were making some steady progress” despite the fact U.S. commanders were asking for more troops to be deployed to cope with a rising number of Taliban fighters.

During the Vietnam War, U.S. military commanders relied on statistics such as body counts or enemy fighters killed in action and inflated the measurements of success. During the Obama years, there was consistent pressure from the White House and the Pentagon to produce figures to show the troop surge from 2009 to 2011 was working despite evidence to the contrary. A senior NSC official stated that it was impossible to create good metrics, none of them were accurate, and that they were always manipulated for the duration of the war. When casualty counts looked bad the White House and the Pentagon would have suicide bombings spun to look like a sign of desperation, and rising US troop deaths were cited as evidence that American troops were fighting a successful fight. The senior NSC official said, “this would go on for two reasons to make everyone involved look good, and to make it look like the troops were having the desired effect where removing them would cause the country to deteriorate.” During two decades worth of fighting, it didn’t matter how bad the conditions on the ground were, they claimed they were making progress no matter what.

How did the military-industrial complex play a role in the war?

Even though the Pentagon has thrown away $2 trillion of taxpayer money when they were well aware that the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable is due to the influence of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about in his 1961 farewell address. Six decades after Eisenhower left office the military-industrial complex is thriving like never before as defense contractor profits are incentivized over much more necessary things we could spend $2 trillion on such as infrastructure spending, ending homelessness, and combating climate change. The notorious “revolving door” that ushers Pentagon officials into defense industry jobs, as well as defense-industry figures into key positions at the Pentagon, helps add to the endless nightmare of our forever wars. The people the media look to for expertise on our foreign policy are paid shills of the defense industry who will tell us that we must keep the war going. In 2008 The New York Times revealed that the Pentagon had launched a program recruiting 150 retired military officers turned pundits to speak favorably about the war in Iraq. Seeing this play out on the networks the public just assumed that the former military officials were speaking their minds. The former military officials never disclosed that they had financial ties to more than 150 Pentagon contractors. Given their glaring financial interests they can’t remain objective as they try to secure as many jobs for their colleagues and humanly possible.

This obvious conflict of interest is designed to help steer the public debate to the side of the arms industry who has made a staggering $398 billion in just 2017 alone. The United States is home to five of the world’s ten biggest defense contractors, those same companies account for 57 percent of the world’s total arms sales. The biggest profiteer of that would be the Maryland-based Lockhead Martin who has made an astounding $44.9 billion in arms sales in 2017. That same company received plenty of public scrutinies when a bomb it sold to Saudi Arabia was dropped on a school bus killing 40 children and 11 adults as they commit genocide in Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Lockheed’s total revenue it collects from the government is more than the IRS and the EPA combined. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that 11 of the top 20 world defense contractors are based in the United States who have combined over $368 trillion in arms sales and made more than $30 billion in profits. Given these jaw-dropping financial figures, it is easy to see why the United States spends more money on its military than the next 10 countries combined.

The way all of this works is the weapons systems produced by all of the big defense firms that feature retired generals and congressional representatives sitting on their boards come in overpriced and are delivered behind schedule while failing to have the abilities advertised.  The reason for this is because every administration struggles with budgets and how to balance development efforts with risks of inflated budgets and schedules. Contractors will also struggle for months evaluating proposals to verify financial assumptions. Contractors will also underestimate development costs due to performance in contracts exceeding 10 years, these programs are expected to grow but the government doesn’t plan ahead for these changes. An example of this would be Ford’s aircraft carriers produced by Huntington Ingalls Industries has been stifled by problems that have totaled a costly $13 billion. Another example would be Lockhead Martin’s F-35 fighter jet which carries a price tag of more than $100 million per aircraft while having one of the worst rates of combat readiness while being the most expensive program in Pentagon history. Despite all of this no one is held accountable for all of these problematic failures. One crucial reason for the lack of accountability is the elected officials who sit on these committees accept a lot of campaign contributions from the defense industry and just like the Pentagon, members of those committees go on to become lobbyists for those same federal contractors.

