Fudge fumbles again in local judicial endorsement process

Congresswoman's endorsements carrying less and less weight

Almost two years ago to the day, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge attempted an “ill-conceived and ineptly concealed private maneuver” to shape the outcome of the local Democratic Party judicial endorsement process. The botched effort to secure endorsements for two black women candidates, which we reported on here, brought to the surface the uneasy racial tensions that infects so much of local Democratic politics.

But if you thought the Congresswoman would be deterred from long distance interference, you were sadly mistaken. Last month she endorsed five candidates for county judgeships.

Despite there being several competent black women candidates, including two sitting municipal court judges, all five candidates Fudge chose to endorse are white.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge chairing hearing on
voting rights at Cuyahoga Community College
on April 25, 2019

Not a single one of the Congresswoman’s choices won the endorsement of the party’s Executive Committee.

What does this mean? For starters, it says that Fudge, who has represented Ohio’s storied 11^th District since 2008, wields astonishingly little influence within party ranks. Her choices gain little benefit from her announced support, and those who run against her candidates do so without political cost.

Our highest ranking elected official is essentially impotent when it comes to advancing our political interests.

This is a disastrous state of affairs for the black community. The political weakness of our Congressperson may not be apparent if one looks only at the election returns every two years. But after this year’s Census, Congressional districts will be expanded and redrawn, and there are lots of factors at play that could mean that the 11^th District seat may no longer continue as a safe preserve of black representation.

Signs of discontent are beginning to emerge within the District over the current state of affairs. The Cleveland NAACP recently joined forces with two political action groups to organize the Unified Endorsement/Ratings Process [UERP]. The three groups plan to vet candidates based on specific criteria of special import to the black community. Judicial candidates will be examined, for example, for their understanding of cultural competency, their appreciation of implicit bias, and their commitment to systemic reform.

The focus this year will be on judicial candidates, expanding over time to include legislative and executive races on local, county, state and national levels. The process launches this week with interviews scheduled for tonight and tomorrow from 5p-9p at the Harvard Community Center, 18240 Harvard Ave. [44128].

This initiative arose out of concerns that the judge4yourself.com process, while well-regarded, nonetheless had some flaws best addressed by this new process. A representative of GPAC, which is comprised largely of activists and clergy, and is a NAACP partner in the UERP process, says its work will complement, not displace, judge4yourself.

The third partner in this new effort, FIINPAC [Formerly Incarcerated Individuals Necessary Political Action Committee], has distinguished itself in years past with some productive voter registration efforts.

A unique feature of the UERP process is that while the NAACP will limit itself to rating candidates, FIINPAC and GPAC intend to endorse candidates and to extend campaign support to those it endorses.

Signs of Clergy Unrest

A more ominous indication that Congresswoman Fudge could be out of step with her constituency arose yesterday when she appeared at the weekly meeting of United Pastors in Mission. UPM, originally formed as an association of young activist pastors, has now matured into a collective of some political sophistication, with regular programming that has become part of the bipartisan campaign circuit for state and local public officials.

Fudge was there to tout her slate of judicial candidates but got pushback from several clergy members on at least two counts. Attendees wanted to know why she did not endorse Joy Kennedy, a well-qualified black attorney, for Domestic Relations judge. Fudge’s answer seemed to indicate surprise that Kennedy had remained in the race.

More problematic for Fudge by far was her avowed support for Gabriella Rosalina, whose father, Basil Russo, gained local renown as a ward leader and city councilman representing Little Italy, eventually rising to majority leader. before becoming a judge, first in Common Pleas, and then the Court of Appeals. Along the way, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor 1979.

Russo has long been a formidable ballot name county wide. Basil’s brother is chief judge of Probate Court. But another brother, Frank, tarnished the family name when he resigned as County Auditor in 2010 after pleading guilty as a ringleader in the county corruption scandal.

Basil has been pulling out all the stops to get his daughter the nomination, making contributions and pledges of financial support left and right, along with calling in old political favors. Some combination of these efforts was apparently enough to win Fudge’s support, along with that of 14 out of 17 Cleveland city councilmen.

