Liberal discontent with deal on display in House

Activists not happy with Senate budget agreement

WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi staged a record-breaking, eight-hour speech Wednesday in hopes of pressuring Republicans to allow a vote on protecting immigrants brought into the country illegally as children.

“You see, these people are being deported,” Pelosi said around hour six. “We can do something today to at least make whole the children.”

Her remarks seemed partly aimed at the liberal wing of Pelosi’s own party, who seethed as Senate Democrats cut a budget deal with Republicans.

The wide-ranging budget accord says nothing about renewing the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, called DACA, which temporarily shields from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the country as children and living here illegally.

Pelosi said she’d oppose the budget deal unless GOP leaders agreed to hold a House vote on helping such immigrants. But top Democrats said they weren’t corralling rank-and-file lawmakers to oppose the budget pact, leading some of the party’s immigration advocates to question the forcefulness of her opposition.

“I’m going to take everything she says at face value,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-ill. “And then hopefully tomorrow she will validate that trust by stopping us from voting for it. If she doesn’t, then it was a nice speech.”

Another backdrop of her performance — simmering displeasure among the growing ranks of younger Democrats who say it’s time for the party’s 70-something leaders to step aside.

Pelosi’s performance had no immediate impact on Republican leaders, who have not scheduled a vote on the issue. Ashlee Strong, spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-wis., said Ryan “has already repeatedly stated we intend to do a DACA and immigration reform bill — one that the president supports.”

While Pelosi spoke, immigration activists rallied in Washington and threatened retribution against the congressional Democrats who abandoned the strategy of demanding that a budget accord be paired with an immigration deal.

“I’m not a loyal Democrat,” Linda Sarsour, a political activist who cochaired the 2017 Women’s March, declared during a fiery rally near Capitol Hill. “We will be joining primaries this year and we will primary Democrats who did not have the spine or the courage to stand up for our undocumented family.”

The activists who filled a Washington church Wednesday, like liberal leaders nationwide, called out Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for failing to attach immigration legislation to a must-pass bill like the budget deal.

It’s unclear whether the liberal outrage will sink the two-year, nearly $400 budget deal unveiled Wednesday. Numerous House Democrats said they weren’t being pushed by Pelosi’s leadership team to oppose the Senate deal without a DACA fix, and some of Pelosi’s top lieutenants said no such effort was underway.

The lack of a unified Democratic strategy infuriated liberal leaders.

“This is a moral fight that Democratic leadership is failing on. That’s something that’s going to have longterm implications,” said Murshed Zaheed, political director for the progressive group CREDO.

Should Pelosi fail to unify House Democrats against the deal, he added, “it’s going to be another strike against her effectiveness as leader of the caucus.”

“There will be a reckoning,” said Ben Wikler, Washington director for the liberal group Moveon.