Congressional Black Caucus Extends Membership Offer To Black Republicans

GOP Congressmen-elect Allen West (Fla.) and Tim Scott (S.C.), the party's first black House members since Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma retired in 2003, have been offered membership into the Congressional Black Caucus, a body currently made up solely of Democratic members.

"Membership in the Congressional Black Caucus has never been restricted to Democrats," the group said in an email to its members Tuesday, perhaps referring to Virgin Islands Delegate Melvin Evans and Rep. Gary Franks of Connecticut, two Republicans who once sat on the assembly. "Should either of the two African-American Republicans recently elected to the House of Representatives request membership in the Congressional Black Caucus they will be welcomed."

This clarifies a rather complex discussion that had revolved around the incoming class of legislators and whether or not their Tea Party platforms would be welcome in such a left-leaning delegation.

CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee recently explained the situation to the Economist, saying that they wouldn't determine membership based on party affiliation, but also expressing some skepticism as to whether black Republicans would embrace their "agenda," which she described as "lifting people out of poverty, providing middle-class tax cuts, supporting climate-change legislation."

Shortly after winning his election, West railed against "liberal progressives" -- many of whom might hold agenda concerns similar to the ones mentioned above -- and what he called their tendency to play the "race card."

"So I think that the -- the liberal progressives saw the strength of the grassroots movement that we call the Tea Party, which stands for 'taxed enough already' and they tried to turn against it," Rep.-elect Allen West (R-Fla.) told Fox News's Sean Hannity. "And the No.1 thing that you always try to do to silence an opponent in the United States of America is to call someone a racist."

Although they are distinctly different groups, such comments may be particularly divisive considering that the NAACP -- a group that West has called a "liberal racist enabler" -- decided to pursue an active investigation into supposed racist undertones in the Tea Party movement.

But that hasn't stopped West from announcing his intentions to join to CBC:

"I'm not gonna ask for permission or whatever," he said in an interview with Florida's WOR radio last week. "I think I meet all of the criteria and it's so important that we break down this 'monolithic voice' that continues to talk about victimization and dependency in the black community."

Tim Scott has not yet said whether he'll accept the CBC's olive branch.

Comments

[jayrag123]

07:40 PM on 11/15/2010

All Blacks at one time were Republicans including Martin Luther King jr. but times have changed.

The Republicans use to be a much different party they actually did many things to help Blacks. And the Dems actually did things to hurt Blacks.

I have a problem with Black people who blindly follow any Politician or Party..................Blacks should stop voting Democrat blindly and vote for people who want to improve things in the Black community.
What has Obama done to help Blacks since he's been elected? Nothing I can think of. What about Africa or Carribean or how's it going in Haiti?
The CBC says nothing and Blacks keep being ignored by Democrats................I'm so glad that Blacks didn't waste their time voting this election...........at least Blacks know where the Repubs stand on issues. Its the Democrats who say they are helping Black people but nothing ever changes.

[margoharris]

10:51 AM on 11/16/2010

MLK was never a republican. That is a lie that has been debunked along time ago.

[circlecitynews]

11:51 AM on 11/12/2010

I'm glad the CBC offered them membership. I do think their views are totally different but maybe they can find some common ground other then their skin color.

[TheFabOne]

10:41 AM on 11/10/2010

Welcome..........and let the beatdown commence!! LOL

[paulwl]

10:29 AM on 11/10/2010

1st of all, I'm a African American man, mid 50s, Liberal, 32+ years with the same employer and my IRA/investments ARE doing GREAT! And, I'm first generation college and live in rural east central Indiana(happily), inwhich my family income is in the top 2%. I would be ashamed to associate with either one of these bastards or Micheal Steele. Condi Rice and Colin Powell were(still are in my book) questionable, but these two would cause me to drop the African from African American in order to disassociate myself from such.....(you can fill in the rest). It seems the South has never recovered from the Civil War and WE must remember that there were Black overseers who were far more ruthless than members of the KKK. These angry, mean and nasty people are in Congress now to do what, show how ignorant people can fool stupid people to vote for them, because their 'Whiteness" did not give them what they thought was '"THEIR ADVANTAGE" for being white. They did not get cheerleaders but Lawn Jockeys holding a lamp, shows how race is no longer a factor when it comes to selecting leaders.
Just wait folks, we shall see more So. Carolina's Al Green type elected to public office. Unfortunately, the standard for the best of the best to be elected has been set by the current POTUS, yet these inferior wantabes WILL GIVE US a bad image. Remember how we got Clarence Thomas? The nadir has started.

