On paper, Democrats are locked out of legislative power in the majority-rules House. In practice over the past several months, they have been a swaggering force.
Time and again this year, Democrats under Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have maneuvered to successfully undercut the GOP agenda and put its leaders on the back foot. From a daily drumbeat on health care to the long-running saga over the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to a new focus on the rising cost of living, they believe they’re succeeding by making the party in power talk about Democratic priorities, not its own.
Their success was underscored this week when four House Republicans joined a Jeffries-led effort to force a vote on expiring Obamacare insurance subsidies — a major embarrassment for the GOP speaker.
“Our message to Mike Johnson is clear — you can run, but you cannot hide,” Jeffries said as he took a victory lap on the House steps Thursday.
The New Yorker was referring to his party’s effort to address a so-called health care “crisis” brought about by Republican governance. But it could just as well apply to the overall Democratic attitude at the moment, with the party increasingly buoyant about its political fortunes heading into next year’s midterm elections.
Johnson and his leadership allies have been able to put some wins on the board since lawmakers returned from their summer recess. Republicans ultimately triumphed and ended a record-long shutdown without agreeing to a costly extension of the Obamacare subsidies. They managed to unite and pass a small-bore health care package this week as well as a bipartisan permitting reform bill.
But it has come at a cost. To win the shutdown fight, Johnson kept the House out of session — giving up roughly a fifth of the year’s scheduled legislative days. And managing a razor-thin majority with its constantly clashing factions has left many of his members airing dissatisfaction with the status quo.
“I think the House as a whole has not been nearly as proactive as we should have been in recent months,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.). “It certainly didn’t help that we weren’t even here for two of those months.”
“I believe that we’re behind,” added Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). “We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and the midterms.”
With a sizable band of Republican malcontents willing to buck their party’s leadership, Democrats have sought opportunities to divide the majority party — often by using discharge petitions, one of the few legislative tools available to the minority party.
Already this year three discharge petitions have garnered the necessary 218 signatures, forcing votes Johnson tried to avoid on releasing the Epstein files, restoring federal workers’ collective bargaining rights and now extending the Obamacare subsidies for three years. Each one succeeded with the vast majority of Democrats signing on at Jeffries’ direction, with a handful of GOP rebels joining in.
“We’re in the minority, but our ideas are still really good, and they deserve bipartisan support,” said Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.).
Democrats, Jeffries said, have already “won more discharge petitions in the last three weeks than have been successful in the last 30 years.” More could be coming next year, with more lawmakers planning to move on Russia sanctions legislation and a ban on congressional stock trading.
Beyond the discharge petitions, House and Senate Democrats made a larger strategic calculation in September that has since dominated the congressional agenda: centering a government shutdown fight on health care — in particular, the pending Dec. 31 expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits enacted and extended under former president Joe Biden.
The decision shifted the conversation on Capitol Hill away from President Donald Trump’s controversial but popular assault on federal spending to much more favorable political ground for Democrats. The party knew well that health care was a minefield for Republicans — one that many in both parties blamed for the GOP’s massive House losses in the 2018 midterms.
Ultimately, the shutdown ended after 43 days when a handful of Democratic senators decided the standoff had run its course. But House Democrats strategized to keep health care center stage, with Jeffries filing a discharge petition seeking a vote on a straight three-year extension of the expiring tax credits before moderate Republicans started filing their own discharge petitions.
Within a week, it had more than 200 signatures, and as the vulnerable Republicans scrambled for an off-ramp, Jeffries frequently noted the simplest solution would be for a handful of GOP members to sign on to the Democratic effort. Some moderate Democrats mulled backing a competing discharge petition from Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) that would force a vote on his bipartisan plan for a shorter extension with strings attached. But the vast majority of Democrats kept away, signaling they wanted to stay behind Jeffries’ approach.
“Nobody wanted Gottheimer to dictate strategy for the whole caucus,” said one person directly involved who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategy.
The maneuvering paid off. While Jeffries kept Republicans and some of his own members guessing by suggesting he might get behind one of the bipartisan plans, he ultimately never wavered on the straight three-year approach.
When, as many Democrats expected, Johnson refused to put one of the compromise extensions on the floor, GOP moderates were left with no choice but to join the Jeffries effort.
Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.) called it an “incredibly strategic move” by Jeffries “to have a discharge petition in place and create a safe space for members to do the right thing.”
The completion of the discharge petition has amounted to an internal debacle for Johnson, whose members are now unhappy that GOP leaders got outplayed and will now vote on a measure that the vast majority of them loathe.
“I hate that we are voting on a three-year clean extension and not a bipartisan bill that has smart reforms to the tax credits,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said. “The worst option is being put on the floor — and one that the Senate will not pass.”
Republican leaders, for their part, initially underestimated whether enough of the moderate holdouts would be willing to break ranks and sign on to Jeffries’ discharge petition. They viewed two in particular — Pennsylvania Reps. Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie — as unlikely to sign given their willingness to fall in line on the GOP megabill over the summer, according to two people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations.
But as each side dug in early this week and leaders moved away from allowing a floor vote on a compromise amendment, the moderates made clear to GOP leaders they would retaliate via the Jeffries discharge petition. Bresnahan and Mackenzie were among the four who signed, pushing it over the top.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in an interview that the possibility of the moderates linking arms with Democrats “was heavily discussed” and that leaders “didn’t want it to happen.”
“But, you know, we tried to find a different way to address it,” he said. “I mean, nobody was blindsided.”
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