With House Republican leadership in turmoil and the GOP conference divided, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stands to wield significant power in the upcoming negotiations to pass a major budget deal in the coming weeks.
Republicans control the majority in both the House and Senate, but Pelosi may matter the most in the budget talks, since Democrats will be needed to pass a budget deal that will almost certainly increase spending, and thus split Republicans sharply.
Her ability to unify the Democratic caucus to pass legislation that can’t be passed only with Republican votes therefore gives her real leverage.
That leverage is bolstered further by an uncertain GOP leadership. House Speaker John Boehner is stepping down Oct. 30 and nobody knows whether his successor can do a better job unifying a typically divided GOP conference.
“She plays her cards smart and has kept her caucus together and now she’s going to exert a significant amount of leverage on the process, or a deal is not going to get done,” Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former top Senate Democratic aide, told the Washington Examiner.
Pelosi comes to the negotiating table as Republicans struggle to agree on whom to elect to replace Boehner, R-Ohio.
The frontrunner, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is the former House Whip who notoriously struggled to get the fractious GOP in line. He’s now struggling to win the backing of some House conservatives.
Pelosi’s influence is all but certain to ensure any final bill includes top Democratic priorities, including a dollar-for-dollar increase in spending caps for the defense and domestic budgets.
“It has to be a bill that the president will sign and that is probably not a bill that can win all Republican votes,” Pelosi said Thursday after a closed-door Democratic budget meeting. “If they want Democratic votes, Republicans know they have to reach across party lines.”
Talks are about to begin with President Obama on deal to pay for fiscal 2016 spending and perhaps set a top-line budget number for fiscal 2017.
Congressional staff have met with White House officials to begin the negotiations, Democrats and Republicans confirm to the Washington Examiner, but the decisions will be made by Obama and the top four leaders in the House and Senate.
Both parties are jockeying for the most prominent seat at the table.
In addition to Pelosi, Boehner and President Obama, the players include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is very likely to be involved if he is elected the next House speaker next week.
The group has until December 11 to come up with a deal, since full funding for the government expires after that date.
House Republicans have come to rely on Pelosi to help to pass key legislation, including spending bills. Even though the GOP enjoys a significant majority, dozens of their conservative faction often vote against measures they deem too moderate, leaving the GOP to negotiate a deal that will bring enough Democrats on board to pass it.
This week, for example, every Democrat voted to pass a short-term spending bill to keep the government open past the end of the fiscal year. Fewer than half of the Republican conference supported the measure. Without the Democrats, the bill would have failed hours before government funding ran out.
Pelosi hasn’t provided a detailed wish list, but said she expects spending caps imposed under the 2011 Budget Control Act to be lifted, allowing an additional $75 billion in spending that should be divided equally between domestic and defense spending. Pelosi promoted transportation infrastructure projects as part of the negotiations twice on Thursday. Democrats are also trying to renew the expired Export-Import bank, which most conservative Republicans oppose.
“The negotiations are essentially all about satisfying Democratic priorities,” a top Senate Democratic aide told the Examiner. “Lifting sequester, passing an infrastructure bill, reauthorizing Ex-Im.”
“In fact, can you name one single Republican priority that appears to be on the table in these negotiations?” the aide asked.
Senate Democrats asserted their role this week after it appeared to them that McConnell was attempting to limit the talks to a smaller group that included only himself, Boehner and Obama.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Democrats were sidelined in last-minute budget talks between Boehner and Obama in 2012 that left in place most of the Bush-era tax cuts.
Reid said this time, Obama has assured Democrats they’ll be at the table.
“They need our votes,” Reid said.
