Senate Democrats insisted Monday they didn’t cave to Republicans when striking a deal to reopen the government but their progressive base isn’t buying it.
Immigration advocates and progressives unleashed a litany of angry tweets and statements as Senate Democrats announced they would vote with Republicans to fund the government after extracting a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to move a bipartisan immigration bill soon.
Though the bipartisan bill is expected to provide a pathway to citizenship for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Trump is killing, liberal activists don’t trust that McConnell will keep his word. And there’s no guarantee that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., will take up any immigration bill that passes in the Senate.
“The Democrats caved,” said Ezra Levin, co-director of anti-Trump progressive group Indivisible. “It is morally reprehensible because the human cost is enormous. It’s political malpractice, it is not smart politics.”
Senate Democrats are ignoring the “folks building the big blue wave,” Levin said, admitting that Democrats got 48 hours of positive news coverage, but it will turn on them.
Levin isn’t alone in his frustration with Democrats, arguing that “most of the progressive space has awoken to the fact that the game [Democrats] are playing is the same game.” One minute they say they’ll go to the mat for their base’s priorities and then they cave, he said.
Levin expressed deep frustration with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in particular.
“I wish that Chuck Schumer was as good at keeping his caucus together and standing for his professed values as much as Mitch McConnell is at keeping his caucus together,” Levin said.
CREDO Action piled on., saying Schumer “let the entire Democratic Party down.”
“It’s official: Chuck Schumer is the worst negotiator in Washington — even worse than Trump,” said Murshed Zaheed, CREDO political director. “Any plan to protect Dreamers that relies on the word of serial liars like Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan or Donald Trump is doomed to fail.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a longtime immigration advocate in the House, echoed the sentiment.
“I do not see how a vague promise from the Senate majority leader about a vague policy to be voted on in the future helps the Dreamers or maximizes leverage the Democrats and American people have over the Republicans right now,” Gutierrez said in a statement. “This shows me that when it comes to immigrants, Latinos and their families, Democrats are still not willing to go to the mat to allow people in my community to live in our country legally.”
Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, issued a warning to Democrats, saying progressives will win back Congress, and back candidates who deliver for the base.
“Today’s cave by Senate Democrats — led by weak-kneed, right-of-center Democrats — is why people don’t believe the Democratic Party stands for anything,” Taylor said. “These weak Democrats hurt the party brand for everyone and make it harder to elect Democrats everywhere in 2018.”
The campaign arm for Senate Democrats quickly issued a statement after the Senate voted to fund the government through Feb. 8, attempting to deflect ire toward Republicans. Schumer stressed ahead of the vote that Democrats came out on top, securing pivotal assurance on pathway forward to protect Dreamers.
“Let’s take advantage of the renewed attention and sympathy for Dreamers, and focus on winning the vote 17 days from now,” Schumer’s spokesman Matt House said in response to liberals’ criticism of the minority leader.
Democrats can say they didn’t cave, Levin quipped, but that won’t erase the fact that “people feel like this is a betrayal.”
“Democrats will not get anything done until they grow spines,” he said.
