After the Capitol riot, Dems torn over working with GOP
WASHINGTON — When a Republican lawmaker approached Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat, on the House floor recently with a routine request that she sign on to a resolution he was introducing, she initially refused.
Ms. Escobar personally liked the man, a fellow Texan, and she supported his bill. But she held the Republican, who had voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election just hours after rioters stormed the Capitol, partly responsible for the deadly attack and questioned whether she could work with him.
Moments after declining, however, Ms. Escobar had second thoughts.
“Go ahead and count me in,” Ms. Escobar recalled telling the man, whom she declined to identify in an interview. “But I just want you to know that what you all did — I haven’t gotten past it. And it was wrong, and it was terrible. And it’s not something that I think we should gloss over.”
In the immediate aftermath of the assault on the Capitol that left five dead, irate Democrats vowed to punish Republicans for their roles in perpetuating or indulging former President Donald Trump’s fiction of a stolen election that motivated the mob that attacked the building. There was talk of cutting off certain Republicans entirely from the legislative process, denying them the basic courtesies and customs that allow the House to function even in polarized times.
Democrats introduced a series of measures to censure, investigate and potentially expel members who, in the words of one resolution, “attempted to overturn the results of the election and incited a white supremacist attempted coup.” But the legislation went nowhere and to date no punishment has been levied against any members of Congress for their actions related to Jan. 6.
What has unfolded instead has been something of an uneasy detente on Capitol Hill, as Democrats reckon with what they experienced that day and struggle to determine whether they can salvage their relationships with Republicans — some of whom continue to cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory — and whether they even want to try.
“I don’t want to permanently close that door,” Ms. Escobar said. “But I can’t walk through it right now.”
Republicans have felt the breach as well. Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., who did not vote to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory but joined a lawsuit challenging the election results, said feelings ran raw after the violence Jan. 6.
“I had some candid conversations with members
that I have a good relationship with. There was a lot of heated emotion,” Mr. Waltz said. Still, he said, “I didn’t experience a freeze.”
He recently teamed up with Rep. Anthony Brown, D-Md., to round up 70 Republicans and 70 Democrats for a letter to the Biden administration laying out parameters for an Iran nuclear deal.
The dilemma of whether to join such bipartisan efforts is particularly charged for centrist Democrats from conservative-leaning districts, who won office on the promise of working with Republicans but say they find it difficult to accept that some of those same colleagues spread lies that fueled the first invasion of the Capitol since the War of 1812.
Adding to the tensions, most Republicans insist that they did nothing wrong, arguing that their push to invalidate the election results was merely an effort to raise concerns about the integrity of the vote. Some have reacted angrily to Democrats’ moves to punish them.
Days after Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., voted to throw out electoral votes for Mr. Biden, an aide to Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, curtly rebuffed a request from his office to discuss writing insurance legislation together.
“Our office is declining to work with your office at this time, given your boss’ position on the election,” the aide wrote in an email to an aide to Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith later sought to turn the tables on Ms. Axne, posting the email on his official Twitter account after she highlighted her work with Republicans.
“That’s odd,” Mr. Smith wrote, appending a screenshot of the exchange. “This is the last message my staff got from you. Are you no longer kicking Republicans off your bills?”
A spokesman for Mr. Smith did not respond to a request to elaborate.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., who was in the House gallery on Jan. 6, said she had taken it upon herself to try to facilitate a reconciliation — or at least an airing out of differences.
“It’s been a really challenging time,” she said.“Literally, people were murdered in our workplace. For
some people, that is deeply troublesome, and for some people, they want to move on faster than others are ready.”
In the days after the attack, the wounds it laid bare seemed almost too deep to heal. As the mob tore closer to lawmakers on Jan. 6, Rep. Dean Phillips, a mild-mannered Minnesota Democrat known for fostering bipartisan relationships, shouted at Republicans, “This is because of you!”
Afterward, lawmakers nearly came to blows on the House floor and got into heated arguments in the hallways. Some Democrats were so nervous that their Republican colleagues might draw weapons on the floor that House leaders set up metal detectors outside the chamber, drawing loud protests from gun-carrying lawmakers in the Republican Party.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Administration Committee, released a review of Republicans’ incendiary remarks on social media before the attack.
Some Democrats, particularly the most progressive lawmakers from safe districts who rarely found occasion to work with Republicans even before the riot, have pressed to penalize the GOP systematically in its aftermath, arguing that there can be no return to normalcy. A spreadsheet of Republicans who voted to overturn the election, outlining how many states’ electoral votes they moved to cast out, has circulated widely among Democratic offices.
But there has been little action to truly cut Republicans out of the work of Congress. When Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., moved to punish a Republicanwho had voted to overturn the election results by forcing a recorded vote on his bill to rename a post office — the kind of measure that normally sails through unchallenged — only 15 others from Mr. Casten’s party joined him in opposing it.
The reluctance stems, at least in part, from politics. Democrats owe their majority to a group of lawmakers from competitive districts who say their constituents elected them to work with Republicans to get legislation done.