With this in mind, the defense industry will spread their contracts to produce weapons into as many states as possible, this practice of political engineering is used to buy as many politicians from both parties as they possibly can. The Pentagon will also spend just as much money on “services” as they do on the weaponry itself. For example, the F-35 program is estimated to cost $1.5 trillion, and $1 trillion of that is going to be spent on maintenance alone. This means that the defense contractors can hold the Pentagon hostage for the lifetime of the weaponry.

A recent example of this would be from a company called TransDigm, a company that purchases other companies so they can provide spare parts for weapons systems. This gives them the power to increase their prices without fear of losing business where they once received a 2,400 percent increase in excess profits for a half-inch metal pin. An investigation by the House Oversight and Reform Committee found that employees had been told to resist providing cost or pricing information to the government so fewer overcharges would be challenged. In one case a subsidiary of TransDigm failed to provide such information until the government was desperate for parts for weapons to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan was forced to capitulate for fear of the lives of US service members. TransDigm would later repay $16 million to the government but only after a hearing by the House Oversight and Reform Committee shamed the company into doing so. The worst part is that TransDigm’s behavior is common amongst doing business with the government and they share this practice with about 20 other industry players. For far too long Congress has not held the defense industry accountable, rather they continue to vote for bigger and bigger military budgets throughout the years despite two decades of losing wars and mismanagement of weapons programs.

How has Afghanistan’s opium production affected US presence in the country?

Opium production is at an all-time high in Afghanistan even though the US has spent $7.5 billion attempting to combat it. Opium cultivation in Afghanistan covers up to 516,230 acres of land and has seen a 36 percent increase since 2012. During this time narcotics use in Afghanistan has spiked. In a country with 32 million people, about 1.3 million people in Afghanistan are regular drug users compared to 1 million in 2009, and opium users grew from 130,000 to 230,000 from 2005 to 2009. Three-quarters of the world’s opium production occurs in Afghanistan where poppy seed cultivation happens almost entirely in the country’s southern and western provinces. Those areas are home to Kandahar and Helmand which is the bulk of where the US deployed their forces in a 2010-2012 troop surge.

In 2013 Afghan forces seized 41,000kg of opium while Afghans produced 5.5 million kilograms of it. The overall operation has been down 17 percent since 2011, whereas opium seizures are down 57 percent and heroin seizures are down 77 percent. Much of the country’s drug trafficking is inaccessible due to the Afghan forces being funded by the US. The reason for this is because drug labs, storage sights, and trafficking networks are located in rural areas that are off-limits to Afghan forces due to the International Security Assistance Force drawdown within these areas. While eradication did account for a large part of the US counter-narcotics strategy in the mid-2000s, the US has shifted away from it since they concluded that crop destruction drove those farmers into the hands of the Taliban. The Obama administration had the US military implore Afghan farmers to grow grapes, pomegranate, and wheat as an alternative. The state department still funds the Afghan drug eradication effort. In 2013 the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics reported the destruction of 18,031 acres of poppy fields which barely cover 3 percent of the cultivated opium fields. The eradication effort has left the areas of high poppy concentration intact. The explosion in Afghanistan’s opium production has been unaffected by the $7.5 billion used to combat it since 2002. With all of that money being spent unsuccessfully trying to combat Afghanistan’s opium production on top of how much we’ve spent there on just the war itself, the United States cannot get out of Afghanistan fast enough.

Why are we leaving?

The Afghanistan war has been an objective failure when you look at the trillions of dollars we have spent fighting a war our intelligence officials have admitted they had no idea how to fight or who to fight against. The Taliban now controls 52 percent of the land in Afghanistan which is more than what they controlled since 2001 when we first invaded, not to mention all of the lives we needlessly lost sending brave, young men and women overseas to fight and die in a war we knew could not be won, along with all of the civilian lives that were lost due to two decades of endless bombing from the United States.

