Meet the LA congresswoman ensuring Black creators get their economic fair share
“IP is the number-one asset in the Black community,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove told me. “And we don't recognize that like we should.” Plus: VAWA turns 30, Hakeem Jeffries on AI regulation and more.
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Once Upon a Hill. The general election is in 53 days. The vice presidential debate between Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) is in 18 days. Government funding is set to expire on the same day. And we’re three days removed from the high-stakes ABC News presidential debate.
It’s also Day 3 of the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual policy conference, or “CBC Week” for short. I’ve been a less active participant than in recent years. Still, I did mosey over to Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Wednesday afternoon to cover a panel hosted by Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) about how Black creators can persist through systemic inequalities to own their work and sustain their brands. The congresswoman and I had a 20-minute follow-up phone chat this morning, the contents of which are featured in this edition’s top story below.
Also in this edition: What’s next in Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)‘s uphill battle to keep the government funding and stave off another revolt from the far right, how deepfake pornography is a form of gender-based violence and a bill from AOC would help prevent it, and what the top House Democrat told me about Congress’s tedious journey toward artificial intelligence regulation.
But first things first: Back to the debate.
Kamala Harris did what she needed to: The vice president spoke about how she would build an “opportunity economy” with affordable housing, affordable child care and small-business creation as pillars.
She focused her response to Trump’s false claims that Democrats wanted Roe v. Wade to be repealed by reminding voters it was the former president who appointed three of the six Supreme Court justices who overturned the landmark decision and the personal stories of the women she’s heard from in her travels across the country.
She framed herself as the young generational leader who can turn the page on nearly a decade of MAGA madness.
She deflected scrutiny about her policy flip-flops on banning fracking, establishing mandatory government buyback programs for assault weapons and decriminalizing border crossings.
And most importantly, she baited former Donald Trump into countless disastrous meltdowns about crowd sizes, racist anti-Haitian conspiracy theories and his support from Viktor Orban, the authoritarian prime minister of Hungary.
Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams wrote in a memo this morning that Trump’s refusal to say he’d veto a national abortion ban, acknowledge he lost the 2020 election or say Ukraine should win the war against Russia will be among the positions that will haunt his candidacy beyond the debate stage.
The campaign released the third ad since the debate focused on unity and how Harris would be a president for Americans while arguing Trump seeks power to serve his interests. (The other two ads focused on abortion, the most-searched topic during the debate, and her message of “a new way forward.”
Harris aides viewed her performance so successful that they immediately called for a second debate next month. Trump was less amenable to the idea before posting to his Truth Social app yesterday that he wouldn’t match wits with her again.
“At long last we discover his spirit animal,” David Plouffe, a Harris campaign senior advisor, a role he also held during the Obama administration, wrote on X. “The Chicken. 🐔 ”
600,000 individuals donated a whopping $47 million to the Harris campaign 24 hours after the debate, representing the largest full-day fundraising haul since the $81 million that flooded its coffers the day she announced her candidacy in July.
Harris is in Pennsylvania for two campaign events after a couple yesterday in North Carolina that drew a combined crowd of 25,000 supporters, according to the campaign. She and President Joe Biden will speak tomorrow night at the Phoenix Awards, the annual signature event of CBC Week. Daytime talk host Sherri Shepherd and stand-up comedian Roy Wood Jr. are special guests. Grammy award-winning artist Fantasia will perform. And I’ll be in the press section singing my soul out if she performs “When I See U.”
In conversation with Sydney-Kamlager Dove
Sydney Kamlager-Dove arrived on Capitol Hill last year with a four-part policy platform she describes as LEAD: Land, the economy, the arts and democracy.
“Oftentimes, as policymakers, you’re talking about economics and you’re talking about democracy, but you're not really talking about the arts,” the first-term Los Angeles congresswoman told the 130 attendees seated in Room 207A of the Washington Convention Center to hear how some of the most powerful names in Black creativity own their voices and brands. “And I think the arts are central to every single thing that we do, education, finance, housing, prayer, employment, whatever you can think of.”
The panel, moderated by thought leader and cultural critic Alencia Johnson, featured Nicco Annan of the STARZ hit P-Valley; Gavin Mathieu, founder and creative director of Supervsn Studios; TikTok content creator Clarke Peoples and Sierra Lever, the head of the Amazon HipHop and R&B Music Rotation.
