The Supreme Court today ruled that President Trump is not immune from the law and could not block the release of his tax returns to state prosecutors who subpoenaed them. This is a fundamental victory for democracy but, practically speaking, one that will have little immediate impact. Not only did the Court rule in a separate case that Congress’s request for the same records must be re-examined by lower courts, it gave Trump’s lawyers a chance to negotiate further over the scope of what they must hand over to state prosecutors. There is very little chance that either case will be settled before the November election.
It didn’t have to be this way. Rep. Richard Neal (MA-1), the Democratic chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, dragged his heels for months and months on a subpoena of Trump’s tax returns; had he issued it right away, there’s a solid chance that it would have given Democrats a better shot of obtaining the tax returns.
Alex Morse, the uber-impressive progressive mayor of Holyoke who is challenging Neal in the September Democratic primary, made this point in explicit terms earlier today, excoriating Wall Street’s favorite member of Congress for sabotaging any hope of accountability.
“What good is Richie Neal’s power in Congress if even Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch are doing more work to hold Trump accountable than he is?”
Good question!
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According to The American Prospect, Neal held up the tax return subpoena to further the interests of his richest donors:
Investigative reporting by Prospect executive editor David Dayen revealed that Neal’s delay was connected to his efforts to gain support for a bill called the SECURE Act. The act allowed annuities access to 401(k) accounts, a key goal of many of Neal’s largest contributors in the insurance industry. Neal waited until April 3, a day after the bill had been safely reported out of committee with Republican support, to finally demand Trump’s taxes.
It’s not just about getting Trump — on just about every policy, Neal has proven to be a regressive waste of a safe seat.
Take healthcare, for instance. Neal not only refused to allow anyone to say “Medicare for All” at the first-ever hearing about Medicare for All, he sunk an amendment on a drug pricing bill that would have “both broadened the number of drugs that could be price negotiated and extended negotiated prices to the uninsured,” according to The Intercept. This past February, he killed a bill that would have prevented hospitals from hitting patients with surprise bills from out-of-network doctors. Unsurprisingly, Neal has received more than $500,000 from the pharmaceutical industry since 2007 and rakes in PAC money from the medical lobby.
Morse, on the other hand, is a proponent of Medicare for All. In a conversation I had with him for my newsletter in May, he slammed Neal in no uncertain terms for his actions during the coronavirus.
“This is the fundamental difference between the congressman and myself. Now 33 million Americans have lost their jobs, the majority of whom have now lost their health insurance. If this isn’t a window of opportunity to have a healthcare system that fundamentally believes healthcare is a human right, then there is no other time to do this,” Morse said. “And the fact is that Congressman Neal, as chair of the Ways and Means Committee, is instead pushing subsidies for the private healthcare industry, pushing to subsidize and give folks COBRA insurance, which is expensive and inaccessible, and just another gift to the private healthcare industry.”
Neal isn’t just useless, he’s an actual obstruction to progress and justice. We need to remove him from power ASAP and get a progressive champion like Morse in there ASAP.
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This is an excerpt from Thursday’s Progressives Everywhere newsletter — we publish twice a week for free! For more stories about state politics, progressive activism, great candidates to support on a local level, and crucial updates on policies that matter, subscribe here! Don’t worry, we won’t bombard your inbox!