Progressive leaders say they are prepared to use the weight of their caucus, as well as the megaphone of outside groups closely aligned, to try to force their party’s hand.
“We are preparing for victories in these matters. We will take this to the end, ”said Jayapal, president of Congressional Progressive Caucus, in an interview.
Jayapal acknowledged that potential budget issues would be out of the House’s control, saying his caucus “would do everything we could” to support Sanders while he presses for a broader bill.
The coronavirus aid victories secured by House liberals are among the first signs of a newly encouraged progressive wing under Jayapal’s leadership. In the fall, she designed a review of the group that consolidated its power and made the membership rules stricter in an effort to give the progressive caucus more and more dominance within the Chamber.
And that new influence can be invaluable when House leaders begin looking beyond this winter’s pandemic relief negotiations to an agenda full of bills that can divide the narrow majority of Democrats on everything from immigration to gun control. and voting rights. Spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi can only lose a handful of Democrats in any vote, giving rival factions a big advantage.
Jayapal, who was ill with Covid in the early days of Biden’s presidency, says he has lobbied at all levels of the Democratic leadership to secure a relief bill that includes the $ 15 an hour minimum wage, which has been a priority for the left – including democratic leaders – for more than a decade.
Jayapal said the CPC was “feeling great” until Biden’s statement last Friday casting doubts about whether the salary increase would make it into the final bill – a moment she described as a “stomach punch”. She spent the weekend arguing to preserve the wake of the wake in conversations with council committee leaders and Biden advisers. This included helping to organize a Sunday conference call with Senate Budget Committee chairman Bernie Sanders, in the presence of officials from that panel and House leadership advisers, to address some of the remaining procedural issues.
“I was doing everything I could to get him there,” said Jayapal, adding that she had also planned an alternative option: an amendment to force the bill’s salary increase during a commission increase. She has also been in contact with influential outside groups, such as Service Employees International Union.
The initial version of the bill – presented to Democrats on the House’s Education and Work Committee on Sunday – did not include the minimum wage clause. But on Sunday night, Jayapal said he had received a message from Pelosi and the president of Education and Labor, Bobby Scott, saying he would be included.
Senior Democrats say they have been working to include raising the minimum wage for weeks, arguing that it makes no sense to be conservative when your party holds all the levers of power. Even so, they recognize in particular that the Senate has the power to determine what remains in the relief bill.
No one can predict whether policies like the $ 15 minimum wage will remain intact in the Senate’s final bill. This matter is left to the Senate parliamentarian, who determines which policies will be approved in the budget process known as reconciliation. Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer questions avoided Tuesday on whether the provision would survive a parliamentary review.
Then there is the 50-50 Senate split, which means that a single Democrat – like Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia – can remove an item from the liberal wish list.
“Who was it that worked in supermarkets, drugstores, refrigerators, caregivers? They were people we thought were not worth paying $ 15 an hour, and they are the glue that holds us together, ”said MP Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Member of the progressive caucus and the Democratic leadership who is also promising keep politics alive.
The past two years, for the most part, have prepared the House’s progressives well for their current struggle, requiring them to work with leading Democrats to win the heavy bills, including a previous minimum wage increase that led to intraparty disputes among the most liberal and centrist members of the party.
But the initial success of liberals in their party’s Covid negotiations is a departure from the last Congress, when Jayapal and his members were sometimes forced to give in to moderate – and more politically vulnerable – colleagues on major political priorities, such as immigration, causing open war inside the caucus.
It is not clear how long the bonomie between the two wings of the group lasts.
In the last Congress, draft messages that reached the House floor had no chance of becoming law due to the White House and Senate controlled by the Republican Party. The calculations for Democratic leaders in both chambers are very different now that they are in full control of Washington and rushing to pass a nearly $ 2 trillion bill that can attract virtually unified support from their party without reaching any of the budget traps of the Senate.
The stakes could not be higher either, with billions of dollars at stake for distributing vaccines, schools, small businesses and healthcare professionals as Biden tries to fulfill his first major legislative priority. And Democrats fear that any political misstep could be costly to them halfway through the 2022 term.
Jayapal said progressives have an arsenal of tools to help maintain pressure on Biden and Democratic leaders for the next two years, including his extensive base of activists.
When leading Democrats wondered whether they should restrict people’s eligibility to receive stimulus checks, Jayapal said she and her members decided to speak up and rely largely on the public for their position. The Washington Democrat led a letter with Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) Bidding the party not to lower the upper income limit that won more than 100 signatures.
Still, longtime liberals in the House say they need to be prepared to make some concessions while Democrats draft the most comprehensive bill possible under restrictive conditions.
“You cannot be in advocacy policy without experiencing a broken heart. You defend as best you can, and ultimately you have to make a decision about what is substantial progress, ”said veteran Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
“Not all of us,” added Welch, “are going to get what we want.”