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Progressive leaders say they are prepared to use the weight of their caucus, as well as the megaphone of closely aligned outside groups, to try to force their party’s hand.
“We are preparing to win on these issues. We are going to push it all through, ”Jayapal, chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview.
Jayapal acknowledged that potential budget issues would be beyond the control of the House, saying his caucus would “do whatever we can” to support Sanders as he advocates for a larger bill.
The coronavirus relief victories secured by the House liberals are among the first signs of a newly emboldened Progressive wing under Jayapal’s leadership. In the fall she designed a redesign from the group that consolidated its power and tightened membership rules in an effort to give the sprawling progressive caucus more influence in the House.
And this new influence could prove invaluable as House leaders begin to look beyond this winter’s pandemic relief talks for an agenda stacked with hot bills that could divide the narrow majority of Democrats on everything from immigration to gun control to voting rights. President Nancy Pelosi can only afford to lose a handful of Democrats in any given vote, giving inordinate leverage to competing caucus factions.
Jayapal, who was sick with Covid at the start of Biden’s presidency, says she lobbied all levels of Democratic leadership to secure a relief bill that includes the $ 15 an hour minimum wage, which has been a priority for the left – including Democratic leaders – for more than a decade.
Jayapal said CPC ‘felt pretty good’ until Biden’s statement last Friday throw doubt on whether the pay hike would be part of it in the final bill – a moment she described as a “punch.” She spent the weekend arguing about preserving the revival hike in conversations with House committee leaders and Biden advisers. This included helping organize a Sunday appeal with Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, which was attended by staff from that group and House executive assistants, to answer some of the outstanding procedural questions.
“I was doing everything I could to make it happen,” Jayapal said, adding that she had also provided for a fallback option: an amendment to force wage hikes in the bill during a committee hike. She was also in contact with influential outside groups such as the International Union of Service Employees.
The original version of the bill – presented to Democrats in the House Education and Labor Committee on Sunday – did not include the minimum wage provision. But on Sunday evening, Jayapal said she had received a text from Pelosi and the president of education and work, Bobby Scott, saying he would be included.
Senior Democrats say they have been pushing to include the minimum wage increase for weeks, arguing that there is little point in being conservative when their party holds all the levers of power. Even so, they privately acknowledge that the Senate ultimately holds the power to determine what is left in the relief bill.
No one can predict whether policies like the $ 15 minimum wage will remain intact in the final Senate bill. This matter is at the mercy of the parliamentarian of the Senate, who determines the policies adopted within the framework of the budgetary process called reconciliation. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer questions dodged Tuesday whether the provision would survive parliamentary scrutiny.
Then there’s the Senate’s 50-50 division, which means that only one Democrat – like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin – can cross an item off the Liberal wishlist.
“Who worked the grocery stores, pharmacies, meat packers, caregivers? They were people who weren’t worth paying $ 15 an hour, and they’re the glue that holds us together, ”said Representative Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Member of the Progressive Caucus and Democratic Leadership who is also vowing to keep politics alive.
The past two years in the Majority have prepared House progressives well for their current struggle, forcing them to work with the Top Democrats to muscle themselves through costly bills, including an earlier minimum wage hike that leads to intraparty feuds between the most liberal and centrist members of the party.
But the liberals’ initial success in their party’s Covid negotiations is a change from the last Congress, when Jayapal and his members were at times forced to give in to their moderate – and more politically vulnerable – colleagues on broad political priorities such as immigration, provoke open war within the caucus.
We do not know how long the good nature lasts between the two wings of the party.
In the last Congress, the courier bills that went to the House had no chance of becoming law given the White House and Senate controlled by the GOP. The math for Democratic leaders in both chambers are very different now that they are in full control of Washington and rush to pass a nearly $ 2 trillion bill that can garner virtually unified support from their party without touching any of the Senate budget triggers.
The stakes couldn’t be higher either, with billions of dollars at stake for vaccine distribution, schools, small businesses and health workers as Biden tries to achieve his first major legislative priority. And Democrats fear any political misstep could cost them dearly in the mid-term of 2022.
Jayapal said progressives have an arsenal of tools to help keep the pressure on Biden and the Democratic leadership over the next two years, including their large militant base.
When Leading Democrats questioned whether to tighten people’s eligibility to receive stimulus checks, Jayapal said she and her members decided to make their voices heard and build on the broad support of the public for their position. The Washington Democrat led a letter with Biden’s Allied Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Urging the party not to lower that income cap which has garnered more than 100 signatures.
Still, longtime Liberals in the House say they have to be prepared to make concessions as Democrats assemble the most sprawling bill possible under restrictive conditions.
“You cannot be in advocacy politics without feeling grief. You are advocating for the best possible and, at the end of the day, you have to make a decision on what constitutes substantial progress, ”said veteran representative Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
“We won’t all get what we want,” Welch added.
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