OP-ED: The uncertain road ahead for Democrats
The Democratic locomotive that flattened the GOP on Tuesday is now moving rapidly over the horizon. Now comes the hard part: governing.
It’s easier to make the speeches than it is to make the hard choices which being in control of Congress will entail. The Democratic coalition will be unusually broad in the next Senate – stretching from pastor and now senator-elect Roger Hamilton from Kansas to Abdul El-Sayed, the crypto democratic socialist elected to the upper chamber from Michigan.
While in the minority, House Democrats didn’t necessarily have to present a united front. Things will be different starting in January when, with the nation watching, they will assume majority status.
Can Blue Dog Democrats live with the Progressive Caucus? Can the new members from New York City who once hinted at wanting to ouster centrist Hakeem Jeffries from leadership, reconcile themselves to a Jeffries’ speakership?
Across the country, there are untold millions of Democrats itching for Congress to nail Donald Trump to the proverbial wall in the form of another impeachment. (Impeached twice in his first term, the president escaped conviction both times, thanks to Republican senators, who managed to close ranks just enough to save Trump from the ignominy of being tossed from office.)
Can Jeffries and prospective majority leader Chuck Schumer throw enough red meat at this group to keep them satisfied while attending to the economic concerns that brought Democrats to power on Capitol Hill?
According to multiple sources, Jeffries is focused on bringing down prices as a first priority. Before the mid-term elections, Jeffries promised, should he become speaker, a burst of “shock and awe” in the first 100 hours of the new Congress.
Annie Karni, writing in the New York Times in October, reported Jeffries’ priorities included (a) reinstating the Affordable Care premium subsidies that Republicans recently failed to renew, (b) reversing Trump’s nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts, (c) ending the Trump tariffs and restoring lawmakers’ power over trade policies, and (d) winding down Trump’s war of choice against Iran with the goal of bringing down the price of gasoline and other fuels.
Jeffries, according to this account, expected Democratic unanimity for these measures, with the possibility of crossover support from some members of a newly minted GOP minority.
(Over in the Senate, leadership was said to be focused on the Medicaid cuts and a ban on congressional stock trading, among other measures.)
Last Tuesday night, as the Democratic blue wave materialized in such unlikely places as Mississippi, Montana, and Iowa, Jeffries went on television and said, “We hear you, we see you … House Democrats are committed to making life better for you beginning on day one.”
Writing in the Atlantic the day after the mid-terms, Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker noted that Jeffries held the line against some skeptical members of the Democratic caucus who wanted to emphasize, as campaign themes, issues other than the high cost of living.
As a rationale for his position, Jeffries told comedian/podcaster Jon Stewart that voters had ping-ponged between presidents and Congresses of different parties for decades because none had “solved the fundamental problem” of Americans’ persistent “economic anxiety.”
Come January, one thing will remain the same in Congress: 14th District Congressman Guy Reschenthaler will be back following another resounding victory. On Tuesday, he won 58% of the vote, despite not showing up to campaign. Late in the canvass, the Republican even refused to answer a series of written questions posed to him by this paper, a simple matter of putting pen to paper. (His political foe, Democrat Alan Bradstock, had no trouble responding to the same questionnaire.)
Reschenthaler’s arrogance was astounding. Yet, he got away with it.
It would be nice to coax the congressman out of whatever cave he’s living in. Sometime in the next two years it would be a wonderful, and wondrous, thing for him to let his constituents see him and talk to him in some place other than Washington, D.C.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.