Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty
Former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg is putting his money where his mouth is to remake Congress.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday (June 20) that he plans to spend at least $80 million of his personal funds to help Democrats win back the House. Bloomberg has said before that while he doesn’t believe in partisanship and doesn’t care for political parties, he believes Republicans have “failed to prove they could govern responsibly.”
“I’ve never thought that the public is well-served when one party is entirely out of power, and I think the past year and a half has been evidence of that,” Bloomberg said. “[Republicans] have done little to reach across the aisle to craft bipartisan solutions—not only on guns and climate change, but also on jobs, immigration, health care, and infrastructure. As a result, Congress has accomplished very little.”
Democrats need 23 seats in this year’s elections to have a majority in the House. Most of the money is slated to go to Democratic congressional candidates.
“To be clear: I have plenty of disagreements with some Democrats, especially those who seek to make this election about impeachment,” Bloomberg wrote in an article for Bloomberg.com. “Nothing could be more irresponsible. But I believe that ‘we the people’ cannot afford to elect another Congress that lacks the courage to reach across the aisle and the independence to assert its constitutional authority. And so I will support Democratic candidates who are committed to doing both.”
Howard Wolfson, the former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will help oversee the major spending effort.
“We will make sure that voters remember which members of Congress allowed the president to separate children from their parents, Wolfson wrote in a tweet.
In response to recent events, Bloomberg said on Twitter that “tearing innocent children from their parents is un-American.”
