Black Leaders Divide over Joe Liberman

Two of the Congressional Black Caucus' most prominent members, U.S. Reps. John Lewis and Maxine Waters, have split over Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and his primary with Ned Lamont, a divide that highlights the question of how the black vote might sway the outcome.

Waters, the more media-savvy and aggressive of the two, is backing Lamont - potentially bad news for Lieberman, who in recent years has been criticized for his stand on issues such as affirmative action and school vouchers.


But Lewis, viewed as more of an old-guard civil rights leader, helps reinforce Lieberman's message that he was a part of the rights movement as early as the 1960s, when he was a student at Yale.

The rival endorsements are not likely to translate into large numbers on Aug. 8 - black voters are expected to make up only about 10 percent of the total - but even a relatively small number of votes could affect a mid-summer primary in which turnout is likely to be low.

Waters says Lieberman "acts just like a Republican," and that she is talking with Lamont. "I'm calling Mr. Lamont," Waters told The Tom Joyner Morning Show, a nationally syndicated radio program, last week, "to tell him I'm going to come up and help him."

No timetable has been set, but Waters brings to the contest vivid reminders of why many members of the black caucus - which consists of the 43 black members of Congress - and former leaders of the NAACP have been cool to Lieberman for years.

One notable exception is Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who effusively praised Lieberman Monday in Hartford. Lewis, who joined Rep. John B. Larson, D-1st District, in meetings with Hartford community leaders, said he remained grateful for Lieberman's marching for civil rights in 1963 in Jackson, Miss.

"It was very dangerous for a white person from the Northeast or from anyplace to come south, to go to Mississippi and talk about registering black folks to vote. That should count for something," Lewis said.

Like Waters, Lewis is a member of the Congressional Out of Iraq Caucus. But he backs Lieberman despite the senator's support for the war.

"He is my friend. He is my brother. He is my colleague. I stick with my friends," Lewis said.

The warm words from Lewis, however, belie Lieberman's difficult history with the national black political establishment.

"Sen. Lieberman is not in any way beloved in the African American community. There's a considerable amount of suspicion," said David A. Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research group that examines minority voting patterns. "It also helps that Lamont is being promoted as the more liberal of the two candidates."

Even though Lieberman's NAACP legislative report card has been stellar, Waters and others have long been critical of the senator.

Their pique first surfaced when Lieberman became an enthusiastic member, and later chairman, of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council - formed in the mid-1980s by white politicians who thought the party was becoming too liberal, politicians derided by the Rev. Jesse Jackson as "Democrats for the Leisure Class."

Over the years, there were other disputes involving Lieberman's questioning of affirmative action, support for school vouchers, reluctance to send troops to Liberia and criticism of President Clinton's behavior.

Bositis thought that many black voters, once reminded of Lieberman's record, will give Lamont a serious look.

"A lot of [Lieberman's] black support in the past has come because people held their nose and didn't want to vote for the Republican," the researcher said.

But Marshall Wittmann, political analyst at the DLC, disagreed. He thought it would help Lieberman to have the backing of Lewis, who helped lead the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Ala., where he suffered a concussion after being beaten by a police officer.

Waters became nationally prominent in 1992, after South Central Los Angeles exploded in the wake of the incident involving motorist Rodney King, a black man beaten by white officers. Waters was often a spokeswoman for the embattled area, explaining the residents' frustrations.

The oldest beef that Waters and her followers have with Lieberman stems from 1995, when California was considering banning racial preferences at state-funded institutions.

"You can't defend policies that are based on group preferences as opposed to individual opportunities," Lieberman said at the time.

When Al Gore picked Lieberman as his vice presidential running mate five years later, Waters and other black caucus members were unhappy, and Lieberman had to make amends with skeptical caucus members at a downtown Los Angeles hotel.

Waters, in the front row, said she was "unclear" where Lieberman stood. Lieberman explained his civil rights history and pledged allegiance to affirmative action programs. Waters said she was satisfied.

But later that year, before a meeting with black caucus members, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., warned Lieberman: "Be very careful with affirmative action. They remember."

Members then grilled him intensely on a number of subjects, and were particularly upset that he had just been quoted saying he "wouldn't send American men and women to Liberia unless I was convinced the country was ready for peacekeeping."

At a time when troops were being sent to Iraq, the caucus was not pleased that Lieberman said, "I don't think it's appropriate for American soldiers to get into the middle of that." Lieberman said his statements were taken out of context.