In mid-April President Biden announced his plans to completely pull all US military forces out of Afghanistan by September 11th. The President concluded that there is no military solution for the problems in Afghanistan and that he will put the full weight of the US government to reach a peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government. This is all good news coming from a man who as a Senator voted to invade Afghanistan, loudly pushed for the illegal invasion of Iraq, and later oversaw the destruction of Libya while he was Vice President. We have a long way to go until September and we should remain cautiously optimistic until then due to the fact he did preside in an Administration that planned to pull out after 2014 but didn’t. However, if Joe Biden legitimately removes all US forces from Afghanistan, bringing an end to America’s longest war, it will be the greatest accomplishment a President has had in a very long time.

 

 

Understanding Generation Z (born 1995 and 2015) in Politics

Posted on by Arundhati Oommen

Generation Z currently comprises 10% of the American electorate and 4% of likely voters. Gen Z has grown up post-9/11 and has aged through the Trump Administration. This year, the stakes are even higher: with 2020 marked as a year of reckoning with racial unrest, rioting, and a global health crisis.

Generation Z has been widely hallowed as the most liberal generation of all time, but, in reality, much of Gen Z is opposed to the long-held “binary” choices given to the American electorate: that of the Democrat and Republican parties.

Gen Z is currently twice as likely to vote Biden – rather, its clear that they are voting against Trump, and not for Biden. Gen Z is looking for a candidate that encompasses a global perspective and shows foresight and quick actions into key issues that have been mounting for decades: climate change and racial inequality – neither of which is highlighted in the current presidential candidates. For these reasons, Gen Z is more hesitant to identify as part of the Democratic Party and some choose to vote independent which could be the sign of a rising tide towards the end of the two-party system. (Politico 2020 poll takeaways )

Crucially, younger voters historically have a habit of not showing up to the polls. But with the rising amount of youth-led activism with voter registration, may suggest that turnout may be higher this November. With nationwide protests and national reckoning sparked by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, young people can’t afford not to vote (Pew research center).

In terms of priority, the top issue for the majority of Gen Z voters is synchronous with older voters: 30 percent say is the most important and 20 percent say it’s healthcare. In regards to the economy, the majority said the country should move away from the current capitalist standard towards a more socialized economy (Politico 2020 poll takeaways).

While presently much of Gen Z is ineligible to vote this year, waves are starting to form and as more young people come of age and turn to the polls, there will be wide rippling changes for American politics as we know it.

 

The Democrats: Differences Between Biden and Harris

Posted on by Matt Di Sandro

Three months out from the presidential election, Democratic candidate Joe Biden chose California Senator Kamala Harris as his pick for Vice President. Considering their clash during the Democratic primary, their newfound unity sets a new tone between the two politicians. With a long track record in politics, both Democrats have been praised and criticized for their stances and how well they complement one another. But, so far, surveys such as the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll indicate that voters are happy with Harris’ addition to the Democratic ticket with a 39% of Americans with a positive rating and 35% with a negative rating.

Why Kamala Harris?

Before making his pick, Biden spent much of his campaign deciding between various potential running mates. Publicly promising that he would choose a female Vice President, many wonder what other criteria the Democratic candidate used to put Harris on the ticket.

The pick clearly shows that Biden is appealing to more left-leaning, radical democrats, as Kamala Harris was ranked as the most liberal senator in 2019. Additionally, sensing a lack of support from black voters and the unrest surrounding people’s resistance to perceived racial injustice, Biden likely chose Harris to energize and mobilize voters. Harris is the first black woman and the first Asian American to be included on the ticket of a major party. Biden’s campaign has not been idle in touting the historic milestones.

Compared to other options for Vice President, Kamala was, above all else, safe. Her main competition, Susan Rice, was a U.N. Ambassador. While picking Rice would have signaled Biden’s intention to strengthen his stance on foreign policy given her credentials, she had never run for elected office. In contrast, Harris has been elected in California as both attorney general and Senator. In addition, she had already been vetted in her presidential campaign and had proven herself to be formidable in the eye of the public. As polls demonstrated a lead against Trump, Biden had no reason to shake things up by choosing a running mate inexperienced in the electoral process.

