Congressman Correa voted with GOP to weaken Banking Regulations. Gee, thanks, Lou!

Ah, Lou, Lou, Lou.

I wasn’t paying that much attention to the latest bank failures. It’s too much like an old movie you’ve seen too many times. Big “too big to fail” banks fail because of their reckless, gambling behavior, messing up regular folks’ lives; Congress steps in, bailing them out or not, and passes regulations to stop it from happening again; after a few years of everyone feeling safe, the sad bankers who miss gambling with your money talk Congress into loosening the regulations; the bankers gamble and get even richer until it all crashes again. It’s like Homer Simpson touching the hot stove over and over, but on a slower timeline.

Like I said, I wasn’t paying attention until Democrats ranging from the moderate Adam Schiff to the progressive Ro Khanna complained that “TOO MANY DEMOCRATS” joined Republicans in passing Donald Trump’s 2018 regional bank deregulation; and then on Tuesday Newsweek released the names of those Democrats, and of course it included MY Congressman, “Homegrown” Lou Correa.

I shouldn’t-a been surprised, and I guess I wasn’t, it’s just always jarring to be reminded that this cat represents deep-blue Santa Ana and the Anaheim flatlands. Politicians like Lou spend vast chunks of their workday facilitating the short-term profits of the already wealthy. It’s just that MOST of those politicians are registered as REPUBLICANS. We try to vote for Democrats in order to make the system work better for the 99% of us, not to make things easier and more exciting for the top 1%. But then there are “Democrats” like Lou.

And yeah, there were 30-something other Democrats who joined Lou in joining the Republicans on this, but look at most of their districts – they’re from places like Georgia and West Virginia, districts where if they don’t keep the powerful reasonably happy they’re likely to lose their seats to REAL, and WORSE, Republicans. Lou doesn’t have that excuse, although he (and Daly and Solorio) used to PRETEND they did. “We represent right-wing Orange County!” they used to claim, “we HAVE to be conservative!” I don’t think they even pretend that any more – the only challengers they could ever conceivably lose their deep-blue districts to are actual progressive Democrats, if those were not squashed down by the County Party.

Which gives me angry flashbacks to early 2022, when I tried to do a little bit to help progressive Democrat challenger Mike Ortega (left) at least make it into the primary so that there would be a fair and honest fight between two types of Democrats instead of the usual scenario of Lou just sleepwalking through an election against an unheard-of Republican sacrificial lamb. I didn’t even think Mike could probably win, just that it could be a good race with good debates, and maybe even make Lou a better representative!

But DPOC leadership, who used to be VERY critical of Correa and Daly, squashed Mike’s challenge early on, as though a challenged incumbent or a D-on-D race were the worst possible outcome. I see that I wrote all about the harrowing experience HERE. Good article if I say so myself, you should read it now.

Mike, now an officer of my Anaheim Democrats Club, makes this statement:

“Voting to ease banking regulations during the Trump era is a perfect example of Lou Correa as big-business Republican-lite representative. The people of the 46th C.D. Deserve someone that will stand up to the big banks and donor class on behalf of working people. Working class families are ready for change!”

It’s a lonely struggle, sometimes…

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.