At first glance, the feud between a couple of wayward House centrists and the Democratic leadership this week calls to mind the old joke about how fights in academia are so vicious because the stakes are so small. The situation involves votes that are either meaningless in practice or have little chance of becoming law; one of the two members due for “punishment” is retiring anyway; and the rest of this session of Congress isn’t going to be very long anyway, especially as the House leaves in two weeks until Election Day.
Dig an inch deeper and the story is really about how Democratic Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) will handle dissension in his ranks. Progressive Caucus members, according to multiple conversations with the Prospect, are concerned that any punishment meted out to the centrists will be used as a pretext to deal with incoming progressives who may not want to vote with the establishment line in 2027 and beyond.
Jeffries is looking to establish the same disciplined approach that Nancy Pelosi used to keep the Democratic caucus in line. But with a big-tent caucus containing correspondingly big disagreements, that may not always be possible or advisable, and some fear that Jeffries will overextend from the current situation, which involved outwardly helping Republicans with a vote, to crack down on progressive differences with the agenda.
Here’s what happened: In order to pass legislation with a simple majority, Republicans in the House first need to pass a rule. (Some things that are bipartisan and popular can pass under suspension of the rules with a two-thirds vote; that’s how the stopgap funding bill through to December 11 passed into law this week.) A rule was put up for vote Tuesday, but because some Republican is always angry about something or other, five of their members voted against the rule, which would have prevented it from passing.
That’s when Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) and Jared Golden (D-ME), members of the Blue Dog Coalition, rode to the rescue. They voted for the rule, providing the full margin of the 210-208 victory. This allowed Republicans to proceed with their agenda for the week, which included a resolution condemning socialism and a bill extending the blockage of some regulations on lobster fishing (which are intended to protect endangered whales) out to 2035. There were others, but these two are the most important for the purposes of the dispute.
Jeffries is looking to establish the same disciplined approach that Nancy Pelosi used to keep the Democratic caucus in line.
The leadership didn’t want their members to have to vote on the socialism resolution. That’s a bit silly, since Republicans will run 75,000 ads this fall calling Democrats socialists whether their members voted to condemn socialism or not. (In the end, eight Democrats voted to condemn, including Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez, and a handful of other incumbents who were redistricted into tough races, including two in Central Florida.)
Golden, for his part, was excited to get his lobsterman bill onto the floor, and he convinced Gluesenkamp Perez to vote for the rule to ensure that. The bill ended up passing the House with almost no Democratic votes.
In defending his decision, Golden reiterated what I said above, that votes about socialism have no bearing on Republican attack ads calling Democrats socialists. He also said it was important to get his lobster bill passed, arguing that failing to do so would have devastated local fishing communities. Golden is leaving Congress and had just a 16 percent favorability rating in the district before making that decision, but candidates from both parties running in that seat support it, as it’s a classic parochial protection of local jobs.
“I think people would be shocked if I introduced a bill to help my core constituency, and then voted against a rule that would have advanced that bill,” Golden told reporter Natalie Fertig.
First off, I don’t think the iron regulatory fist of the Trump administration is anything to fear; they’ve been delaying and canceling rules for the last two years, regardless of what the law says. The White House has expressed support for the concept, so I don’t think we’ll see burdensome lobsterman regulations even if the Senate doesn’t take this bill up, which frankly is likely.
Second, it’s clear that Republicans added the lobster bill to the rule deliberately to get Golden’s support, since they knew they were having internal problems. A loss wouldn’t have necessarily blocked the lobster vote forever, but it would have forced Republicans into tough decisions about how to manage the floor with only their own caucus. Third, we’ve seen that anyone can get a bill to the floor this Congress by filing a discharge petition. The House has passed an extension of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, reforms to force first contracts between unionized employees and members, the release of the Epstein files, and much more, all by forcing a vote with a simple majority. Golden could have easily done that for his precious lobsters.