Policy

Kamala Harris’ foreign policy preferences generally fall in line with Biden’s. Despite growing solidarity with Palestinians among the Democratic Party, both Biden and his running mate believe in aligning America’s interest with Israel. Outside the scope of the Middle East, the Democrats take a decidedly anti-Trump stance in advocating for decreased negotiations with North Korea and Russia. However, while much of Harris’ positions on foreign policy remain unspoken, Biden expands his goals to include narrow uses of force for counterterrorism objectives. He has also stated his reluctance towards unilateral action to effect change in foreign governments.

Both Biden and Kamala are in favor of affirmative action. As attorney general of California, Harris expressed her support for affirmative action during the Supreme Court case of Fisher v. University of Texas. The plaintiff sought to challenge affirmative action in the race-based admissions policies of the university. Despite California’s banning of affirmative action, Harris decided to defy voters in her state by filing legal papers in the Supreme Court case that supported race-based admissions criteria. In addition, she filed papers in 2013 that advocated for affirmative action at the University of Michigan. Biden also supports affirmative action as he openly used gender as a primary factor in choosing Harris. In addition, he promised to appoint the first female, black Supreme Court justice. Harris’ and Biden’s stance on affirmative action carries with it an unavoidable irony as the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas that the gender and race-based conditions that Biden promises to follow in his Supreme Court appointment are unconstitutional.

Watching the Democratic debate, it would seem that Biden and Harris disagree over gun control legislation. However, further investigation indicates that contention about gun legislation revolves around how to enact legislation, not the substance of regulations. Both Democrats support dramatically expanding background checks for potential gun owners. In addition, they both hope to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Biden and Harris diverge in the extent to which they would impose gun regulations given an uncooperative Congress. During her presidential campaign, Harris has stated that she would give Congress 100 days to pass gun control reform. If Congress refused, she promised to override their complacency with executive action. Biden retorted that such an act from the executive branch would be unconstitutional.

Both Democrats promise to prioritize action to address climate change. During the presidential campaign, Biden and Harris’ plans differed significantly in their costs. Biden proposed a $2 trillion plan while Harris advocated for a large-scale $10 trillion plan. Despite the difference in scope and cost, both remain committed to addressing environmental concerns.

Trade represents an area of disagreement between Biden and Harris. Initially, Kamala vocalized her support for free-trade policies. However, in practice, she has a protectionist record. She voted against the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a free-trade agreement between Mexico, Canada, and the US. She also stated that she would not have voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an agreement that preceded the USMCA. In contrast, Biden voted in favor of NAFTA and has declared his support for the USMCA. Thus, Biden and Harris stand opposed on the topic of free trade.

They are also divided on how to approach health care reform. Harris has demonstrated her support for a single-payer health care system in which universal health care would be financed by a public system. She has signed on to Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All Act and raised her hand during the Democratic debate when asked who would abolish employer-provided insurance in favor of a government-provided plan. She later attempted to walk back her position and propose a plan that would simply make Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans available to all. Biden does not want Medicare for All. In contrast to Harris’ fluctuating position on reform, Biden would simply like to expand health care access and choice by protecting the Affordable Care Act, health care reform put in place by the Obama administration. Despite their differences in policies, both Biden and Harris are committed to working towards universal access to health care.

In addition to areas of contention, Biden and Harris agree on many policy preferences. Both argue for stronger legislative protections for LGBT people. They are also both in favor of rolling back Trump’s immigration policies, reforming but not abolishing Immigration and Customs Services (ICE), and protecting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Harris and Biden oppose the death penalty. Finally, both advocate for reversing the tax rates imposed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which lowered the top marginal individual income tax bracket to 37%.

Moving Forward

The differences between Biden and Harris’ policy preferences demonstrate that a Biden administration would be mostly united on Democratic approaches to policy. However, their disagreements highlight the fact that Harris holds more radical liberal views than any other democrat, surprisingly more than Bernie Sanders. That is, her positions are more left-leaning and she is far more willing to bypass constitutional regulations or democratic processes to further her agenda.

As the rift between moderate Democrats and radical leftists grows, Biden hopes to unify his base. Kamala provides a running mate choice that illustrates support for far left policies without having to compromise on his own moderate platform. However, if a Biden administration becomes a reality, we will see whether Harris affects policy in practice.