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u.s. house of representatives
House Progressives Say Adieu and Thanks to 'Incomparable' Barbara Lee
"This country—and the world—owe you a great debt, Congresswoman," said the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Jan 03, 2025
With colleagues applauding her "courage and tenacity," longtime U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee retired from Congress on Thursday, ending a career during which she was both praised and vilified for voting according to her convictions, and looking ahead to another potential leadership position in her home state of California.
The 78-year-old Democrat, who represents the state's 12th District in the East Bay, left office nine months after losing the U.S. Senate primary to Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who was sworn in last month and replaced the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
She was elected to the House for her first term in 1998, and just three years later, during her second term, cast the vote that made her a hero to many progressives and peace advocates.
Days after the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked on September 11, 2001, Lee was the lone member of Congress to vote against the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)—a 60-word bill that gave the president the authority to use any and all "necessary and appropriate force" against any enemy, without congressional approval.
Twenty years after the vote, Lee wrote in the Los Angeles Times that it was "the most difficult vote" she ever cast.
"But I knew the last thing the country needed was to rush into war after 9/11, or ever, without proper deliberation by the people—represented by Congress—as the Constitution intended," she wrote.
"As I forge ahead, I wish you a bright future, always remembering it is our young people who deserve to inherit a clean planet and a peaceful world."
The vote led to death threats against the congresswoman, but as the Associated Pressreported, she spent the rest of her career in the House watching as many of her views came "to be respected, accepted, and even emulated."
In 2021, Lee sponsored legislation to repeal the 2002 AUMF, which she also voted against and which green-lit President George W. Bush's plan to invade Iraq.
The repeal legislation passed in the House in a vote of 268-161 and gathered 130 cosponsors, with a similar bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate.
"If you really believe that this is the right thing for the country, for your district, for the world, then you have to do it, and be damned everything else," Lee told the AP in a recent interview, reflecting on her vote in September 2001.
Lee also garnered support in 2007 for a bill she introduced to prevent the permanent stationing of U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq and U.S. economic control of oil resources there; that legislation also passed the House, with 77 lawmakers signing on as cosponsors.
"Congress will not be the same without the incomparable Barbara Lee," the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which Lee co-chaired from 2005-09, said Friday. "This country—and the world—owe you a great debt, Congresswoman. Thank you for your bold progressive leadership, unwavering moral clarity, and profound contributions over three decades of public service."
Lee's life in public service began when she volunteered as a community worker for the Black Panther Party. There she met Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to be elected to Congress, who became her mentor. Lee worked on Chisholm's 1972 presidential campaign and later worked on Capitol Hill before running for office.
Lee co-founded and co-chaired the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus with Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and consistently pushed to reduce Pentagon spending and invest in healthcare, housing, and other public services.
In addition to her support for limiting U.S. military action and spending, Lee was an early critic of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used for abortion services—for example, through Medicaid—and called the law "blatant discrimination against poor women." Her position has become common among Democrats in recent years, with then presidential candidate Joe Biden reversing his support for the Hyde Amendment during the 2020 election.
Addressing her constituents in Oakland, Lee said on Thursday, "Together, as America’s most diverse community, we have raised our voices and pushed the envelope for peace, justice and equity."
"I have, and will continue to, fight for working families, the middle class, low-income, and poor people," she added. "As I forge ahead, I wish you a bright future, always remembering it is our young people who deserve to inherit a clean planet and a peaceful world. Listen to them, for they speak with clarity and deserve our support."
An open letter published last month urged Lee to run for mayor of the San Francisco Bay Area city.
"We know that to solve Oakland's problems and unlock its powerful potential, it is going to take a unique combination of courage and proven experience," read the letter. "Barbara Lee embodies that."
Lee said she plans to announce her intentions for her post-Congress career in early January.
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After Trump and Musk's Attempt to Sink Deal, House Votes to Avert Government Shutdown
The final spending bill, also approved by the Senate, includes long-awaited disaster relief and excludes Trump's last-minute request to raise the debt ceiling.