The bigger issue is that voting against the party on House rules breaks a real norm for Democrats. “I, as Speaker, never—we didn’t even consider that anybody would do that,” said Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) about breaking from the caucus on a rule. Golden never heard from the Democratic whip about his vote, he said.
Within a day, House Democratic leadership released a statement calling Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden’s defections “a significant breach of trust” that “necessitates a serious response.” The response hasn’t happened yet, but could involve revoking or denying certain prime committee assignments. (Gluesenkamp Perez is on the Appropriations Committee, which is a big one.)
Members who disliked having to vote on the socialism resolution are pressuring the leadership to take action. Rules Committee ranking member Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), in a show of his anger, turned his back on Gluesenkamp Perez when she spoke at a committee meeting. (Both members have apparently talked, and the temperature is gradually lowering; Jeffries said on Thursday at a press conference that Gluesenkamp Perez and he had a “productive, forward-looking conversation” and that she is “an important member” of the caucus.)
So you have a meaningless vote on socialism, a likely unnecessary vote on lobster regulations, and a bunch of hurt feelings over norms. Golden is leaving anyway, so the “punishment” he’ll get is meaningless. Who cares?
The real story here is about control. Pelosi ruled the caucus with rigorous discipline, and few ever got out of line. She didn’t threaten punishment because she largely didn’t have to. Jeffries is no Nancy Pelosi, and the kinds of things we now see routinely on the House Republican side with members defying leadership could be coming to the Democrats.
Jeffries wants to cut that off. But one question some progressive members have is whether they would feel the biggest effects of any punishment in the next Congress. One of the things being discussed is to limit committee assignments or subcommittee leadership posts for anyone who not only doesn’t stick with leadership on key votes, but who doesn’t pay dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which helps Democrats get elected.
Imagine that Democrats win Congress, and next year they put up some compromise measure funding Israeli military aid or some other bill progressives don’t like. If Republicans would likely vote for it, the only leverage progressives would have to stop it would be the rule. Should they be subject to punishment if they defect?
Sources in Congress said a narrowly tailored proposal with consequences for voting for a Republican rule is one thing, but enforcing that on Democratic rules would take away Democratic members’ opportunity to represent their constituents and follow their campaign promises. That would be a path to mutual recrimination in what’s likely to be a narrow Democratic majority.
Attaching consequences to DCCC dues has inspired even more frustration, especially after the DCCC repeatedly tried to take sides during the primaries, spending member money and losing several races where they attempted to bigfoot into districts. That already has members angry at the organization; forcing them to give more to potentially fund their own primary challengers, under threat of losing power, is a nonstarter for many.
Most “frontline” members don’t pay DCCC dues because they need that money for their campaigns. Would this rule, if applied equally, mean that no Democrat winning a battleground seat could ever get a good committee assignment?
That Jeffries seems to be backing off sanctions for the Blue Dogs is arguably worse on two fronts: Either he’s showing that there aren’t really consequences for defections, which could lead to more chaos, or he’s showing that there aren’t consequences for certain members, at which point caucus-wide unity would plummet if there were a different standard for challenges from the left.
Jeffries’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Politics is often a team sport, but the relentlessness of the two-party system pushes politicians into uncomfortable coalitions. Attaching consequences to not following the herd will only work if the Democratic leadership is taking ideas from all sides of the caucus. If the punishment is applied unequally, or in ways that don’t serve members of all ideologies who may want distance from the leadership, it could easily devolve into rancor.
Jeffries simply doesn’t have the gravitas, the savvy, or the knack for applying personal pressure of a Pelosi, for whom this wouldn’t be a problem. And he’s looked upon skeptically by progressives, some of whom think they would be singled out more often for showing independence.
At stake is not only how the caucus will run next year if they are given a voter mandate to put a check on Donald Trump’s power, but what happens if and when Jeffries leads the House during a Democratic trifecta. So while the stakes seem low on this particular dispute, in general terms it’s pretty important.
