Democrats take over the House
AS THE 2020 VOTE NEARS, HOUSE DEMOCRATS MUST PROCEED WITH CAUTION
Like the early-morning tweets he dispatches with apparent editorial freedom, President Donald Trump has pretty much had his way over U.S. politics the last two years.
True, some of his key promises failed to come to fruition, and others were mired in the courts, but Trump was at least able to govern with his party in command of both the White House and Congress.
That luxury came to a crashing end Thursday.
The Democratic Party took firm control of the House of Representatives and began to unfurl an agenda that includes reforming the American electoral system, shoring up health care — and poking into various and sundry Trump controversies.
The president’s new trade deal with Canada and Mexico hangs precariously in the balance of the new-look Congress, and impeachment is entirely possible.
It’s unclear how much — if any — of what the House Democrats propose will be allowed into law by the Republican-majority Senate and the president, and which party will come off looking better when Americans head to the polls again in 2020.
The Democrats are likely to be walking a tight rope, trying not to appear excessively political in their investigations of the president and instigating impeachment proceedings only if there is wide public support for it — while at the same time satisfying a party base eager to see Trump brought to heel.
Regardless, the next couple of years are sure to be very different than the last two, with Washington’s partisan divide yawning even wider.
“It’s more likely than not that it’s two years of gridlock and partisan rancour,” said Tim Chapman, executive director of Heritage Action, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s advocacy arm. “Especially because we’re heading toward a really big presidential election.”
The Democrats’ newfound majority in the House was the result of November’s midterm elections, which left them with a 36-seat advantage, and the ability to control committees, subpoena witnesses and easily pass bills. But before they can push ahead with their own agenda, they must solve a messier problem: The government shutdown precipitated by the president’s insistence that a budget bill include US$5 billion for a wall along the Mexican border.
Once that impasse is somehow resolved, many Americans expect tougher oversight of the tumultuous Trump White House. But Democratic leaders wary of appearing overly obstructionist insist they are just as interested in promoting their own policy ideas.
In that regard, they say their first priority is an omnibus bill of electoral reforms, which would strengthen voter rights, try to abolish “dark” campaign funding and end gerrymandering by requiring that electoral districts be shaped by independent commissions, not politicians.
Next would be a new law targeting high medicine costs, including the creation of a “price-gouging” enforcer who could fine companies for “unconscionable” price hikes.
Some of their goals — like a bill to boost infrastructure spending that parallels one of Trump’s own campaign pledges, and the drug-price measures — could find Republican support.
Many if not all the other proposals, though, are likely to face an impenetrable wall either in the Senate or the White House.
“The odds of major, bipartisan legislation has got to be considered low, though not impossible,” said Matthew Dallek, a politics professor at George Washington University.
That could even mean defeat for the United States Mexico Canada Agreement on trade, the NAFTA replacement that some free-trade-skeptical Democrats are leery about.
“I think there’s a pretty big question mark about any issue that will help Trump politically,” Dallek said.
He argues that individual Democratic members of congress will feel little compulsion to compromise with the GOP, not wanting to irritate their base and face contested nominations before the next election.
Ironically, a similar dread of primary challenges and the Trump base is cited for the hard-line approach of many Republicans.
A lot of the legislation passed by the House, then, could become “messaging” bills, setting out Democratic priorities but with no chance of becoming law, said Chapman. That’s much like how the Republican-run Congress passed Obamacare repeal bills in 2011, knowing they would be vetoed by Obama.
The Senate, also unlikely to see its legislation passed by the other chamber, may be mainly focused on confirming more conservative judges, said Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The Democrats have indicated they plan to get to the bottom of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, demand the president divulge his tax returns and, among other angles, probe suggestions Trump violated the U.S. Constitution’s “emoluments” clause by profiting from his position.
But they’ll need to watch their step, Reynolds warned.
“The biggest thing the Democrats have to be careful about is making sure the investigative work they’re doing is careful and fact-based, and not just done for political gain,” she said.
For the same reason, the party may be reluctant to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump, even if Special Counsel Robert Mueller finds he committed the required “high crimes and misdemeanours.”
The Republican House’s impeachment of then president Bill Clinton — which was duly quashed in the Senate — backfired on the GOP, giving the impression of partisan overkill and contributing to Democratic congressional gains in the 2000 election.
Nancy Pelosi, the new House Speaker, said Thursday in responses to media questions she would not rule out impeachment, but has indicated previously it’s not a high priority for the Democrats.
Yet the next two years will be partly shaped by another wild card: the many Democrats expected to vie for the party’s presidential candidacy, and potentially veer off Pelosi’s message in the process.
“You’re going to get a lot of those people in the primaries showing a lot of red meat in the debates, saying ‘This is a president who should be impeached,’ ” predicted Chapman. “And that would be welcomed warmly by the base.”
THE ODDS OF MAJOR, BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION HAS GOT TO BE CONSIDERED LOW.