Dec 21, 2024
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill 366-34 on Friday night to continuing funding the government, averting the shutdown that loomed after Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump sank a bipartisan spending agreement earlier in the week.
The Senate then approved the continuing resolution 85-11 early Saturday, which will keep the government funded at current levels through March 14. It also included the disaster relief and aid to farmers that were central pieces of the original bipartisan legislation and excluded Trump's last-minute demand to raise the debt ceiling.
However, it was significantly smaller than the original bill—slashed from 1,500 to 118 pages—and the cuts included healthcare expansion for older Americans, a plan to lower prescription drug prices, and an apprenticeship program for young people.
"The precedent that has been set today in Congress should upset every American who believes in our democratic form of government."
"Tonight, in a victory for the American people and a loss for Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the House passed legislation to keep the government open, provide $100 billion in critical disaster relief to communities across America, and fund $10 billion in aid for struggling farmers and ranchers," outgoing Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash) said in a statement.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also celebrated the averted shutdown.
"We stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government and crashing the economy," he wrote on Bluesky. "The American people have won this round. Far-right billionaires have lost. The struggle continues in the new year."
The bill's passage capped a whirlwind few days in the U.S. House after Musk—the richest man in the world whom Trump has appointed to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency—spent all of Wednesday tweeting against the original spending package released by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday. After Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance joined Musk's crusade against the bill, Johnson refrained from bringing it to the floor.
Instead, he attempted to pass another bill on Thursday that would have raised the debt limit through 2027, in accordance with Trump's request. That bill was voted down 174-235, with only two Democrats voting in favor and 38 Republicans rejecting it. Johnson then briefly considered passing individual bills Friday morning before introducing the proposal that finally passed with the support of 170 Republicans and every Democrat except Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who voted present.
"We forced President-elect Trump and Shadow President Elon Musk to back down from the 11th-hour demand to pass a suspension of the debt ceiling, a move that would have paved the way for a Trump Tax Scam 2.0 that would once again send trillions of dollars to the billionaires and giant corporations while cutting Social Security and Medicare for working people and poor people to pay for those tax cuts to the wealthiest," Jayapal said. "Democrats forced Republicans to back down and, when we enter a Republican trifecta, it will be on Republicans to deliver all the votes for such a scam. Democrats won’t bail them out—on that or any of their policies that cater to the wealthiest in America at the expense of working people and struggling Americans."
The passage of the disaster aid was celebrated by more than 50 storm and fire survivors who had sent a delegation to Congress last week to share their stories and demand that Congress fully fund recovery efforts, as federal dollars for relief have been delayed by over two years.
"We commend Republicans and Democrats for prioritizing disaster aid—this is how it should be," said Amanda Devecka-Rinear, co-founder of an organization of Superstorm Sandy survivors. "But the maneuvering we just witnessed, including an unelected billionaire holding disaster aid hostage via the social media platform that he owns, once again underscores how precarious the reality is for disaster survivors in America. And we will continue to stand together to get our communities home and whole."
While Devecka-Rinear said the funding "represents a significant step forward," she added that it was "not the finish line."
"Stopgap measures like this cannot continue to be the norm," she said. "We need a disaster recovery system that families can successfully navigate. Survivors deserve reliable, sustainable, and permanent funding."
Zoe Middleton, the associate director for just climate resilience for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, also called for a permanent disaster-relief solution.
"Communities need and deserve robustly funded recovery programs to get back on their feet in the weeks and months following a disaster," Middleton said in a statement. "Allowing funding for short-term relief to run dry and making communities wait on long-term recovery assistance can push families into debt or leave them homeless and can also cause lasting economic scars on local economies."
She continued: "People across the country are losing their homes and livelihoods to the climate crisis while fossil fuel companies continue to rake in profits. In addition to passing this short-term, stopgap funding, Congress should invest in measures that prepare climate-vulnerable communities for disasters before they strike and permanently authorize Community Development Block Grants to ensure people aren't forced into desperate straits after they've experienced the worst."
The bill's passage also sets the stage for the coming year, in which Republicans will control the presidency, House, and Senate—foreshadowing future fights and revealing the extent of Musk's influence over the future president and Republican lawmakers.