Candidate Rosalina, however, has an undistinguished record as an attorney and is clearly uncomfortable on the campaign trail. She was the proverbial doe in headlights when seeking the party’s endorsement last month, which went to her opponent, Lisa Forbes, by such a surprisingly wide margin that Basil reportedly felt double-crossed.

The sense that Rosalina is an inferior candidate and that Forbes handily won the party endorsement led some UPM members to question Fudge’s game plan.

Part of the Congresswoman’s problem is the absence of any discernible criteria for what it takes to win her blessing.

An opaque process, resulting in an announcement of support without an accompanying rationale, followed by the proffer of zero resources beyond perhaps a played out radio commercial, and no consequence for ignoring or contravening the endorsement, have reduced a once-prized 11^th District endorsement to little more than a trinket.

The extreme political weakness of the black community has been developing for several years. As we head to Black History Month we’ll talk about why that is and what the future may hold.

# # ## # #

CPT • Black Political Unrest playing out in Cuyahoga Democratic Party

 Cuyahoga Politics Today

Cuyahoga Democrats: Change is Blowing in the Wind

Endorsement process is tip of iceberg of roiling black political energy

​It’s impossible to talk about politics in Greater Cleveland without talking about black politics.

That fact makes some folk uncomfortable for different reasons. People want to believe in the Kumbaya stick image that our homogenizing culture has made of Martin King. They like to cite his Dream while omitting the realities he gave his last full measure of devotion trying to change: a dominant military-capitalist system that crushed poor people and people of color.

Fifty years later society celebrates a sanitized version of King’s legacy that omits how he was cursed, vilified, asaulted, spied upon by his own government, and thrown in jail with regularity, just for trying to make this country a more just and humane place to live and work. When King came to Cleveland to support the 1967 Stokes campaign, Democratic Party chairman and county engineer Albert Porter sent out letters saying that a Stokes victory meant turning the city over to Martin King, the tone of his message implying that rape and pillage would soon follow.

King was one of a trio of now celebrated black men hated for their fearless and sacrificial stance on behalf of their community and thereby on behalf of the larger society. Muhammad Ali was another towering black figure who came to prominence in the civil rights era. His livelihood was taken away and all manner of hatred hurled at him for his humble, courageous and principled stand for his religious beliefs. He died in 2016 as perhaps the most recognized and beloved global citizen of his time.

Last year in Cleveland, establishment institutions went all in on the golden anniversary of Carl Stokes’ election as the first black mayor of a major US city. It seems little time was spent on how far we have and have not come in addressing our community’s continuing racial and class inequities. Carl and his widely respected brother Lou — the beloved Congressman aka “the Distinguished Gentleman” are today remembered for their accomplishments, as if the demons they wrestled against were vanquished.

The reality is quite different. Echoes of their struggles resound nationally in the rollback of voting rights; the outright perfidy of gerrymandering in North Carolina, Ohio and elsewhere; the open racism, crudity and unchristian behavior of this ersatz evangelical Administration bent on destroying the fundamentals of our democracy. Echoes of Ali’s struggles can be scene in the honest protest of Colin Kaepernick, who is reviled and unemployed for daring to speak out against police brutality and injustice.

Here in Cleveland, an examination of Stokes’ legacy would include fighting his own Democratic Party for respect and a fair deal. It would involve remembering how and why the Twenty-First Congressional District Caucus was formed, and how it became a transcendant force for empowerment.

When I remember Carl Stokes I like to recall his love for black people, his self-confidence, his willingness to go into hostile territory and stand on his qualifications to serve. I remember the respect he had for the profession of politics and the disdain he had for political pretenders. I loved that he always kept his eyes on the prize of fair and equitable power distribution.

I wish that today we had more African American professional politicians in our community who were, like the Stokes boys, rooted in our community and focused on their role as public servants. They understood that the leadership followed the service.

