Get to know Mel Watts

Mel Watts is a discrace and an embarrassment to the Black Community.

In looking back at how the Congressional Black Caucus has operated in the last two years, we at CBC Monitor, have not come to praise Congressman Mel Watt’s , leadership, but to bury him in his performance as Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus for the past two years.

You can’t really praise an individual’s leadership when they consistently subverted it to do the will of House Minority Leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi , in the hopes of receiving favorable treatment from her. Watt’s obsequious relationship with Pelosi negatively impacted everything the CBC attempted to do as a Caucus, and rendered them virtually ineffective.

Perhalps, candidates should check these things out before going around celebrating their “I Gots Me A Black One Dis Tyme!” endorsements.

The fact that the CBC is as ineffective as Mel Gibson’s apology for his anti-Semitic remarks, was not lost on individuals attending this year’s CBC Legislative Weekend.

You can’t really praise an individual’s leadership when they consistently subverted it to do the will of House Minority Leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi , in the hopes of receiving favorable treatment from her.

It was reported to CBC Monitor by reliable sources on Capitol Hill that attendance at this year’s conference was down by an estimated 15,000 people.

Mel Watt deserves all the ridicule, scorn and derision we can hurl upon him, for his decided lack of leadership and a woeful unwillingness to call out any renegade CBC member for voting the corporate interests that serve to decimate the majority Black districts they represent, in the name of maintaining unanimity.

20 CBC members were scrubbed off the list of lawmakers who sponsored legislation to renew provisions of the Voting Rights Act, because Pelosi, in code words, deemed the bill “too Black,” and was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get the reich-wing bigots in the GOP to sign off on it.

Well, people get tired of attending events, using their own money, vacation time and travel, to listen to elected officials talk loud and say nothing, as well as do talk loud and do nothing.

We know that their circling the wagons around Jefferson has cost the Caucus in terms of credibility among many progressive organizations, especially when, instead of taking action to handle the Jefferson matter themselves, they waited until Pelosi took the action of removing Jefferson from his committee assignments and then they cried “Foul” and implied that Pelosi’s actions were racially motivated.

Watt’s obsequious relationship with Pelosi negatively impacted everything the CBC attempted to do as a Caucus, and rendered them virtually ineffective.