As they discussed the intersection of art, business and policy, Kamlager-Dove scribbled ideas to take back to the halls of Congress. She dished about this and much more, including the right-wing misinformation campaign against Haitians in Springfield, Ohio—that has led to Haitian families reportedly keeping their loved ones home for their safety and forced schools to be evacuated due to bomb threats—and her pick for the most creative member of Congress.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
In addition to your long-standing work to uplift and expand the Black creator economy, you also serve on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. So before we discuss your CBC Week panel, I wanted to get your thoughts on the fallout from the racist anti-Haitian attacks led by former President Trump and Sen. Vance?
Well, I think it was despicable and also not out of character for Donald Trump to make those remarks. I hope they motivate Haitian Americans in Florida to get out the vote and make Florida competitive. And if they cannot be the deciding factor in the presidential race, hopefully, they can be the deciding factor in down-ticket, down-ballot races. Because there’s between 100,000 and 300,000 Haitian-American voters in Florida, and they can play a role.
But when I say not out of character, I'm referencing his comments about Haiti being a shithole country, and it only reinforces Trump’s belief that xenophobia and racism are okay. This is a country that was founded by immigrants, and it is beyond the pale to actually have someone running for president to essentially say these immigrants are “good,” these immigrants are “bad,” when all of the characteristics of good immigrants that Donald Trump references are those that come from white European countries and are white European themselves.
CARICOM plays a very important role in our national security discussions. There are a number of countries throughout the Caribbean that are very important to us when we’re talking about economics, when we’re talking about climate resiliency, when we’re talking about migration. And to piss off those countries or to have them be less willing to work with us because there is someone running for president who is so xenophobic and resistant to the Caribbean only empowers China.
China has been strategically going into countries that have had hiccups with the United States, that have felt forgotten by the United States, or that have been demeaned by the United States, and they’ve said, “We’ll help you. We will help you. We will give you this money. We will support your infrastructure.” And those countries have been saying, “OK, yes.” And that means that’s one less friend that we have.”
Secondly, the US foreign policy establishment is dominated by white men. If Harris wins, she would be the nation’s first Black and first woman commander-in-chief. How do you think Harris handled the foreign policy-related questions during the debate—on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, for example, standing up to China and Iran, et cetera?
I thought her answers to the foreign policy questions were clear, concise and comprehensive—I'll give you three Cs.
She actually laid out for the American people why these conflicts are happening, why they are important to us, the role they play in the greater national security discussion and our obligations in them.
She reminded people that Donald Trump is someone who cozies up to dictators. In fact, of all the international leaders that he could have referenced in talking about relationships with people, he decided to reference Orban—a dictator, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT, nationalist, anti-judiciary, anti-free speech.
He refused to say that he supports Ukraine's right to exist and that Ukraine is a sovereign nation. He refused to say anything pointed about Putin, who we know is working with China to destabilize many democratic countries around the world. And he said absolutely nothing about the Gaza conflict except to say that Kamala Harris doesn't like Jewish people, which is outrageous.
Now, back to your panel: I noticed you taking copious notes and listening intently while each panelist spoke. I’m curious to know how you will work to ensure Black creator ownership and that some of the issues the panelists discussed are a priority if Democrats retake the House in January.
I was very intrigued with a number of the statements made by the panelists—making sure that creators have the legal and financial support behind them to help them identify and then say no to bad contracts? Very important. How do we support that?
Continued discussions around royalties as it relates to streaming, but then also as it relates to ownership of dance moves or choreography, et cetera? Very important to me because there are a number of young creators on Tiktok and other social platforms that are losing revenue in exponential numbers, compared to their counterparts because structures aren't in place, or because they don't have that kind of support.
I’m Interested in exploring more the disparity in royalty compensation. And very intrigued by this notion of establishing an office of creators so that it is not just seen as a cultural commodity, but the industry or the sector of creators is also recognized as a business proposition to support.
One thing that struck me is that intellectual property is the number one asset in the Black community. And we don’t recognize that like we should, and in doing so, we don't protect it like we should. So I want to explore that more and I believe we can do something significant with a Democratic president in the White House.
How do the struggles that the panelists discussed harm not just the Black community but all Americans?
It’s estimated that the entertainment community will contribute almost a trillion dollars to the US economy by 2028. $50 million is generated in economic activity by the creator community each year in California.
Those are large numbers for this country and they're large numbers for my state. That's why I take this seriously. We know that black creators are not significantly part of those dollar amounts and I want to change that.
Let’s also recognize that when you're helping Black communities, you’re helping all communities. I am not talking about slicing out something just for Black people. I am talking about focusing on aspects of the entertainment industry that do not get the kind of legislative or policy-framing support that they need to encourage more people to be in the space. If you encourage more people in the space, you create more jobs, and you create more opportunity and you encourage more innovation.
And finally: Who’s the most creative member of Congress?
