Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM) attends a news conference to unveil the Problem Solvers Caucus COVID-19 relief package, September 15, 2020, on Capitol Hill.
As the prospect of a pre-election COVID relief measure fades into dust, you may have noticed something anomalous in the U.S. House called the Problem Solvers Caucus. This is made up of 25 Democrats and 25 Republicans who are willing to work in a bipartisan way.
Their most recent and audacious endeavor was a $2 trillion COVID relief package—not enough, but far more than Mitch McConnell was willing to entertain. It never got a vote. Had this measure passed both the House and Senate, Nancy Pelosi would probably have taken it.
What gives here? Does this bipartisan caucus represent a hopeful harbinger of post-Trump common ground?
Yes and no. Substantively, their proposals are center-leftish—gun safety, criminal justice reform, price relief for prescription drugs, immigration reform, a modest infrastructure package. These and other measures represent the kind of legislation that would easily pass Congress were it not for ultra-partisanship on the Republican side.
At the same time, many of the Democrats in the caucus are the kind of Wall Street–oriented centrist legislators who give progressives hives, and who tend to be challenged in primaries. And some of them are in districts more liberal than their voting records.
Post-Trump, the trick is to find our way to a new bipartisanship on popular measures like COVID relief without giving away the store on reining in the excesses of capitalism.
One other notable detail: The 25 Republican members get a free pass from Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy from the usual RINO-baiting of Republican moderates because they are in swing districts, and they need some bills on which they can vote with Democrats. They tend to be transactional rather than principled moderates.
That’s good news of a different kind. Public opinion on key issues tends to be more with the Democrats than the Republicans. It will be up to President Biden to activate that latent support.
