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Since taking over the House and reclaiming the President’s hammer two years ago, Pelosi has had a considerable cushion to work with – over 230 Democrats in the House. This means Pelosi could afford to lose a handful of votes from her members when she needed them. And she never had to rely on Republicans to pass must-have bills through the House.
But next year Pelosi and his assistants will have little room for error. Democrats will likely only have a majority of five to ten seats. This could make it difficult to pass even routine laws, especially with the moderate and liberal wings of the party already vying for their platform and what went wrong in the election. Policy priorities that go too far in one direction may be out of the question in some cases.
Democrats, for their part, say caucus will be united to advance a Biden agenda in Congress – although McCarthy says they are in a weaker position.
“The Republican victories at the polls were a direct result of the Democrats’ failures in the House,” McCarthy said in a statement to POLITICO. “Now they are entering a new, smaller and more divided Congress.”
Republicans see the next Congress as an opportunity for more bipartisanship in the House – if only out of sheer necessity. And even Democrats say they expect a more bipartisan focus under President-elect Joe Biden, with less chance of courier bills hitting the ground, as both parties seek to bolster a strained economy and realize important priorities such as infrastructure.
“President Pelosi is going to have a hard time,” said Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, who serves as deputy whip and runs for the GOP conference secretary. “She’s going to have to make a decision: does she want to work with Republicans to get things done? Or does she continue to take care of the basics of her party?
At the very least, the Democrats’ whip counting operation will work hard next year, some floor votes are bound to be exciting, and “family talk” could get ugly and spread into public view. And Republicans, who for years have rolled their eyes at media coverage of their internal bickering while holding a majority, are anxiously awaiting the overthrow.
“There are very big divisions in the Democratic conference,” Scalise said, “and it will only get worse for them.”
Democrats, however, say they don’t underestimate Pelosi. The speaker is known as a main vote counter who managed to collect its members for its nearly two decades in power. It’s also why Democrats confidently say that the GOP’s claims that Pelosi might struggle to win 218 votes for the president’s hammer are overstated.
And even some Republicans agree – although they think it works in their favor.
“I don’t underestimate her,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. “She has a tremendous ability to whip her conference to vote against their political interests.”
“And halfway through, she’s got a lot of nervous limbs, and I’m confident she’ll walk them to the board in a way that will serve Republicans in 2022,” he added.
No one stepped forward to challenge Pelosi, despite a few grunts in the caucus. Pelosi and his two top MPs, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, are all expected to lead the House for another two-year term.
“House Democrats have been united in our message and in our votes throughout this Congress, and that will continue into the next Congress,” Hoyer wrote in a statement.
Still, Republicans will try to make life as painful as possible for Democrats over the next two years. They plan to exploit divisions within the party by using procedural tools that had already caused heartburn to Democrats with their more robust majority over the past two years.
This includes drafting discharge petitions, which require 218 signatures to bypass leadership and force votes on the ground, and “re-engagement motions,” which allow the minority to amend a bill before it is finally passed.
And the House GOP has successfully used these procedural maneuvers: They picked enough Democrats to win up to eight motions to re-engage this Congress. They did so by crafting amendments that targeted vulnerable Democrats, causing them to vote against their party for fear of attacking GOP advertisements in their homes. When Democrats held the minority from 2011 to 2017, they didn’t win a single re-engagement motion.
Some Democrats, however, were in such a difficult electoral environment that they came to relish the chance to vote against their party.
In the past two years alone, dozens of Democrats have broken ranks at key times – voting to add immigration-related language to their party’s universal background check bill or an amendment to ” commend ”the work of US Border Patrol officers on a proposed safety and health standards bill for migrants detained in the United States.
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