During closed-door negotiations, Republican House members on Friday shared a slide showing a draft agreement to swap $2.5 trillion in spending cuts for a $1.5 trillion debt-ceiling increase next year. Cuts could target essential programs including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and federal nutrition assistance.
"Republicans are already taking cues from Elon Musk and his DOGE commission and clearing the deck to ram through giant tax giveaways for the ultra-wealthy," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens said in a statement. "Their plans for the new year are crystal clear: Cut trillions from Social Security, Medicare, and other critical programs to pay for their own massive tax cuts."
Jayapal said that Democrats would need "spines of steel to oppose all of the ways in which Republicans inflict cruelty on America's working people and poor people who are still struggling to get by and deserve so much more."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who voted against the continuing resolution, lamented key provisions that had been cut from the spending bill after Musk and Trump's opposition. These included measures to expand primary healthcare, mental healthcare, substance abuse counseling, and nutrition programs for older Americans; boost vocational training for 100,000 young people; and attempt to regulate Pharmacy Benefit Managers, who inflate prescription drug costs.
"These important proposals, negotiated by Democrats and Republicans for months and agreed to by both sides of the aisle, were stripped from this bill by an unelected billionaire named Elon Musk," Sanders said. "Musk, the richest person on Earth, threatened to use his fortune to unseat any member of Congress who would have voted for the original bipartisan legislation."
Sanders concluded: "The precedent that has been set today in Congress should upset every American who believes in our democratic form of government. It appears that from now on no major legislation can be passed without the approval of the wealthiest person in this country. That's not democracy, that's oligarchy."
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If Musk Blocking a Key Spending Bill Isn’t Oligarchy, I Don’t Know What Is
You may not get access to services you depend on just before the holidays because an unelected billionaire shadow president wanted it that way.
Dec 19, 2024
If the government shuts down Saturday, Elon Musk will be largely to blame.
Musk went on a daylong rampage yesterday against the continuing resolution drafted by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his leadership team to keep the government going.
Musk posted nearly nonstop on his social media platform X about how lawmakers must kill it. “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Musk wrote in one post.
We’re getting a preview of what the next four years will look like—dysfunction in D.C. that will make your life worse, driven by a petulant billionaire with an unquenchable thirst for wealth and power.
Musk—the richest person in the world—was joined in his posting spree by another billionaire, Vivek Ramaswamy, whom President-elect Donald Trump asked to partner with Musk in an effort to slash government spending and reduce the federal budget deficit.
Republicans gauging support for the legislation said they were bleeding votes as a result of Musk’s barrage.
Then, after Musk spent the day telling Republicans not to support the bill, Trump weighed in against it, too. That put the bill on life support.
If this isn’t oligarchy, I don’t know what is.
You may not get access to services you depend on just before the holidays because an unelected billionaire shadow president wanted it that way.
Funding for essentials will be jeopardized—disaster relief, clean water protections, food safety inspections, cancer research, and nutrition programs for children.
Federal workers like air traffic controllers will be required to work without pay just as air travel is about to pick up.
The same goes for members of our military.
Musk effectively blocked a government spending bill by mobilizing his 205 million followers on X and then using his influence on Trump—influence he bought by spending more than $270 million getting Trump elected.
Yet Musk’s concern about the federal deficit seems to disappear whenever Trump and MAGA Republicans talk about passing tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit billionaires like Musk. Tax cuts, I might add, that will balloon the deficit by nearly $5 trillion.
We’re getting a preview of what the next four years will look like—dysfunction in D.C. that will make your life worse, driven by a petulant billionaire with an unquenchable thirst for wealth and power.
A billionaire wielding his influence over the rest of us proves we are in a Second Gilded Age.
But there may be a silver lining to this Gilded Age cloud. The lesson of the First Gilded Age is that when concentrated wealth, corruption, and ensuing hardship for average working Americans become so blatant that they offend the values of the majority of us, we rise up and demand real, systemic change.
It’s only a matter of time. A government shutdown that hurts average working people, engineered by the richest person in the world, might just hasten it.
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