https://19thnews.org/2024/08/cori-bush-wesley-bell-missouri-primary/

The St. Louis-area Squad member�s vote on the 2021 infrastructure bill is
being criticized by her Democratic opponent � and amplified by millions of
dollars in ads from pro-Israel groups.

ST. LOUIS � It was three years ago, but Rep. Cori Bush remembers it like
it was yesterday.

She was back in her St. Louis-area district with then-U.S. Labor Secretary
Marty Walsh for a roundtable about the care economy. She was just six
months into her first two-year House of Representatives term, and Congress
was debating how to move forward with President Joe Biden�s $4 trillion
investment plan for both physical and human infrastructure as the country
recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.

A fast food worker who made $12.10 an hour and struggled to afford caring
for her family picked up the microphone and asked Bush and Walsh to listen
to her story, then to �make something happen.�

�She reached across the table and pointed directly at me � she pointed at
me, out of all of these people � and she said: �You don�t forget about
us,�� Bush told The 19th in a recent interview at her campaign office.

�It was so intense. � I�ll never forget it,� she added.

The votes that Bush cast in the months that followed on various
configurations of Biden�s economic agenda � and the role she played
fighting for the inclusion of progressive priorities as a member of the
high-profile Squad � have become central to her opponent�s case against
her. Now, with the August 6 primary imminent, the likelihood of Bush
returning to Congress is in doubt.

Specifically, Bush�s critics are highlighting the vote she cast that
November against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2
trillion bipartisan plan to improve the country�s roads and bridges that
had none of the previously proposed caregiving components.

Democratic leaders had spent months trying to figure out the best path
forward, vacillating between passing a bipartisan package that jettisoned
the caregiving elements prioritized by progressives or a comprehensive but
partisan measure that was being blocked by two centrist Democratic
senators who have since left the party. The protracted and contentious
negotiations forced many lawmakers, including Bush, to make a call about
how to best shape their party�s future and serve their constituents: Get
in line or hold the line?

When the physical-infrastructure-only bill came to the floor, Bush said,
her choice was clear: �The thing is, we weren�t voting against the bill,
we were voting to hold the leverage so that both bills could be voted on
and passed because that was our chance: We had the House, we had the
Senate and we had the White House.�

�We need both of these investments: We need roads and child care; we need
bridges and homes; we need all of it,� Bush said.

Though Bush and five of her fellow Squad members held out and voted no on
the physical infrastructure legislation, Democrats got the bill over the
finish line with the help of 13 Republicans in the House and 19 in the
Senate. Like she feared, there was never another opening to seriously
revisit the caregiving measures.

Bush�s opponent, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, has cited her
�no� vote on infrastructure as evidence she is an ineffective legislator,
unresponsive to her constituents and not supportive of Biden�s economic
agenda as the two compete in a tight primary in a safe blue district.

�She�s working against the Democratic Party,� Bell said in an interview.
�She voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is
indefensible. � In our system of government, when do you ever get
everything you want? You can�t just throw the baby out with the bathwater,
you�ve got to work together.�

Bell�s criticism of Bush is being amplified by a more than $7 million
campaign by influential pro-Israel organizations, which late last year
announced a $100 million effort to replace Democrats deemed insufficiently
supportive of Israel. Among the top targets are Squad members, most of
whom called for a ceasefire in Gaza during the early days of the Israel-
Hamas war. The progressive group Justice Democrats, which recruited some
members of the Squad to run for Congress, has spent $1.8 million to
support Bush in the race.

The pro-Israel groups� ads don�t attack Bush�s stance on U.S. support for
Israel and instead feature her votes on infrastructure and other economic
policies such as raising the debt ceiling. A recent mailer sent to voters
in Missouri�s 1st Congressional District states, �When Cori Bush voted
against the infrastructure deal, she voted against: money for bridges and
roads; replacing dangerous lead pipes; thousands of jobs for St. Louis.�

The groups behind the campaign, the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated political spending committee, United
Democracy Project (UDP), along with the Democratic Majority for Israel
(DMFI), have already notched a victory this year, collectively spending
nearly $15 million to oust fellow Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a New
York primary that ended up being the most expensive in history.

DMFI President Mark Mellman predicted after Bowman�s loss that Bush would
be next, telling ABC News that she uses �the same kind of vituperative,
anti-Israel rhetoric, the same kind of anti-Israel votes, the same kind of
divisive approach to politics on this issue and on broader Democratic
issues.� At the time, DMFI polling showed Bell with a one-point lead over
Bush. Updated polling they released this week showed his lead has grown to
six points.

The pro-Israel groups historically support Democrats. But in recent years,
as they began wading into Democratic primary contests, the amount of money
coming from Republican donors increased. Given that the groups nearly
always back the more moderate candidate in a race, progressives have
criticized their efforts as giving conservative mega donors a back-door
route to pick winners and losers in Democratic primary elections.

The prosecutor and the �politivist�
Bush and Bell, who are both Black, have political r�sum�s that start at
the same place: the racial justice protests in Ferguson. Those began on
August 10, 2014, the day after a White police officer fatally shot Black
teenager Michael Brown, 18, and continued with varying degrees of
intensity for several months as the city, then the country, debated issues
such as race, equity and policing.

Bush, now 48, grew up in St. Louis County, watching her father serve as an
alderman and mayor of the city of Northwoods, Missouri. She earned a
nursing degree, founded a church and served as its pastor. Bell, now 49,
grew up nearby, the son of a police officer and a civil servant. He went
to law school, then worked as a public defender, criminology professor at
a community college and a municipal court judge.

During the Ferguson uprising, Bush used her medical training to serve as a
triage nurse for the activists out in the streets. Bell often acted as a
mediator between the protesters and the government entities and officials
trying to respond to the unrest.

Kayla Reed, who protested after Brown�s death and went on to co-found the
grassroots racial justice organization Action St. Louis, said she doesn�t
remember the specific day she met Bush but recalled seeing her wearing
scrubs.

�I came to really appreciate the clarity she had, wanting to be in the
protest space, fighting for justice in the case of Michael Brown � but
also her very specific desire to show up for the community that had been
exposed to that trauma,� she said. �I think Wesley played a different
role, Cori protested as a protester, his desire was to be an
intermediary.�

https://19thnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/cori-bush-04.jpg?w=1024

Just before the protests, Bell made an unsuccessful bid for the St. Louis
County Council. After, he was elected in 2015 to the Ferguson City
Council, beating a first-time candidate popular with the protesters. Three
years later, he was elected county prosecutor, running on a platform of
community-based policing and reforming the cash bail system, with backing
from many of the activist groups that came into being after the protests.
He said he would open a new inquiry into Brown�s death, and he beat 25-
year incumbent Democrat Bob McCulloch, who did not prosecute the police
officer who shot Brown.

Bell describes himself as a progressive prosecutor and touts a diversion
program that he says dramatically reduced recidivism rates in cases
related to substance abuse and mental health. A report published this week
by a coalition of organizations in the racial justice and legal aid space,
some of which worked to elect Bell, concluded his prosecutorial tenure has
yielded more mixed results � the county jail�s population is now as high
as it was when McCulloch left office, with about 60 percent more Black
women behind bars than one year ago. Bell has said the report was prepared
by his political rivals � and Bush�s supporters.