Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has privately told her politically vulnerable Democratic members that they will not vote on controversial bills in 2010 unless the Senate acts first.
After a year of bruising legislative victories that some political analysts believe have done more to jeopardize her majority than to entrench it, Pelosi is shifting gears for the 2010 election.
The Speaker recently assured her freshman lawmakers and other vulnerable members of her caucus that a vote on immigration reform is not looming despite a renewed push from the White House and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The House will not move on the issue until the upper chamber passes a bill, Pelosi told the members.
But according to Democrats who have spoken to Pelosi, the Speaker has expanded that promise beyond immigration, informing Democratic lawmakers that the Senate will have to move first on a host of controversial issues before she brings them to the House floor.
"The Speaker has told members in meetings that we've done our jobs," a Democratic leadership aide said. "And that next year the Senate's going to have to prove what it can accomplish before we go sticking our necks out any further."
[...]
Pelosi's promise could dim the prospects for other White House priorities as well, including the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) - known as "card check" - and the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" prohibition on gays serving openly in the military.
"There's not going to be a ton of stuff legislatively next year either way," a House leadership aide said. "But on EFCA - even though the House has demonstrated its ability to pass it - and on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Senate is definitely going to have to act first."
If the report is accurate, that can spell trouble for plenty of issues. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is certainly one- the Senate companion bill to the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2009 (which may be rolled into the defense authorization bill) doesn't even have a Senate sponsor yet. I also feel this further jeopardizes ENDA, the House markup of which has already been postponed into next year.
As an organizing mechanism, it raises an interesting question. Perhaps the famous instance of the "make the Senate go first" theory comes as a result of the BTU tax episode, a 1993 energy tax whose chief proponent was then-VP Gore. The House voted first on it and the Senate never took it up, hanging lots of House members out to dry and helped defeat them in 1994 over that vote, or so the story goes.
I'm not sure it should always be so, though. I've watched in the ongoing New Jersey fight around the marriage equality bill how they don't have the votes in the State Senate after it passed committee, so they're buying time by making the Assembly pass it first, in part to do more lobbying, and in part in the hopes that the Senators will look at the Assembly vote and get some cojones. That option should always be available at the Congressional level.
Carl Hulse also reports that House Democrats are frustrated at the pace of business in the Senate. Never acting on critical bills like immigration, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, ENDA and others until the Senate does is a good recipe for never getting anything done and even more frustration, including from the "base". The Senate has and always will move at a pace just slower than molasses. While it's true the House can take up and pass bills much quicker, that doesn't always ring true, as we've seen in the drawn-out negotiations over health care and the recently-passed financial reform bills on the House side, both of which took months. The Senate could take a long time to pass a bill that, if it's complicated like immigration reform, could completely change the House approach, leading to a long process there. I'm not a fan of the House sitting idly by waiting for the Senate to send them important pieces of legislation. Plus, sometimes the House going first can influence what the Senate bill will look like, and with the House generally being more liberal, that can be advantageous. There needs to be a balance between legislative organizing and electoral protection.
Reducing the amount of spending on the military was, about 15-20 years ago, a popular, mainstream position in the late 1980's and early 1990's. For example, Bill Clinton cut the size of the military by about 16-19%, and that was on top of earlier cuts made during the first Bush administration. However, since those reductions, there has been little mainstream chatter about reducing military spending. Many political observers might instinctively think that the September 11th attacks have now made reducing military spending a third rail in American politics.
Those observers would be wrong, for two reasons. First, costly adventures overseas amid an economic downturn at home have once again turned the public mood back toward a reduction in military spending. Long-term Gallup poll trendlines show this change:
"There is much discussion as to the amount of money the government in Washington should spend for national defense and military purposes. How do you feel about this? Do you think we are spending too little, about the right amount, or too much?"
Too Little: 22%
About Right: 30%
Too Much: 44%
Unsure: 3%
Long-term trends, and further discussion, in the extended entry.
Congressional insiders point out that Barack Obama, in a little-noticed move a few days ago, appointed as the top White House liason to Congress one Philip Schiliro, who has spent many of his past 25 years on the Hill working for (you guessed it) Waxman.
In the wake of Waxman's victory, this is significant. It means Waxman will be closer to the center of the action and will have a direct line into the White House. Congressional insiders also point out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is an ally of Waxman -- and hence, of Obama's liason to Congress.
How significant is all of this? It puts progressives firmly in control of the House leadership, and right at the center of Obama's top priorities. Harold Meyerson:
Fundamentally, there are two reasons Waxman would be the better chairman of Energy and Commerce. First, he is probably the House's most accomplished legislator in three issue areas that are high on the agendas of the nation and President-elect Barack Obama: universal health care, global warming and enhanced consumer protections (no small matter with a steadily rising percentage of our food and medication ingredients coming from China). On environmental questions, Waxman offers a sharp contrast to Dingell, who has long been the primary opponent of stricter standards for auto emissions and fuel efficiency.
Meyerson then provides a long list of Waxman's legislative accomplishments in the pre-1994 U.S. House, and they are indeed impressive. He is not just progressive, he is also highly effective.
The House is alright. We done good in that branch of Congress. It looks very likely that progressives will have a major voice at the table for all of Obama's legislative priorities.
Now, if we can just get good picks for Defense, State and Treasury, we will be doing alright when it comes to Obama's administrative priorities.
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