Power shift: What House Dems plan to do with their majority
WASHINGTON— Democrats set to run the House for the first time in eight years have a brimming list of priorities to tackle, topped by election laws and ethics rules, prescription drug prices and infrastructure.
But with the 2020 presidential and congressional elections on the horizon—and yes, they’re already coloring decision-making—most Democratic proposals have a better chance of becoming campaign issues than enacted law.
One thing seems certain: A Democratic-controlled House will mean plenty of hearings and investigations. Newly armed with the power to set the agenda and issue subpoenas, Democrats are itching to burrow into President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign’s connections with Russia, his personal finances and his undermining of President Barack Obama’s health care law and environmental protections.
Here’s a look at Democrats’ early priorities and the hurdles they face:
LEADERSHIP
Vilified by Republicans on the campaign trail, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., emerged Wednesday as President Donald Trump’s preferred choice to become speaker of the House, arriving on Capitol Hill with an air of inevitability after leading her party back to the majority.
The Democratic leader is positioned to return to the speaker’s office after Democrats took back the House in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Already the only woman to have held the job, she would also become one of the few lawmakers to reclaim the gavel after losing it.
Pelosi is a “smart woman,” Trump said during a nearly 90-minute press conference at the White House, and someone with whom he hopes to engage in “beautiful bipartisanship” and deal-making.
At the Capitol, in the stately Rayburn Room—named after the last speaker who returned to the office—Pelosi was asked if she was confident she would become speaker when the new Congress convenes in January. She said simply: “Yes, I am.”
Yet ascent of the California Democrat is nowhere near guaranteed. Many younger House Democrats, including some of the newly elected, have pledged to vote against her. They are reluctant to shout the name “Pelosi” when the cameras zoom in during the first roll call of Congress, fearful of the attack ads that will be launched against them.
LEADING OFF
Pelosi has talked about a first bill—HR1—revamping campaign finance laws, election statutes and ethics requirements. The goal: Demonstrating that Democrats care about reform and that Trump’s “drain the swamp” mantra has achieved anything but.
While final decisions remain, Democrats are considering steps like curbing large political donations, toughening disclosure requirements for corporations and big contributors and offering public financing to congressional candidates. They could propose making it easier for people to register and vote, helping states protect ballot security, requiring presidential and vice presidential candidates to release tax returns and barring lawmakers from joining corporate boards.
OTHER EARLY GOALS
Democrats want to lower prescription drug costs, perhaps by letting the gigantic Medicare program negotiate prices for pharmaceuticals it purchases. This is a potential area for deal-making with Trump, who’s discussed cutting drug costs.
Democrats want to reduce health care costs overall, which their candidates highlighted in their midterm election campaigns, and buttress Obama’s health care law. Ways and Means Committee Democrats are considering reversing Trump’s move to allow low-cost, short-term insurance policies that don’t require coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.
They also want to upgrade roads, schools, mass transit and communication systems in what Pelosi calls “a new, green way,” an effort Democrats say would raise paychecks. Trump has also championed infrastructure. The big dispute is over how to finance the mammoth investment.
ALSO ON THE AGENDA
Even as Trump made anti-immigrant fervor a focus of his campaigning for Republicans this year, Democrats talked of helping young “Dreamer” migrants stay in the U.S. permanently. A battle with Trump, who has tried ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects hundreds of thousands of young migrants from deportation, ended in a Senate stalemate last winter.
Other Democratic priorities include expanding background check requirements for gun purchasers; requiring civil rights protections for sexual orientation and gender identity and reversing Trump rollbacks of Obama-era curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and Trump’s expansion of mineral drilling on public lands.
A TEMPTING TARGET
How to pay for their initiatives? Some Democrats say privately that one possibility is erasing reductions that last year’s GOP-written, $1.5 trillion tax cut bestowed on wealthy Americans. That could provide real cash while bolstering Democrats’ message that they’re fighting for the middle class.
Another possibility is raising the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gasoline tax, last boosted in the 1990s, by up to 1 percent annually. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., likely next chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, proposed that last year.
As for the billions Trump wants to pay for his proposed wall with Mexico, Pelosi, an ardent foe of the structure, calls that “a manhood issue” for Trump that doesn’t interest her.
IMPEACHMENT? NYET, FOR NOW
Many hard-left Democrats are itching for an impeachment showdown. Party leaders worry that without a bombshell from special counsel Robert Mueller about Russia’s role in Trump’s campaign, an impeachment drive would alienate moderates and independents.
But House probes of the Russia connection remains fair game.
FOR INVESTIGATIONS, A TARGET-RICH ENVIRONMENT
Obtaining Trump’s tax returns, and their untold detail on his business entanglements and tax strategies, has been a top Democratic priority.
Congress’ tax-writing committees can by law obtain records from the IRS. Trump, who’s refused to release them, might not comply, sparking a court fight and letting Republicans argue that Democrats are going after their political opponents’ tax records.