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Are the Justice Democrats Gaining Ground in Congress?
They are getting elected, but are they making any legislative headway?
In 2020, longtime New York Representative and Democratic Party stalwart Rep. Eliot Engel lost his seat to a challenger. His colleagues in Congress, and most especially his fellow Representatives on the prestigious House Foreign Affairs Committee, were sad to say goodbye to the incumbent Congressman.
He was well-liked for his willingness to work across the aisle, and for his dedication to his constituents. He was well-known for his support of the Jewish community, and for Israel.
That it wasn’t a Republican opponent who defeated former-Rep. Eliot Engel in New York, but a fellow Democrat, made his ouster all the more noteworthy.
Recently elected Rep. Jamaal Bowman, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez before him, was backed by the political action group, the Justice Democrats, in 2020. Like Ocasio-Cortez, he unseated a veritable titan in the Democratic Party.
Engel’s defeat left a sizable hole in the upper echelons of Democratic leadership. Engel had painstakingly leveraged his many years in Congress into good professional relationships with his colleagues, bipartisan legislation, and assignments to all the best committees. Rep. Bowman, whatever his progressive bonafides and success as…