{"id":10145,"date":"2025-06-11T09:01:51","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/kweisi-mfume-is-pitching-an-old-school-approach-to-one-of-house-democrats-highest-profile-jobs\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T09:01:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:01:51","slug":"kweisi-mfume-is-pitching-an-old-school-approach-to-one-of-house-democrats-highest-profile-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/kweisi-mfume-is-pitching-an-old-school-approach-to-one-of-house-democrats-highest-profile-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Kweisi Mfume is pitching an old-school approach to one of House Democrats\u2019 highest-profile jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Frustrated by Democrats’ seniority system, Kweisi Mfume fled the House three decades ago, saying he could do more to advance civil rights from the outside. Now he\u2019s back and trying to reap the benefits of seniority at a moment when many in his party are starting to openly question it.<\/p>\n

The Baltimore native last month surprised many House colleagues by entering the wide-open race to lead Democrats on the high-profile Oversight Committee, seeking to fill the spot vacated by the sudden death of Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly.<\/p>\n

Into the void jumped a pair of young, ambitious members \u2014 Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Robert Garcia of California \u2014 as well as a close Connolly ally, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts. And then there\u2019s Mfume, who at 76 is making no bones about this being the capstone of a long career that included stints leading the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP \u2014 jobs he took back in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

\"NAACP<\/p>\n

\u201cI started a long time ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth,\u201d Mfume joked in an interview, before describing his old-school approach to legislative relations: \u201cThe first thing you learn is how to count votes, which has never failed me yet,\u201d he said, adding that he would be careful not to alienate colleagues \u201cby doing something that causes problems for them in their district.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than detail a point-by-point agenda for taking on President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, Mfume said if elected he\u2019d convene the committee\u2019s Democrats to decide a course of action. The party, he said, can only move forward with a \u201cconsensus.\u201d<\/p>\n

That style stands in sharp contrast to a Democratic base that\u2019s itching for more aggressive leadership and a more visible fight with Trump \u2014 something the other candidates are clearly heeding: Garcia has tangled with the Justice Department over his criticism of Elon Musk; Crockett has broached the prospect of a Trump impeachment inquiry; and Lynch, as the panel\u2019s interim top Democrat, attempted last week to subpoena Musk during a panel hearing.<\/p>\n

The race also threatens to become a proxy fight for broader questions about age and seniority inside the Democratic Party. House Democrats ousted several aging committee leaders at the end of last Congress as they girded for a fight with the Trump administration \u2014 and many in the base were disappointed when Connolly triumphed over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.<\/p>\n

\"Rep.<\/p>\n

The winner is poised to lead efforts to investigate and thwart the Trump administration if Democrats can retake the House majority next year \u2014 and ride herd on a chaotic panel that in recent months has featured intense personal attacks between lawmakers and the display of nude photos.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a street fight every day,\u201d said Rep. Lateefah Simon of California when asked about the panel and what it takes to lead it. \u201cIt’s every single day being able to expose the hypocrisy of this administration and to tell the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a time when Mfume would have been a natural choice for such a moment. First elected to Baltimore\u2019s City Council at the age of 30, he quickly butted heads with legendary Mayor William Donald Schaefer. After longtime Rep. Parren Mitchell retired, Mfume easily won the seat in 1986 and within a few years become a national figure<\/a> due to his chairmanship of the CBC.<\/p>\n

Ascending to that role just as Bill Clinton was elected to the presidency, he became an important power broker, forcing key concessions in Clinton\u2019s 1993 budget and pushing the White House to restore ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. He also clashed with Clinton at times, including over his decision to pull the nomination of prominent Black legal scholar Lani Guinier to a top Justice Department post.<\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

But after Democrats lost their House majority in 1994 \u2014 and Mfume lost a quixotic bid to enter the party leadership \u2014 he decided two years later to forgo a long climb up the seniority ladder. He instead took the helm at the Baltimore-based NAACP, a job thought to better harness his skills at organizing and oratory.<\/p>\n

Former Maryland state Sen. Jill Carter said Mfume has long had the \u201cit factor\u201d and \u201ccharisma\u201d that matters in politics. When Carter ran against Mfume in his 2020 House comeback bid, she got a reminder of how well her rival was known in the district and beyond: \u201cWhen some of my people did exit polling, they got the response, \u2018Oh, we love Jill but, come on, this is Kweisi.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s less clear is whether Mfume\u2019s reputation in Baltimore, burnished over 45 years in the public eye, makes him the man for the moment as far as his contemporary House colleagues are concerned. He\u2019s not known as a partisan brawler, and he said in the interview he doesn\u2019t intend to become one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are always going to be fights and disagreements,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s kind of escalated in the last few years to a level that we haven’t seen before. I think the main thing is to moderate and to manage the disagreements, because you’re not going to cause any of them to go away. How you manage them and how they are perceived by the overall public is what makes a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kwiesi<\/p>\n

Mfume is leaning heavily, in fact, on the style and reputation of the man who filled the 7th District seat for the 24 years in between his House stints \u2014 the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, who served as top Democrat and then chair of Oversight during Trump\u2019s first term and is still spoken of in reverent terms inside the caucus.<\/p>\n

Mfume concedes that Cummings might have been the better communicator \u2014 he \u201chad a little more preacher in him than I do\u201d \u2014 but said they share a similar lofty approach to politics. Like Cummings, he suggested prescription drug prices might be a committee priority.<\/p>\n

What Mfume is unlikely to have is the official support of the Congressional Black Caucus, a powerful force in intracaucus politics. With two members in the race \u2014 Crockett also belongs \u2014 Mfume said he does not expect a formal CBC endorsement after an interview process Wednesday. But he still expected to draw support from the bloc \u2014 especially its more senior members.<\/p>\n

Other factors complicate Mfume\u2019s candidacy. One is age: He is a year older than Connolly was when he was elected to lead Oversight Democrats last year. For those who prize seniority, Lynch has actually spent more time on the panel. And his 2004 departure from the NAACP was marred by controversy: The Baltimore Sun reported<\/a> the executive committee of the group voted not to extend his contract under threat of a sexual harassment lawsuit; the NAACP later paid the woman who complained a $100,000 settlement.<\/p>\n

Mfume strenuously denied any wrongdoing, but while the episode has not emerged as a major issue in the Oversight race, some Democrats have privately expressed reservations about elevating a leader with personal baggage to potentially lead investigations of Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s never been one person to corroborate that one allegation \u2014 not one,\u201d Mfume said. About the payment, he said, \u201cI found out about it, quite frankly, after it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rep.<\/p>\n

Much of the Democratic Caucus remains undecided ahead of the June 24 secret-ballot vote. Candidates will first go before Democrats\u2019 Steering and Policy Committee, which will make a recommendation to the full caucus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that you have a situation where Mfume and Steve Lynch are getting support from folks who put seniority at top, and maybe the other two candidates would probably lean toward members who are newer, and then you got a whole host of folks that’s in the middle. And I think that’s where the battle is to see where they fall,\u201d said Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.).<\/p>\n

One younger member said he was swayed by Mfume\u2019s experience. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is 48 and had weighed his own bid, said that while other candidates were compelling, the Baltimorean had a \u201cleg up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKweisi shows me pictures of him with Nelson Mandela,\u201d he said. \u201cI was like, I’m not going to run against Nelson Mandela’s best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frustrated by Democrats’ seniority system, Kweisi Mfume fled the House three decades ago, saying he could do more to advance civil rights from the outside. Now he\u2019s back and trying to reap the benefits of seniority at a moment when many in his party are starting to openly question it. The Baltimore native last month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}