Nancy Pelosi has bigger problems than being overshadowed by a 29-year old former bartender.
The Speaker of the House is getting shut out on everything from guns to climate change in the Republican-held Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as she seeks to move on from the collusion delusion and get back to legislating on the issues, according to reporting from Politico.
Shutting Pelosi down
The conclusion of Robert Mueller’s investigation with no new indictments left Democrats in the lurch, and had Speaker Pelosi, who was never a big fan of impeachment anyway, touting a renewed focus on core issues. With the implosion of the collusion narrative, Pelosi shifted the narrative last week from Russiagate to healthcare after Trump’s Justice Department officially came out against Obama’s landmark law.
Pelosi hasn’t exactly let Trump off the hook, and she’s done her share of conspiracy mongering about attorney general William Barr and his alleged “cover up” of the Mueller report, but she’s clearly eager to move on. If she wants to shift gears, though, she’ll have a hard time getting past McConnell, who has few reasons to reward her. With no collusion and no impeachment, denying Pelosi the opportunity to deliver on campaign promises to constituents is too good an opportunity for McConnell, who is himself facing re-election, to pass up.
The predicament does not seem to be lost on House Democrats. “I’m not sure that anything we do is going to reach the floor of the Senate,” said House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-KY). “That’s the reality.”
Senate Republicans have additional motives to impose a blockade on Pelosi. Shuttering her agenda will protect vulnerable Senate Republicans, as well as the president, from having to go on the record with regard to especially touchy issues. Republicans want to keep Trump from having to invoke his veto power to shoot down popular policy proposals, particularly on healthcare. Trump used his veto power for the first time in his tenure last month when he rejected a congressional resolution blocking his national emergency declaration.
Democrats realize they aren’t getting anywhere with McConnell calling the shots in the Senate. McConnell, often criticized by Democrats for his political maneuvering around procedural rules to score partisan victories — and endearingly referred to as “Cocaine Mitch” by Republicans for that same ruthlessness — is under fire from his colleagues across the aisle for refusing to consider Democrat bills to expand background checks on firearms and other progressive priorities.
“He’s going to give it the Merrick Garland treatment,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) of the House Democrats’ agenda.
Democrats stumble
Democrats have long grumbled about how McConnell stymied Barack Obama’s agenda, and his blocking of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is something that touches a nerve for many liberals. It didn’t help matters when Cocaine Mitch rallied his caucus to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in October. McConnell is full speed ahead on changing Senate rules to expedite confirmation of Trump’s nominees to the federal judiciary.
True to his name, “Cocaine Mitch” has shown a willingness to force Democrats to go on the record on the caucus’s most embarrassing, fringe proposals. McConnell brought up the Green New Deal for a vote last week, exposing fissures in the Democratic party in the process; 43 Democrats voted present, despite the climate change resolution’s endorsement by Senate Democrats running for president. McConnell could force similar votes on Medicare for All and other divisive issues to clobber the Democrats.
Democrats stumbled out of the gate in January amid the longest government shutdown in history, and things didn’t get much better for them as their policy agenda was overshadowed by an anti-Semitism controversy that highlighted divisions in the party and left many questioning Pelosi’s control over the caucus. With the shutdown battle and the anti-Semitism controversy receding into the past, Democrats suffered another blow last weekend with Trump’s collusion exoneration.
The ranks of the Democrat party are again divided post-Mueller on how to proceed, with some still insisting on impeachment for collusion they stubbornly maintain took place. But Pelosi has signaled that she thinks it’s time for House Democrats to put together a portfolio of policy achievements to show off to voters before 2020. Before Mueller exonerated Trump, Pelosi already poured cold water on impeachment and urged Democrats to rally around the “For the People” agenda, and at a caucus huddle following the release of Mueller’s findings, Pelosi again whipped Democrats into focusing on an agenda prioritizing amnesty for illegals, health care, and ambitious gun regulation.
“Public support for the For The People agenda was critical to our victory in November and it will be key to removing any obstacle in our way, including a Republican Senate,” said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.
Perhaps, but not if McConnell has anything to say about it.
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