[Bystander]

01:16 PM on 11/12/2010

Guess you don't buy into Martin Luther King's vision, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." It's curious how blacks that don't espouse the liberal worldview lose their color...they become "bastards" and unworthy of being a "hypenated American" in the liberal mold.

[faithsfj]

09:22 PM on 11/15/2010

well said!!

[middledge]

10:24 AM on 11/10/2010

Alan West's biggest non donor backer, is local right wing talk sadist Joyce Kaufman.....the day after the Obama inauguration, lots of black voices called her show in varying degrees of exultation.....Kaufman called them Crack Heads.....
Alan West was a default win......democrat Ron Klein had been a ghost for the past 3.5 years.....

[dbailey]

10:14 AM on 11/10/2010

speaking as a black american, West will never represent me in any type of caucus. I think he should be shunned from the group simply because he's an idiot. Any body that advocates violence and who's staff member suggests hanging immigrants, is not only an idiot, they're a mental case. what district elected this fool?

[MCWAY]

10:30 AM on 11/10/2010

Also speaking as a black American (and Floridian), Col. West is a GREAT addition to Congress. Again, I wish I could have voted for him.
I'd rather have a guy like him (someone who will put out all the stops to protect his people), than others who foolishly think that groveling before Muslim terrorists will somehow deter them from wanting to kills us (and they don't care if you're black, white, liberal, conservative, etc. If you're American, you're fair game). 

[MCWAY]

10:11 AM on 11/10/2010

With all the problems that plague the African-American community, the LAST THING on the minds of most black people is "climate change". That is pure, progressive/tree-hugger fodder.
Besides, Colonel West supports the other parts of the agenda, the parts for which I'll go out on a limb and say that black people REALLY support: Lifting people out of poverty (better yet, empowering them to lift themselves out) and tax cuts for the middle-class (and everybody else who pays taxes, too).

[soisay]

10:46 AM on 11/10/2010

When my six year old made a cake, that was full of holes and faults, we just covered it with frosting (1/8 in in some places, over an inch in others). To the casual observer, it was a solid, smooth product.

Climate change, foreign oil, Hummers, etal , are costing us trillions of dollars domestic environmental damage and middle east wars costing jobs. Supressing green jobs, incenting corn-based ethanol and sweetners harm farmers, consumers to profit big business. Manipulation of financial markets, washing around and sucking out capital by microtrades into santa-claus sacks suppresses American jobs and the working poor.

Dozens of manipulations make the rich richer, and the working poor, poorer. We are all one illness, one layoff, one car wreck from losing our homes, our life's savings. These are not "tree-hugger" issues.

As for empowering entreprenuership. Exactly how many eBay millionaires will be selling baseball cards and wonder-mops to each other? How many cookie kiosks in how many malls? How many independent web designers and indpendent janatorial firms and startup restaurants will succeed?

The talk of "self-empowerment" is the same nonsense as encouraging minority teenagers to become professional atheletes. Sure, one in a hundred or a thousand become a multi-millionare. They go on fox and have infomercials about their success from "average guy" to "success story" and how that's what "Makes America Great". Another 5 to 10 will have reasonable jobs for their lifetime. But 90% plus will have nothing.

[MCWAY]

01:55 PM on 11/10/2010

It appears you're making the preposterous assertion that, unless the nanny-state comes to your rescue, you can't make it in this life. You can't be a doctor, a lawyer, a businessman, an engineer, or (in Allan West's case) a retired Army colonel and Congressman.
How many parents would make the sacrifices like the ones my mother did. I hardly grew up rich? My mother busted her tail to keep me in private school all but two years of my childhood life. If there's one thing she instilled in me, it's simply that, when it all said and done, I AM ultimately responsible for my success in life. And, if I fail in life, it ain't 'whitey's" fault; it ain't the government's fault, it ain't the GOP's fault or the Dems' fault. It's on me.
The sooner black people realize that and ditch the typical liberal crybaby "it's everyone else's fault" routine that has hamstrung them for decades on end, the better off we'll be.

[OC4Obama4Pres]

06:27 PM on 11/12/2010

Then lets be sure to have service cuts, cuts to overblown republican military spending, cuts to education, welfare, subsides paid to record profit taking oil companies. Let's cut everything! Lets lay off some police and firemen too.

[XTABAY]

10:05 AM on 11/10/2010

West was cashiered out of the Army... I suspect that he will also be run out of congress for something truly bizarre and heinous

[lotus321]

09:55 AM on 11/10/2010

They are all politicians and liars. i care less where the affiliate. I want TMZ assigned to following all of these politicians and gettign the dirt on them.