I think Del. Stacy Plaskett [D-Virgin Islands] is incredibly creative. And I think she’s fearless. She’s comfortable with who she is and she enjoys expression. She’s willing to take chances and she also represents the Virgin Islands, right? So it goes back to the Caribbean.
Johnson pulls GOP funding bill, avoids floor embarrassment
House Republican leadership scrapped plans on Wednesday afternoon to vote on a measure that included a six-month continuing resolution to extend government funding roughly at current levels through the end of next March and the SAVE Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections even though it’s already illegal for undocumented immigrants to do so.
Speaker Johnson failed to cobble together the votes due to opposition from conservatives who typically vote against continuing resolutions on principle regardless of the substance, defense hawks with concerns that current military spending is insufficient to meet US national security threats and House Democrats who viewed the entire proposal as a nonstarter.
Despite yanking the bill and preventing an embarrassing floor defeat or forcing vulnerable Republicans to vote on legislation that has no chance of becoming law, Johnson isn’t conceding defeat on his effort to pass a six-month CR plus the SAVE Act as one. The speaker said he would continue working to build consensus for his “righteous fight” within his conference. He has a few days to try: The House isn’t back in session until Tuesday evening. (I explained the strategy behind coupling the two unrelated items in last Sunday’s edition and why he plowed ahead with the doomed effort until almost the last minute on the Tuesday edition.)
But the top two Democrats—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)—indicated they would hold the line for a “clean” CR until mid-December without any partisan poison pills. An end-of-year deadline would enable appropriators in each chamber to craft an omnibus, a comprehensive funding package that combines the 12 appropriations bills that keep the government running into a single bill.
With a little more than two weeks until the deadline, the CR may have to originate in the Senate and then move through the House, an outcome that could further enrage Johnson’s far right flank.
“We’re talking about digital rape”: Advocates sound alarm on fastest-growing form of sexual violence
Today is the 30th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, a landmark bill President Biden introduced in the Senate in 1990 and was ultimately signed into law by former President Bill Clinton in 1994 designed to improve criminal legal and community-based responses to domestic violence.
Intimate partner violence historically has been thought to happen in the form of physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, economic, reproductive abuse. But technology has enabled it to take shape as AI-generated explicit synthetic media used to create child sex abuse material, image-based sexual abuse (or “revenge porn”), and celebrity deepfake pornography.
Women, LGBTQ+ individuals and people of color—especially activists, politicians and other change agents—are especially vulnerable to deepfake pornography and it’s a scourge Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is fighting to squash through her version of the DEFIANCE Act, that would discourage the spread of sexually explicit AI-generated deepfakes and empower survivors to take civil action against perpetrators who generate and distribute the material using AI and other technologies. (The Senate unanimously passed a similar bill in July.)
I wrote about the path ahead for the DEFIANCE Act in the Tuesday edition, but wanted to follow-up with insight on why deepfake pornography is a form of gender-based violence from actress and activist Sophia Bush and founder and CEO of the Sexual Violence Prevention Association Omny Miranda Martone, who were on Capitol Hill this week for a roundtable discussion hosted by Ocasio-Cortez and the Democratic Women’s Caucus on what they describe at the fastest growing form of sexual violence in the country.
“It’s a form of digital sexual violence and it is used against women, LGBTQ+’people, people of color, all minorities, really, as a way to try to silence people, typically as a way, a form of revenge, as a form of harm,” Martone, who was a target of sexual violence for advocating in support of the DEFIANCE Act, told me after the roundtable. “There’s the trauma of the deepfakes itself, which is, in and of itself, a form of as we were talking about, sexual violence, but also it comes with an increased rate of suicidality, mental health issues, sexual violence, and an increased rates of domestic violence and an increased rate of stalking.”
Bush told me that the demand for nonconsensual assault imagery—96 percent of which is made of women—makes Big Tech companies complicit in profiting off the pain of survivors.
“People are not just having images made of them. It's not some kind of gentle thing, but we're talking about digital rape,” she said. “We’re talking about people watching the most violent acts happen to themselves, their bodies. The technology is so good that you cannot discern that these videos are not real. And when Google is trafficking 68% of the search results to sites like these, they're making an incredible amount of money by stealing our agency and our ability to control and our ability to consent to the acts we do not want to participate in as humans.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who is a survivor of sexual assault, told reporters that neuroscience indicates that the target of the fake explicit images or videos is often unable to distinguish them from a real event.
