Dems want a year of achievements
Additional successes sought as midterm elections draw near
WASHINGTON — Staring at midterm elections that could cost them control of Congress, Democrats are trying to sculpt a 2022 legislative agenda that would generate achievements and reassure voters that they’re addressing pocketbook problems and can govern competently.
Last year, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats notched a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill and a $1 trillion infrastructure package. Yet also imprinted on voters’ minds are the months of Democratic infighting over priorities that saw holdouts scuttle two top goals: their roughly $2 trillion, 10-year social and environment measure and voting rights legislation.
Resurrecting the social and environment bill tops the 2022 wish list for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. It’s a risky endeavor because Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has already derailed the legislation, but Biden has conceded he’d accept a smaller package and Democrats could still claim victory with a more modest version.
“People want to see government work and expect us to help move things forward,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., chair of the New Democrat Coalition, a House centrist group. She said voters will assess Democrats’ agenda for “the impact it has on
their communities, on their families. That’s going to be what people think about when they vote in November.”
Democrats are looking to claim election-year wins in a Congress they steer with almost no votes to spare, often against solid Republican opposition. They’re also debating the value of crafting other popular bills and essentially daring GOP lawmakers to defeat them, producing fodder for campaign ads but reminding constituents of Democrats’ 2021 failures.
Other Pelosi priorities include benefits for veterans who served near toxic burn
pits in Iraq and Afghanistan that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and a measure addressing the computer chip shortage and other competitiveness issues.
An early focus will be a $1.5 trillion bill financing government through September and perhaps providing further aid to cope with omicron, the highly contagious COVID-19 variant. Agency budgets run out Feb. 18 and bipartisan cooperation will be needed for a deal.
But revisiting the social and environment measure — which initially contained popular programs to restrain
prescription drug prices, send monthly checks to families with children and curb global warming — is seen as a political imperative by many Democrats.
“We have to put everything to the metal for the next six weeks” to rewrite and pass that bill, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus. She said Biden should issue executive orders easing pharmaceutical prices and student debt, and House Democrats should send popular bills to the Senate, where Republican-inflicted defeats would let “people understand that Democrats are fighting on
these particular issues.”
Party leaders expect to renew talks on the social and environmental bill soon and hope to have a deal, or be near one, by Biden’s March 1 State of the Union address. Biden has predicted “big chunks” of the original bill will be enacted.
After months of talks pitting progressives against moderates, Democrats had squeezed a compromise social and environment bill through the House in November over GOP opposition. But in a 50-50 Senate where Democrats can afford no defectors, Manchin shot it down in December, arguing it was too costly.
Crafting an agenda that produces legislative success, not just setups for failure to expose Republican intransigence, could be crucial for Democrats in a year with political headwinds blowing against them. In a poll released Thursday by Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Biden hit a low for his presidency with more people disapproving than approving of his job performance, 56% to 43%.
“Democracy seems under attack on every front; the Democratic trifecta can’t get things across the finish line,” Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said of Democratic control of the White House, Senate and House.
And while the economy, job creation and the stock market have been strong and COVID-19 vaccines widely available, concerns are widespread over inflation, the pandemic and Russia’s threat to Ukraine. All this in a year of midterm elections, when lower turnout puts a premium on voting by each party’s most ideological loyalists.
“They’re seeing things Biden put political capital behind fail,” Sean McElwee, cofounder of the liberal research group Data
for Progress, said of Democratic voters. “They need to see things Biden puts political capital behind succeed.”
History bodes ill for Democrats. The party holding the White House has lost House seats in 17 of the 19 midterm elections since World War II, averaging 28 losses per election. Republicans would grab House control in November by gaining five seats.