[MCWAY]

09:50 AM on 11/10/2010

CONGRATULATIONS, to Colonel West!! I only wish I actually lived in his district so I could have voted for him. Alas, I had to settle for voting for Daniel Webster, to throw that buffooon, Alan Grayson, out the door.
But, I'm happy, nonetheless. Rubio, West, Webster.....The Tea Party Express rolled through the Sunshine State.
Boy, is West going to step on some liberal black toes or what? Go get 'em, Colonel!!!

[Julia Bailey]

10:03 AM on 11/10/2010

Isn't Florida going to suffer something awful when the tea partiers get rid of medicare and all the seniors in your state go homeless? It will be so annoying to go shopping and have to pass all these old people begging for money.

[MCWAY]

10:24 AM on 11/10/2010

Our seniors will be just fine. In fact, they're the ones that helped put Rubio and West over the top.
If anything makes our seniors homeless, it's the debacle known as ObamaCare, which both West and Rubio will work to get repealed.

[lulu2010]

09:46 AM on 11/10/2010

The race card used by the (democratic) black caucus, democrats against any opposition to Obama or democratic policies is disgusting and exposed the democrats. They are no friend of minorities

[Bostontru2u]

01:55 PM on 11/10/2010

Neither is Poster Mcway or you.

[MCWAY]

02:12 PM on 11/10/2010

I'm no friend of minorities, because I don't lockstep with the Democrats, waiting for the big nanny state to rescue me from doom and issue "social justice"? Now, that's a laugh.
My philosophy has been (and still is): I'll go for my 100 acres and Porsche; while YOU and the others wait for your 40 acres and a mule.

[JASONH0099]

08:56 AM on 11/10/2010

It's a TRAP......

[jerzygurl]

08:54 AM on 11/10/2010

Blacks, Hispanic & Women Repubs elected on the National, State & local government level last week. 
Congratulations to all of you!

[lifeofthemind]

08:44 AM on 11/10/2010

That's great! "And the No.1 thing that you always try to do to silence an opponent in the United States of America is to call someone a racist." And then he calls the NAACP "racist enablers".

[Bostontru2u]

01:57 PM on 11/10/2010

Who was that who spit on the Black Congressman during the Tea Party demostration in Washington?

[eden4barack08]

08:36 AM on 11/10/2010

That's a big mistake by the CBC. By doing so they're giving in to the right wing myth that it's all about and ONLY about the color of the skin, and that that's ALL that's required to join the caucus. I was under the impression that the CBC was about advancing progress and necessities in black communities which have historically been left behind, things which are completely antithetical to the Cons agenda. So why would two Cons join such a caucus with which they have nothing in common but color of skin?
Membership should be based on the agenda, not race. You fully share the agenda? Then you're welcome. You don't? Then goodbye...who cares wether you're the same color?

[MCWAY]

09:55 AM on 11/10/2010

Colonet West knows what the necessities of the black communities are. He's lived them firsthand. He rose from nothing to being an O-5 in the Army.
He's a shining example that, contrary to what too many black folks believe, you don't need to wait for "social justice" to make it in America.
I know what my mother sacrificed to make sure I had a shot in life. Try learning how to drive an 18-wheeler to put me through private school and save for my college (and this was back in the days, where female truck drivers were rare and BLACK female truck drivers were virtually non-existent).
This idea that only the Democrat/liberal agenda can help black people is beyone ridiculous. In fact, it's crippled black people more than ever.
 
 

[King Joffe Joffer]

10:39 AM on 11/10/2010

I would love you to elaborate on how the liberal agenda has hurt black people. I would think the GOP's agenda of putting money into the pockets of people who dont need it is much more harmful to minorities and other disenfranchised people than a liberal agenda.

[eden4barack08]

11:56 AM on 11/10/2010

I hope you know that if it weren't for a Democrat/Liberal agenda's executive order, Mr West himself would not be able to tout his "success" in the government agency that gave him the possibility to, as you say "rise from nothing to being O-5 in the Army".
Also, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Equal Employment Opportunities etc..none of these would exist were it not for "Democrat/Liberal" agenda.
One must be completely void of any historical perspective to say that the "Democrat Liberal agenda has crippled black people more than ever". Or else completely brainwashed by the right wing propaganda machine. Whichever it is, I can't help but feel sorry for you.

[jayrag123]

07:18 PM on 11/15/2010

I have felt that the CBC and the NAACP have become coopted by the Democratic Party. These groups stand silent when Dems do nothing for Blacks but when a Republican is in office they scream.

Obama has done little to help Blacks just as Clinton did little to help Blacks. Bush actually did more for Africa than Clinton and Obama has done nothing to help Africa or Carribean.

Black people need our own Political movement seperate from the Democrats or Republicans.