“For the for the majority of women that will experience either sexual assault, harassment or something of that nature at some point in their life, it also brings you back to that moment,” she said. “So I’m in my car and I’m scrolling on Twitter and I see deep fake pornography of myself just popping up, it’s not just jarring in that moment. it takes me back to the moment of my assault. It’s not just about me as a person. It’s that I know that little girls in middle school are going to go through this.”
DWC, WH commemorate VAWA
The DWC hosted a call on Thursday to commemorate the progress VAWA, which was expanded in the 2022 reauthorization to include cyber crimes like image-based sexual abuse, has enabled while pushing for additional investments to fund housing and family services for survivors and resources for law enforcement to respond to instances of intimate partner violence. Members also called on their colleagues to summon the political will to fully close the boyfriend loophole, the gap in federal law that allows a physically abusive ex-partner with a previous conviction or restraining order to access guns. The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act narrowed the boyfriend loophole with a five-year cooling off period before people convicted of violence in dating relationships could legally purchase or receive a gun. But the restriction excludes people who only have restraining orders against them.
The Biden administration announced more than $690 million in grant funding to support survivors of gender-based violence plus steps to to affirm VAWA’s housing protections for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking as well as other individuals, such as those who assist survivors and help law enforcement, prosecutors, and victim services organizations prevent, enforce, and prosecute cybercrimes against individuals.
The White House also secured voluntary commitments from AI model developers and data providers to curb the creation of image-based sexual abuse.
“My goal was to do more than change the law, to change the culture of America and provide more support and protection for survivors and create accountability for perpetrators,” President Biden said at an event on Thursday at the White House. “We had to let America know what was going on. Americans, at our core, are basic, decent people, and I believed that if they could see the truth, we could begin to change things. And that’s what happened.”
Jeffries hopeful for AI task for recommendations by end of year
In the caption of her post endorsing Vice President Harris after the debate on Tuesday, Taylor Swift, a survivor of deepfake pornography, mentioned AI-driven misinformation as one of the issues that informed her decision. (For an idea of how urgent the issue is, Oprah aired an hour-long special last night about AI’s impact on the future.)
But most federal AI policy has been established through executive actions the Biden administration has taken leading to frustration among Americans who feel frustrated that legislation isn’t keeping pace with innovation.
Leader Jeffries told me on Thursday that he hoped the work of the bipartisan AI task force he and Speaker Johnson launched in February would provide constructive recommendations by the end of the year that Congress could act on in the future.
“Congress does have a role in working with industry stakeholders to figure out how do we strike the right balance between making sure that American dominance in the field of artificial intelligence can continue so that we can make strides for the American people, particularly in areas like medical innovation, solving chronic disease and terminal illnesses, while at the same time figuring out what are the right guardrails to prevent bad actors from entering into this space, including foreign actors, to hurt the American people,” the Brooklyn Democrat added.
Blunt Rochester, McBride take next step towards history
The debate wasn’t the only big event on Tuesday: Several states held the final primary elections of the cycle. And two candidates in Delaware inched closer to historic victories.
State Rep. Sarah McBride won the Democratic nomination for Delaware’s at-large congressional district. If she wins the deep-blue seat in November as expected, she would become the first openly transgender member of Congress.
Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT), the first woman and openly LGBTQ+ person to represent her state in Congress, told me on Thursday she spent last weekend knocking doors for McBride.
“That’s how important I think this is,” Balint said. “And one of the things that I said to supporters of hers is that, yeah, it’s critically important that she comes for representation, for standing toe-to-toe with the people across the aisle who are so horrible and dehumanizing about trans people, but that we as a caucus also have to be very focused on protecting her because so much hatred is going to be directed at her nationally.”
But Balint said she’s excited not just because of the history the 34-year-old McBride would make but also the legislative know-how she’d bring to Capitol Hill.
“We field better candidates on the Democratic side: People of accomplishment, people who have served their towns, their cities, their states, their legislature, people who have a body of work that they’ve done on policy,” she added. “And so every opportunity I have to lift up the work that she does, I don’t want that to get lost.”
McBride is running to replace Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who is seeking to succeed the retiring Tom Carper in the Senate.
Blunt Rochester became the first woman and Black person to represent Delaware in Congress and would make that same history in the Senate, if elected to the deep-blue seat.
“We know that in the history of this country, there have only been three black women in the United States Senate,” Blunt Rochester said in July during a press conference the CBC’s political arm held to endorse Vice President Harris’s candidacy. “We have had Carol Moseley Braun. We have had Kamala Harris. We have Laphonza Butler. And number four and five [Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks] are coming.”
That’s all I’ve got for now,
Until Tuesday,
Michael
Do you have questions about the election? Drop me a line at michael@onceuponahill.com or send me a message below to get in touch and I’ll find the answers.