Each of these distingushed gentlemen — King, Ali, Carl, Lou — was guided in their professional pursuits by principle, purpose, passion and preparation. These were key elements in their ability to excel in their chosen fields.

Politics Today

For the past couple of days we have been writing to peel back some of the mystery of local politics, to provide some insight into the how and why some names appear on the ballot and some don’t. To give some understanding about the inner workings of the endorsement process.

One of the things we have noticed in our close up look at the local Democratic Party is how much is changing even as so much remains unchanged.

What has changed? Too often, black candidates are reluctant to campaign across their entire jurisdictions. They self-segregate themselves.

I just paused writing this and went searching for a passage in Carl Stokes’ magnificent book, Promises of Power: Then and Now. I re-read Chapter 3, “How to Get Elected by White People”. It’s unbelievable how his account of his campaign for the state legislature in 1960 remains a blueprint for any candidate of color seeking countywide office today. As I look at what’s happening in the local Democratic Party today, I think Karrie Howard may be the only black person running countywide this year whose campaign has internalized that chapter.

Perhaps that’s why Howard pulled the stunning feat of securing the backing of Parma’s rank-and-file political leaders even in the face of the Mason-Fudge alignment.

My political gut tells me that a huge shakeup in county politics may be on the horizon. Lou Stokes and the Congressional District Caucus were part of a strong black political tradition that connected ordinary black men and women to their political representatives. That tradition waned over the years, and when the Hon. Marcia L. Fudge took over from Lou’s successor, — the beloved Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who died suddenly in 2008 — Fudge effectively dissolved the Caucus, almost the last thread connecting the people to the process. In some cases the thread seems to have been replaced by ministerial mercenaries.

Fudge of late has been generously endorsing candidates, including two judicial aspirants — Deborah Monique Turner and Andrea Nelson Moore — who are longshots to garner the financial resources necessary — generally ballparked at $100,000 — to run successfully countywide. She is also backing Jeff Johnson in his campaign against incumbent State Sen. Sandra Williams, which most observers think is payback for Williams’ challenge to Fudge protégé Shontel Brown, to become Party chair. Fudge won that battle — which may be tied to her deal with Bill Mason — but is upset that Williams did not back down.

It is intriguing to consider what, if anything, this would-be Empress of Black Politics will be wearing if she leaves tomorrow’s executive committee meeting with none of her publicized candidates able to secure an endorsement.

-->

# # #

Unity and Class Issues in the Black Community, Part II

Properly understood, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was one of the most democratic episodes in American political history. There was no script written by some great playwright in the sky, handed out in communities across the country. There was no universally acknowledged director, no head of central casting, and no formal audition process. The relationships between leaders and followers were often fluid.

Compared to earlier socio-political movements — the Abolitionist, Women’s Suffrage, Labor — the civil rights movement was considerably more organic, decentralized, communal, and emergent. Much of its strength, brilliance, and resilience came from a shared set of ideals and a growing belief in the possibility of change.

It is fair to say that during the movement there was a more dynamic symbiotic relationship between whoever was leading at the moment and the masses of black people and their allies. It was often messy and it certainly wasn’t perfect; nonetheless there seemed to be a widely shared understanding that followers were as important as leaders.

A major consequence of the civil rights era was an opening of the political sphere to broader participation by black people as both voters and consequently as elected officials. In the aftermath of Movement success, the number of black elected officials holders has increased from fewer than 1500 in 1970 nationwide to more than 10,500 today.  There are about eighty African American elected public officials in Cuyahoga County alone today, and possibly a few hundred in the State as a whole.

What is less clear is how this apparent political power has operated to advance the community in whose name it has been sought and wielded. Some observers argue that black political leadership is by and large disconnected from the community. It is no longer axiomatic, if it ever was, that black political leaders are of, from and for the people.

Compounding the analysis is a series of demographic and geographic changes that no longer concentrate a vast majority of African Americans within a single political boundary. Does it make a difference to be a black elected official when ten or twenty or fifty or eighty percent of your constituency is nonblack? What impact has this had on the fact that poor Americans of all colors and stripes have been virtually dropped from the political discussion?

