It is one thing for the House of Representatives to pass H.R. 5 by a vote of 224 to 206. It is quite another for Democrats to steer their bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity through the Senate and into law, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer knows only too well.
When asked when he would put the Equality Act to a vote, he told a reporter: “At the exact right time.”
Given that it has no chance of drawing sufficient Republican support to muster the 60 votes needed to pass, his answer suggested that “the exact right time” would be never.
And so Democrats are discovering that although they have the thinnest possible majority in the Senate, it remains a graveyard for their progressive agenda just as surely as it was when Sen. Mitch McConnell was the majority leader and boasted last year about blocking 395 bills.
Not that it is stopping them. House Democrats are already moving through a blockbuster run of legislation covering top priorities that were stymied by Republican opposition in the last Congress. Bills to extend background checks for gun purchases, build a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as minors, overhaul election laws, and tackle racial bias in policing are all at different stages of passing through the House.
Frustrations are already running high among liberals who watched the parliamentarian strip their $15-an-hour minimum wage from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending plan.
For a president who built his reputation as a bipartisan deal-maker, it represents an early political test. Can he maintain his profile as a centrist while pushing through his priorities and keeping the more radical wing of his party on his side? And to what extent can he lean on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to ditch an unattainable liberal wish list in order to focus on deliverables?
The danger down the road for Biden is headlines that progressives are becoming frustrated and at odds with the White House, according to Washington analyst Stuart Rothenberg.
“That’s bad for Democrats, and that means it’s bad for the president because there’ll be a narrative that develops that Democrats are divided and fighting one another,” he said. “And they’d rather not talk about that. They’d rather focus on public policy, how the Biden administration has responded to COVID-19, how the economy is doing.”
There is no sign that Biden is leaning on his congressional leadership. At a news conference this week, Schumer said he was confident that the Senate would not be a “legislative graveyard.”
“I believe and I believe my caucus believes that we need big, bold action, and we’re going to figure out the best way to get big, bold action on a whole lot of fronts,” he said. “People are going to be forced to vote on them.”
Yet, the administration’s biggest, boldest plan has already been stripped of one of its signature liberal policies. When the Senate votes on Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan, it will not include a proposal for a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour, following the Senate parliamentarian’s decision that it could not be included under special rules that Democrats are using to avoid the filibuster.
Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, said the passage of the bill illustrated two political advantages of pushing for measures that might not make it into law.
“Part of this is gamesmanship: Ask for as much as you can before you start compromising,” he said.
And he said that opponents often underestimated the level of support for proposals they dismiss as part of a liberal wish list, such as raising the minimum wage, which is backed by 51% of Republicans, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll published this week, although most favor a smaller figure than $15, or the huge cost of Biden’s pandemic rescue plan. House voting records can provide ammunition for Democrats to unseat Republicans in marginal seats, even if the legislation is doomed to fail.
“You can say the same thing about gun control. Something like 90% of the American public wants to toughen gun-buying requirements, so the House should use that to beat up on House incumbents if they don’t support it,” he said.
So when House legislation was reintroduced this week that would require background checks for all firearm sales, the real target may not be guns but Republicans.
