Tucked away in Jason Zengerle’s New York magazine profile of outgoing Senate minority leader Harry Reid is a little nugget about what Senate Democrats and their new leader, Chuck Schumer, plan to take their first stand on in the new Congress: Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services, Georgia congressman Tom Price. Here’s the excerpt:
Sources tell Zengerle Schumer says he believes Democrats don’t have the ability to stop any of Trump’s other nominees. Republicans on the Hill are skeptical of the claim that “at least three Republicans” could vote against Price. But if Senate Democrats do focus their energies on making the case against Price rather than expend capital on the other nominees, it will reflect a political approach to the Trump era a group of red-state Democratic senators discussed earlier this month.
Here’s the New York Times on that meeting:
Liberal groups and Democratic members of Congress have made hay out of other Trump cabinet picks, like Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt for the Environmental Protection Agency and Alabama senator Jeff Sessions for U.S. attorney general. But a bigger fight over Price would reflect where Democratic priorities truly lie: in making the political case against Price’s goals for reforming Medicare and the broader Republican vision on health care policy.
