When the rubber meets the road, boy meets girl then watch it explode. Yes mean no means yes means no, when the rubber meets the road Meat Loaf When the rubber meets the road
And in the House Democratic battle over the competing Infrastructure bills, the rubber is finally meeting the road. Yes, after weeks of wriggle room, we’re down to crunch time.
House Speaker Pelosi used a neat verbal sleight of hand on Monday, pointing out that she had promised the House moderates a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill on the week of September 27th, and scheduled a vote for Thursday. She also scheduled a vote on the progressive favored human infrastructure bill for Thursday, although this was pure show, it isn’t even a bill yet. And let the games begin.
Let me be clear. I have nothing personal against congresswoman Jayapal, and God knows I have nothing against the House Progressive caucus, I consider myself a progressive, or I wouldn’t be a Democrat. But Jayapals aggressive arrogance, and lack of respect are disturbing. As I pointed out yesterday, there are 96 House progressive members out of a total caucus of 222. They aren’t even half of the caucus, but they are threatening to jettison Biden’s agenda if they aren’t appeased.
And she was at it again today. Talking to MSNBC about the breakdown in the immediacy of coming up with a concrete reconciliation infrastructure bill, Jayapal once again boasted of the 60 House progressive members who were prepared to torpedo the bipartisan bill, and daring Pelosi to test her. Speaker Pelosi herself decided to not even bother to respond.
But then it started coming apart. An hour later, the Democratic Chair of the Budget committee, also a high ranking member of the progressive caucus, appeared on MSNBC and said that he was confident that by the end of the week, there would be sufficient progress in negotiations for Pelosi to be able to bring the bipartisan infrastructure bill to the floor for a stand alone vote, and it would pass and go to Biden to sign. And two hours later, another progressive caucus member appeared and echoed the same sentiments.
What is going on here? You have the Chairwoman coming out and making non negotiable demands, and within hours at least two members of her caucus come out publicly and kneecap her position. Anybody knows that the first rule of negotiating from a position of strength is a show of unity. And right now the House progressive caucus isn’t showing it. Personally, I think that Jayapal has overreached.
- Speaker Pelosi doesn’t respond because she doesn’t have to. She’s in charge. She is the Speaker of the House, it’s her caucus, she controls committee assignments. And she has spent her entire adult life in the Mortal Kombat arena of politics, getting results. She knows how to get what she wants, and never moves until she has it in hand.
- The real weakness for Jayapal is her caucus itself. These are not long term career politicians. For the most part, they are teachers, doctors, nurses and accountants, all inspired by the atrocity of the election of Donald Trump to become involved in the political system to affect change. They sincerely want to serve their constituents, and make their lives better. And that is Pelosi’s leverage.
Cast your mind all the way back to 2009. President Barack Obama’s signature policy, the Affordable care Act, was in deep shit. And one of the reasons that it was in such deep shit was a large bloc of newly elected Democratic House members from highly competitive swing districts that were worried that the ceaseless bombardment on negative GOP propaganda would hurt them in their districts for reelection if they voted to pass the bill.
Pelosi was having none of it. She gathered her caucus into a conference auditorium, and she laid down the law. She reminded every member that they were not elected to congress to keep getting reelected. They were elected to congress to serve their constituents. And passing the ACA would bring insurance coverage to many of their constituents. She urged her caucus to take a long, deep gut check, and called a vote for the ACA a Badge of Honor. The ACA passed, and more than 20 of the freshman Democrats lost their seat in the midterm elections. But they did the right thing.
This is Pelosi’s hold card, and I expect to see her use it again on Wednesday or Thursday in a closed caucus meeting. The majority of the House Progressive caucus liberal idealists, not career politicians. They are there to serve. Pelosi will remind them that as nice as things like universal pre-k schooling, daycare, and community college for free may be, they cannot use it as a tool with which to stop the passage of a bipartisan bill that will bring benefits to their own constituents.
Personally, my money is on Pelosi. She has this down to a science. My projection is that on either Thursday or Friday, the bipartisan bill will be brought to the floor for a vote, and it will pass. We’re talking about Pelosi here, after all. As a Las Vegan, I can tell you from experience that it’s never a good idea to bet against the house. We shall see.
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Agreed. I’ve been saying it to anyone who will listen — I have faith in Pelosi, Schumer and Biden. The items in the bills are too important not to pass. And the reality is, even if reelection is the goal, we go down in flames in the mid-terms if they don’t get all of this done and have it to run on. Plus, hopefully, Trump and his inner circle will be indicted not long before early voting starts. That would be a nice reminder to the independents too.
I can only hope that when Pelosi finally does step down as Speaker (as she’s indicated she will in the near future) her Democratic successor will have even 1/10th of Pelosi’s knowledge and skill. Granted, Speakers of the House in general haven’t been of the highest caliber this century (the better part of two decades of GOP mismanagement and incompetence have been mirrored by their Speakers) but Pelosi’s probably been the best Democratic Speaker since Tip O’Neill stepped down with his retirement from Congress.
So once again, conservadems screw over progressives for their corporate owners. And the moderates/Establishment enables it. Whatever.
Say goodbye to our majority. The base of the party wants the Build Back Better. The conservadems will not let that happen.
If Pelosi has any smarts at all, she will continue to use the bipartisan bill as leverage to get the bigger infrastructure bill passed. Once she caves and passes the smaller, bipartisan bill, none of those Republicans who wanted that smaller one passed will have any incentive to vote for the bigger bill. Only if the smaller bill is tied to the bigger bill do we have any chance of getting any Republican votes in favor of the bigger bill.
The moderates have apparently agreed to vote for the bill.
The next problem will be the Senate.
I just very much disagree on this take on Rep Jayapal. I have found her strategy to be strong, ethical and constructive.
President Biden ran and won on the Build Back Better platform. This is what the voters said they want from their government. Biden sat down with Congress five months ago and laid out what he wanted to move forward with.
Everyone in Congress sat down and negotiated in good faith. They all understood, and it was made clear to the voters, that these bills were a package deal. Members of Congress had ample opportunity to voice objections over parts of the package. Was someone upset with the idea to fund high speed rail? Or expanding Medicare? If so, they had an opportunity to have that debate. But everyone came to an agreement.
Now, a tiny fraction of Congressional Democrats – 4% – want to veto what 96% have agreed to. They want to strip away a huge swath of the legislation, keeping what they like at the expense of the other priorities. They want to be treated to a luxurious gourmet meal on the promise that next week when it’s our turn, they won’t serve us Arby’s, and we see them meeting with the manager at Arby’s to plan that dinner.
We have a mandate offered by the voters in one of the highest turnout elections in decades. We have polling to show that voters of all creeds and background want these bills. We have the mass majority of Democrats in Congress ready to sign off on the whole thing.
No, progressives aren’t a majority. But they are standing with the majority, and they outnumber the nine reps and two senators who are being obstructionists.
Rep Jayapal isn’t going to give up her leverage. I stand with that decision. We have not been given any reason to trust the obstructionist nine or Manchin and Sinema. It is reasonable to suspect that if we passed the BIF, they’d find reasons to go back on their promises on reconciliation. They need to put as much skin in the game as everyone else. The bills must pass together, or not at all.
Offering without comment: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/kill-the-bill-2
I agree with Marshall. He’s kind of squared the circle. The progressives — and their many congressional allies — are right; and Pelosi is not necessarily working against them. Let’s hope not. But no matter what, they are right. Thanks for posting.
Here’s something else you might want to see:
https://www.primetimer.com/theview/joy-behar-manchin-sinema-enemies-of-democracy