New rules for Congressional Progressive Caucus

In this post Cenk talked about the new rule for the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) to vote as a block. If two-thirds of the caucus agree or disagree on a provision then the entire caucus must vote for or against it. On the surface this is a great idea, but as Cenk noted not all members of the caucus are actually progressive. 

This was confirmed by Ro Khanna on an episode of Thom Hartmann's program a while back. Khanna noted that the caucus was working on a rule to ensure that those who joined the caucus were actually in agreement on progressive policy. A number who join are not and do so only for the status while not really being on board.

Grim confirms that the CPC was thinking about instituting membership requirements, since "many of those who have joined are not active in the caucus and don’t subscribe to its core tenets." Currently only a dues check is required to join, so some of those members are progressive in name only (PINO). This report confirms that the new rules have been adopted and that members must "vote for and sponsor a certain amount of progressive legislation."

What's apparently holding up progress at the moment is that it will take time for current CPC members to prove their progressive bona fides to remain in the caucus. In the meantime they can still be there and muck up the process. We'll see once the weeding has begun if the CPC will flex their muscles. They don't have much time though, since the 2022 elections are coming up and if they don't do it now they very well might lose more seats and their voting block power further diminished.