The Democratic Leadership Fights Are Missing Something

With the future Democratic majority in Congress secured, a lot of activist energy has turned to who the leaders will be in the House and Senate. Reportedly, congressional offices are getting hundreds of calls a day rejecting Hakeem Jeffries for House Speaker and Chuck Schumer for Senate majority leader.

It is next to impossible to influence an insider contest, particularly in the Senate where the leadership vote will never be public. The ferocity of the attempt signals the Democratic base’s discontent with the party. But the focus on individual leaders, carrying with it the assumption that leaders unilaterally determine the direction of the party, is in large part the real problem.

Let’s separate the two leadership fights, because they are very different. Senate Democrats will choose their leader behind closed doors early next month, and Schumer only needs a majority of the caucus to win the vote, which after the Mary Peltola and Scott Colom races are called in Alaska and Mississippi would be 29 senators. This is the first election cycle since Schumer ascended to leadership where all the incoming freshmen weren’t handpicked by him and dependent on him for money and support. So he has built-in support from the caucus, and even some incoming members—Sens.-elect Josh Turek, Sherrod Brown, Roy Cooper—have Schumer to thank for their new jobs. This is why Schumer’s people have put out a media blitz saying that resistance is futile.

But then seven incoming Democratic senators either vowed to not support Schumer or vaguely pined for “new leadership.” Hunger for a new leader doesn’t mean an alternative exists. Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI) suggested someone, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), but he had been committed to testing the waters for president, making a majority leader fight impractical.

That changed on Monday, when Van Hollen—who was the successor-in-waiting to Nancy Pelosi for years until he realized she wouldn’t give up power so quickly and he jumped to the Senate—shifted to “active listening mode” about the majority leader position, after hearing from the public and many advocates. A number of sitting senators have made noncommittal statements, and then the 600,000-strong Machinists’ Union sent a letter asking Schumer not to run for majority leader.

This grew louder on Tuesday. Van Hollen, at a progressive event in Washington called Popular Mandate, told MS NOW’s Ali Vitali that he was “in the process of calling my colleagues” to talk about the majority leader position. “We just saw democracy in America in action, we should bring democracy to the United States Senate,” he said. At almost the same time in the Capitol, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), representing very different factions of the Democratic caucus, held a press conference to state that they would not vote for Schumer and wanted to see a real choice for majority leader.

I would imagine Schumer still stays in control; in the back of members’ minds is the likelihood that he will not seek another term in office (he is nearly 76 years old, and up for re-election in 2028) and that they can abide another two years before a new leader comes in when the White House potentially flips in 2028. But it’s undeniable that the situation has gotten a lot more fluid in the last 48 hours. Schumer having to relinquish the seat would signal a very new day in how the Senate operates.

One interesting sidelight: even if Van Hollen loses, he may derail Schumer’s succession plan to hand over the position to Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), last seen telling Democrats not to pass anything Trump might veto.

On the House side, the math is actually harder. As we all know from watching the Kevin McCarthy debacle in early 2023, a Speaker needs 218 votes in a vote of the entire House on January 3. So Jeffries needs around 85 percent of the Democratic caucus, rather than 50 percent.

Up until a few weeks ago, it looked like that number would be more like 95 percent or more. The enormity of the Democratic wave gives Jeffries an unexpected and fairly significant cushion, such that he is “confident” that he’ll win without having to offer any concessions to leftist newcomers like the so-called Bloc—Reps.-elect Chris Rabb, Darializa Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez, Melat Kiros, and more. Jeffries also has going for him the usual Democratic obsession with being the adults in the room and wanting to avoid multiple floor votes like Republican hard-liners forced with McCarthy. Plus, there’s no alternative running.

The bill of particulars from some progressives against Jeffries is well-known: his reversal on Medicare for All, his continued support for Israeli military aid, his recent meeting with Jared Kushner, his installation of warmongers on key House Foreign Affairs Committee slots, and more. Just yesterday he failed to get enough Democratic attendance to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, despite saying he supported the effort. (Some Democrats who missed it claimed they were denied the opportunity to vote after having travel challenges getting to the Capitol.)

Under the surface, there does appear to be a little fear and even malleability in Jeffries’s approach. Lieutenants of Jeffries, according to Rep.-elect Don Leonard (D-OH), are threatening to “make [his] life a living hell” and risk his re-election if he demands conditions on his Speaker vote; that doesn’t sound like someone who has things locked up. More importantly, Jeffries has sounded fairly strident on some important issues. He’s said that he would refuse to negotiate or even talk to the “dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist” who is now President Trump’s chief of staff, Stephen Miller. He came out against the bipartisan permitting bill, saying that the House needs more involvement in the process, a sentiment that comes from the left of the caucus.

One threshold question is whether Jeffries will force the fight over the Iran war at the upcoming deadline for government spending on December 11, rather than waiting until next year. Democrats could demand a rider denying all money for Iran hostilities in any stopgap spending; a growing set of members—and not just progressives—are asking for that. Trump has called the war effectively over, perhaps to slow the momentum for Congress blocking funding.

Jeffries deferred to the Appropriations Committee leaders when he was asked about this directly. And that’s actually one way to think about how he will lead the Democratic caucus.

It’s been so long since someone other than Nancy Pelosi ruled the Democrats that there is an impression that there’s only one viable style of leadership, rooted in intimidating, browbeating, and sidelining alternative voices. Pelosi dictated who sat on committees, which committees led legislation and hearings, and what ultimately got votes. She learned this approach as chair of the California Democratic Party, which is relentlessly and noxiously top-down. But it’s not the only or even the most desirable way to govern.

As Matt Stoller explained, the consequence of Pelosi’s style was that new leaders and new ideas never emerged. People couldn’t do their jobs, and Congress was kept in the dark without the knowledge to govern. Members were supposed to fundraise, show up for votes, and do what they were told. People like Van Hollen and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison hated this, and that’s why they jumped ship.

Pelosi had the unique ability to get seemingly impossible votes over the line, but there was a cost: a stale party that didn’t stand for much, hampered by her weak communications skills, and beholden to her cramped vision of the possible. The gerontocracy many now demean is a function of Pelosi putting her thumb on any dynamic, young leader in the party.

If you look at what Jeffries is up to in the early days before his Speakership, it’s not quite that. He’s bowing to the sentiment of a lot of the caucus on wanting a say on permitting. He’s bowing to the Appropriations Committee on spending and Iran. It may look weak and indecisive, but it’s actually emboldening elected representatives to have a say in governing. Delegation can be its own kind of power; any successful military campaign relies on the initiative of many lower-level officers, not just the supreme commander. The hard-line approach on Don Leonard feels like a relic of the Pelosi past, but it’s being done to get that Speaker vote. I’m not sure it would be done because of remarks at a hearing or a direction in a legislative markup.

To committee chairs and even rank-and-file members, this might sound pretty good: They can do their work without interference and even have real input on the end product. It sounds suspiciously like democracy. And democracy, rather than what individual tyrant should operate in favor of what faction, is a more desirable outcome.

A weak leader won’t be able to set much of an agenda or demand loyalty on close votes. But a weak leader won’t be able to force Democrats to accept something out of step with their values or promises to voters. The landscape will reward working hard and mobilizing the public. And the change that’s actually needed in Congress leads in this direction, away from centralization, toward more knowledge and more policy entrepreneurship. It’ll be messier than the Pelosi brigade, but maybe that’s what democracy is all about.

So I think the focus on the leaders harks back to another era, when there was a direct connection between who sat in that chair and what ambition Democrats could have. We don’t live in that world anymore, and that’s a good thing.