Dem leaders brush off the left By: John Bresnahan and Manu Raju October 13, 2009 04:51 AM EST
Some of the progressives who helped put Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in power are demanding that they come down hard on House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and any Senate committee chairmen who stray from the flock on health care reform.
Don’t hold your breath.
While three Democratic insiders say leaders have privately discussed the possibility of ousting Rangel or asking him to step aside, there has been no move to approach the New York Democrat — and aides to Pelosi have made it clear that she won’t do anything about him until the House Ethics Committee finishes its probe.
That doesn’t sit well with Markos Moulitsas and Arianna Huffington, two stars of the liberal blogosphere who’ve joined House Republicans in calling for Rangel’s ouster.
“Talk about tone deaf,” Huffington wrote for The Huffington Post on Sunday. “The Democrats have to make it clear to America’s beleaguered middle class that they don’t believe there are two sets of rules: one for the power players of Wall Street and Washington and one for everybody else. Congress’s approval rating is at 21 percent, a 10- point drop over the last month. If the Democrats want to see it hit single digits, by all means, keep Charlie Rangel as chairman.”
While Huffington’s comments buzzed through the blogs Sunday and Monday, Pelosi cares much more about her close-up constituency — the 255 members of the House Democratic Caucus. And when House Republicans pushed a resolution last week calling for Rangel’s ouster, the vast majority of Pelosi’s Democrats said no.
And the Congressional Black Caucus is leaning hard on the Californian to lay off Rangel until the ethics committee completes its investigation, which could drag into next year. Last week, 36 members of the CBC sent a letter to Pelosi on Rangel, a move interpreted by top Democratic aides as a “shot across Pelosi’s bow.”
That doesn’t mean Democrats are happy that Rangel is still an issue — or that he threatens to remain one into the 2010 election season. “She is under a lot of pressure to do something,” one Pelosi confidant said of the speaker. “She wants the [ethics committee] to finish quickly so we can get this over with.”
But for now, Pelosi won’t do anything but wait — regardless of what Huffington says.
“The speaker’s made it clear that she’s going to wait until the ethics committee comes back with its findings,” said Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly.
While Pelosi and Reid rode Barack Obama’s message of change and reform to supermajority power in the House and Senate, they’ve proved less willing to act on specific demands from their liberal base — especially when those demands cross into the realm of palace politics.
Earlier this year, Reid defended Democratic moderates and conservatives when a liberal advocacy group with ties to Obama threatened to air ads against party members who opposed the public option.
Now, more than 79,000 people have signed a Progressive Change Campaign Committee petition urging Reid to strip the chairmanship of any Democratic senator who votes to filibuster health care reform.
The response from Reid’s No. 2, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.): “We’ve never done that. We’re not going to do that.”
Durbin said the petitioners needed to “count to 60 and understand we need to be together, and there are times when we need to work out our differences.”
“This is a silly and unnecessary distraction that is not going to happen — period,” added a Senate Democratic leadership aide. “Given how important this is to the rest of his agenda, it is up to President Obama to help the leadership to hold the caucus together.”
Not surprisingly, Democratic senators who are still evaluating the reform bill making its way through the Senate Finance Committee aren’t worried about the progressives’ punishment plan.
“It’s not fair to ask people to facilitate the enactment of policies with which we ultimately disagree,” said moderate Sen. Evan Bayh (D- Ind.). “So the closer we get to the end of the process, the more, for me, the process and policy will be one and the same.”
Several Democratic moderates told POLITICO that they most likely will be with their party on most procedural votes but could hold out on the last one — to end debate and cut off a filibuster — if they wanted to demand changes to the final product.
“Not vote for cloture? I wouldn’t rule that possibility out — not at all,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with the Democrats.
“Sen. Reid is working hard with the White House and his colleagues in the Senate on a bill that will get 60 votes needed to make health insurance reform a reality,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Reid.
For Reid, the realities of the Senate make it tough for him to hold senators’ feet to the fire.
Senators — unlike House members — have enormous power under the rules to dictate the terms of floor debate, limiting the leader’s power, and stripping chairmanships would require the Nevadan to garner support from a majority of Senate Democrats.
Moreover, Reid is not an arm-twisting type — a point underscored by his decision to allow Lieberman to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee over the objections of liberals furious with his decision to campaign for John McCain in 2008.
“The Democratic leadership of the Senate is being extremely respectful of the different views within our caucus and trying to find a way forward that accomplishes our goals,” said centrist Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
She added that she would not automatically vote against a filibuster on the bill and that “the leadership has not, to date, asked me to.”
But critics say that approach could come at a cost, saying that senators unfazed about retaliation from their leadership will have an even freer hand to buck their party — and that Reid should lay down the law.
“If he calls himself majority leader, he needs to lead that majority, not follow,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
“If he calls himself ‘Give ’Em Hell’ Harry, he needs to actually give ’em hell.”
-- Glenn Thrush contributed to this report.