• • •

Mini-pieces: Reflections on Cleveland black leadership, etc.

This is a day for Real Deal mini-pieces.

1.   Blogging daily Sunday through Friday is more than a notion. Phone calls, reading, research, getting out & about, piecing things together — in short, doing the work of reporting before the actual writing, can skew your senses. Which is why in Wednesday’s column, when I meant to say that I would be talking about state house redistricting the day after tomorrow, i.e. Friday, I wrote "Thursday".  I realized my error a couple of hours after I published Part II. With blog technology, I could have just changed Thursday to Friday but I knew that some of you would come back today expecting what isn’t here, go back and double-check Wednesday’s promise and say, "hmmm." So you have this long-winded apologia in the name of, all together now: transparency.

2.   Our discussion of black political leadership has obviously touched a sore spot with many of our readers. We know this from the volume of off-line emails and the phone calls we are receiving.  This public conversation would certainly be more invigorating if more of the comments were placed on site instead of emailed to me. Just so you know, I will never quote an email writer by name, but I am growing more inclined to post some of your comments. My takeaway from many of the comments is that many people resent the notion that any three unelected persons could be posited as speaking for such a widely diverse community. People are glad that The Real Deal is willing to call out the PD and Brent Larkin for a horrible piece — somebody has to do it, you say — but unwilling or unable themselves to get down and dirty about it.

3.  One thing I can say about Messrs. Stokes, Forbes, and Pinkney is that they understand power and are not afraid to use it when it suits their purposes. The mostly private debates center on how often, how well, how wisely they have exercised power on the community’s behalf.

4.  With respect to former Cleveland City Council president [1974-1989], current satrap of the Call & Post and current NAACP president Forbes [1992-way too long], much of the discussion centers on the abuse of that power. I went off to college in 1963, the year Forbes was first elected to public office, so he has been a constant presence on the Cleveland scene my entire adult life. He has become a fixture on the local landscape much like one of the obsolete manufacturing plants that dot many Cleveland neighborhoods. You remember when they belched smoke and soot during your childhood. Today they remain as monuments to a different era, their windows boarded, the doors rotting, the premises littered with broken bottles and mountains of trash, amid the weeds. They will not go away by themselves and many cannot be retrofitted.

5.  In my Cleveland, George and Arnold and Lou are as much one-name icons as the player who took his talents to South Beach. They are actually quite personable and charming when they want to be. But charming is not what is needed these days. As one of my correspondents wrote me at 0430 today, “Keep in mind what is really important. Not this notion of who is the leader but what can we do [to] address the sorry socioeconomic state of affairs and hopelessness of many everyday black folks.”

Another reader asked rhetorically why the triumvirate would want to proclaim their leadership over the black community, given its current socioeconomic and cultural state. Either they weren’t leaders or they failed, he said.

6.  During my travels around the community over the years I have had several informal encounters with George Forbes. He has said things that are real windows into his worldview. For example, simple arithmetic led to his accumulation of power at City Hall. He knew as long as held eastside black councilmen together he needed only one white vote to hold the reins of power. A primitive and cold calculus to be sure, but realpolitik in late-twentieth century Cleveland.

7.   Many black people are very fond of quoting the Frederick Douglass, perhaps the first and certainly one of the most exemplary national African American leaders. In an 1857 speech, Douglass said:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

    The Douglass quote was obviously pre-Civil War and applicable to the struggles for emancipation. During the civil rights era it was a rallying cry for collective action against the tyranny of Jim Crow, de facto segregation, and all sorts of invidious discrimination, much of which continues to this day.

      Forbes understands the first sentence of the Douglass quote. But insofar as Greater Cleveland’s black community, however defined, resents the implications of Larkin’s statement about their leadership, they should consider themselves the subject of Douglass’s third and fourth sentences, and respond appropriately.

• • •

The entire Douglass speech is worth a read. Find it here.