The rise of a pro­gres­sive move­ment in Con­gress, over the last twen­ty years, is an under­re­port­ed sto­ry in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. At Net­roots Nation, the country’s largest gath­er­ing of like-mind­ed pro­gres­sives, the mes­sage Sat­ur­day in Chica­go was to redou­ble the effort even if such goals as uni­ver­sal health care and gun safe­ty and fil­i­buster reform have so far proven elusive.

“We as pro­gres­sives are expand­ing the realm of what’s pos­si­ble,” said new­ly elect­ed Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sum­mer Lee, D‑Pennsylvania, who won in a Pitts­burgh dis­trict despite pro-Israel PACs spend­ing mil­lions of dol­lars to block her.

A bevy of pro­gres­sive law­mak­ers deliv­ered a two-front chal­lenge to their par­ty: Democ­rats should orga­nize to resist ultra MAGA Repub­li­can forces, but also work to broad­en the party’s con­stituen­cy. Inte­gral is rejec­tion of “neo-lib­er­al trick­le down pol­i­tics,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal, D‑Washington, chair of the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Caucus.

Both Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­t­ic admin­is­tra­tion have an “oli­garchy” in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., she added, “where pow­er is exer­cised by money.”

The Democ­rats have spent far too much time court­ing afflu­ent, upper mid­dle class, col­lege-edu­cat­ed vot­ers while, in Jayapal’s view, ignor­ing nat­ur­al con­stituen­cies which don’t always show up to vote. Said Jaya­pal:: “It is our great base of poor peo­ple, black and brown, Indige­nous vot­ers, immi­grants, young peo­ple who won’t swing Repub­li­can but will swing right out to the couch if we don’t work to bring them in, win their trust and their votes.”

Jaya­pal, who rep­re­sents Wash­ing­ton’s 7th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, spoke on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, after a pan­el of four of her col­leagues. Jaya­pal then par­tic­i­pat­ed in a pan­el with Jesús “Chuy” Gar­cía, Jan Schakowsky, and Markos Moulit­sas. (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

As for the ultra MAGA forces, Jaya­pal said: “Today we are fac­ing down a vio­lent move­ment of fas­cism that aims to destroy insti­tu­tions in the name of a strongman.”

But blunt talk was not just direct­ed at Don­ald Trump. The sec­ond posi­tion in Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial polls is held by Flori­da Gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis, pro­mul­ga­tor of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and oppo­nent of diver­si­ty and inclu­sive­ness pro­grams in his state’s schools.

“I come from a state run by a ______ (exple­tive) fas­cist,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Maxwell Frost, D‑Florida, at twen­ty-sev­en the first “Gen­er­a­tion Z” mem­ber of the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Frost came to Con­gress after work in the March for Our Lives move­ment, orga­nized in the wake of the Mar­jorie Stone­man Dou­glas High School mas­sacre which killed sev­en­teen stu­dents and administrators.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D‑Illinois, called out Repub­li­cans for refus­ing to allow a House floor vote on gun safe­ty leg­is­la­tion, even as the coun­try aver­ages more than one mass shoot­ing per day (the lat­est, in Geor­gia, saw four peo­ple killed). Just five Repub­li­cans, along with the 213 Democ­rats„ are need­ed to sign a dis­charge peti­tion in the 435-mem­ber House of Representatives.

None have come for­ward to do so.

“They are chicken___ (exple­tive): They are afraid to go against the par­ty,” said Schakowsky, sym­bol­ic of changes that have come over Con­gress. She also not­ed near-unan­i­mous Repub­li­can sup­port for an anti-abor­tion amend­ment as House mem­bers vot­ed on the defense autho­riza­tion bill.

Schakowsky rep­re­sents a Chica­go dis­trict once held by Demo­c­ra­t­ic insid­er and lat­er Chica­go May­or Rahm Emanuel.

Such blunt and pow­er­ful talk has not always been enough for some in the Net­roots Nation audi­ence. In 2015, at Las Vegas, Black Lives Mat­ter demon­stra­tors dis­rupt­ed a pres­i­den­tial forum just as Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders was talk­ing about high rates of youth unem­ploy­ment among African Americans.

In Chica­go on Sat­ur­day, pan­el mod­er­a­tor, Net­roots Nation board mem­ber, and rap­per Reg­gie Hub­bard gave a shout out not only to Ukraini­ans but also to what he described as the oppressed of the Holy Land. “We need peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced occu­pa­tion, not only but Pales­tin­ian peo­ple who have now expe­ri­enced occu­pa­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion for sev­en­ty-live years.”

It wasn’t enough for some in the audience.

A pan­el of House mem­bers was dis­rupt­ed with flags and chants of “Israel is a racist state.” Schakowsky, who is Jew­ish, tried to calm the protest. “I am your ally… Know your allies,” she said. “I am absolute­ly opposed to the kind of vio­lence against the Pales­tini­ans that is hap­pen­ing right now.”

Jaya­pal deliv­ered a remark sure to be con­tro­ver­sial back home in Seattle.

“I want to make it clear,” she said. “We have been fight­ing to make it clear Israel is a racist state, that the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple deserve self-deter­mi­na­tion and auton­o­my, that a two-state solu­tion is slip­ping away from us that it does not even feel possible.”

Hub­bard came back onstage to admon­ish the protesters.

“This ain’t progress, y’all,” said he. “We all need to respect the First Amend­ment but we need to respect one another.”

Half of the Democ­rats’ two hun­dred and thir­teen-mem­ber House con­tin­gent now belong to the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus. They have helped shape the agen­da of the Biden-Har­ris administration.

Mod­er­a­tor Markos Moulit­sas, founder and pro­pri­etor of the pop­u­lar Dai­ly Kos com­mu­ni­ty, asked Jaya­pal: “What have you done to whip that cau­cus into shape?”

She deliv­ered a les­son in real politic. Push the debate, push the com­pro­mise in your direc­tion, and sign off when you achieve some­thing sub­stan­tive. She cit­ed the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act, with its enor­mous invest­ment in clean ener­gy. . “We don’t have to win every fight,” sad Jaya­pal. “Some­times the fight (itself) is worth­while.” Adding: “We’re always pro­gres­sive, and we want more.”

Jaya­pal has put togeth­er a $4.5 mil­lion PAC to sup­port pro­gres­sive can­di­dates and fend off chal­lengers. The out­spo­ken Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ilhan Omar, D‑Minnesota, bare­ly with­stood a pri­ma­ry chal­lenge in 2022 and was recent­ly stripped of her seat on the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee by the Repub­li­can Majority.

Jaya­pal has a mixed record back home. She poured mon­ey into State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Beth Doglio’s cam­paign for a vacant 10th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict seat in 2020, only to see a less pro­gres­sive rival, Mar­i­lyn Strick­land, win the seat in a rout. Mean­while, a trio of “Bernie­crat” chal­lengers have tak­en on Jaya­pal’s col­leagues Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Adam Smith, Rick Larsen and Derek Kilmer, D‑Washington. None has been able to break 15 per­cent of the vote.

Still, the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus is a force to be reck­oned with, and obliv­i­ous to the old max­im that new­ly elect­ed mem­bers of Con­gress should keep qui­et and build senior­i­ty. “I did not run to wait,” said Frost, arguably the most charis­mat­ic of the new­ly elected.

Jaya­pal is serv­ing her fourth House term, and said Sat­ur­day that she intends to pass the torch of Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus lead­er­ship after the cur­rent Con­gress has adjourned for the last time. She will not seek to lead the CPC in the next Con­gress, but will assume the role of a wise advis­er and kibitzer.