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The best thing you can read today is from Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, who points out that liberals are mad at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for one big reason: because she’s doing her job. In the latest example, Pelosi is feuding with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over emergency funding for the border crisis. Pelosi criticized AOC and her “squad” for failing to support the House Democrats’ spending measure and dismissed the faction as irrelevant. It all got a lot of attention.
But as Drum puts it:
Pelosi’s job is to work for, and protect, all the members of the House Democratic caucus. And the electoral incentives of relatively moderate members in tough districts will always weigh heavily in that calculation – especially when the more liberal members need those moderates to get their own priorities passed.
There’s a big contrast here between Pelosi and her predecessor, Paul Ryan. Ryan excelled at one thing: ducking blame. This made him entirely ill-suited for the role. Speakers sign up for scapegoat duty. The good ones – Pelosi, John Boehner, Tip O’Neill – have very few star moments, and lots of episodes where they take the brunt of abuse from their own party.
Why is that? One reason is because there are always partisans who don’t really understand vote counts – and plenty of others who are willing to hint to the rank-and-file that the real reason party leaders aren’t acting is because they’re afraid or weak or don’t really believe in the cause. Usually, the real reason for inaction is that the votes just aren’t there. Sometimes the leadership can win over dissenters, but usually it’s difficult. At no point can the speaker just snap her fingers and order the caucus to support the party line. For better or worse, U.S. legislative parties don’t work that way.
None of this means that the House Democratic leadership shouldn’t draw criticism. On oversight, for example, it’s perfectly fair to question how they’ve gone about probing President Donald Trump’s various misdeeds. I’ve certainly done so, and will continue to. That’s sort of the point, in fact; good leaders make themselves targets so that other, more vulnerable members can quietly go about representing their districts.
That said, there’s no magic available. Pelosi and the Democrats, whatever their tactics, have a majority in only one chamber. They face a Republican Party apparently willing to tolerate significant lawlessness from the current administration; a president and his people exploiting that tolerance; and courts that have far too often failed to rein them in. Congress as a whole has enormous capacity to constrain the executive branch. One chamber, though? Much, much less. That basic dynamic shapes every choice House Democrats make. Should we cut Pelosi some slack? Nope. Should criticism of her take into account the context she’s working within? Absolutely.
But as Drum puts it:
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I don’t really take Pelosi’s comments very seriously. Why is she dissing AOC? Because that’s her role as leader of the party, that’s why. Among other things, she needs to protect all the people who did vote for her bill even if they had qualms about it. She’s taking the heat so they don’t have to.
But in another sense, it’s also because she knows what she’s doing.
But in another sense, it’s also because she knows what she’s doing.
Pelosi’s job is to work for, and protect, all the members of the House Democratic caucus. And the electoral incentives of relatively moderate members in tough districts will always weigh heavily in that calculation – especially when the more liberal members need those moderates to get their own priorities passed.
There’s a big contrast here between Pelosi and her predecessor, Paul Ryan. Ryan excelled at one thing: ducking blame. This made him entirely ill-suited for the role. Speakers sign up for scapegoat duty. The good ones – Pelosi, John Boehner, Tip O’Neill – have very few star moments, and lots of episodes where they take the brunt of abuse from their own party.
Why is that? One reason is because there are always partisans who don’t really understand vote counts – and plenty of others who are willing to hint to the rank-and-file that the real reason party leaders aren’t acting is because they’re afraid or weak or don’t really believe in the cause. Usually, the real reason for inaction is that the votes just aren’t there. Sometimes the leadership can win over dissenters, but usually it’s difficult. At no point can the speaker just snap her fingers and order the caucus to support the party line. For better or worse, U.S. legislative parties don’t work that way.
None of this means that the House Democratic leadership shouldn’t draw criticism. On oversight, for example, it’s perfectly fair to question how they’ve gone about probing President Donald Trump’s various misdeeds. I’ve certainly done so, and will continue to. That’s sort of the point, in fact; good leaders make themselves targets so that other, more vulnerable members can quietly go about representing their districts.
That said, there’s no magic available. Pelosi and the Democrats, whatever their tactics, have a majority in only one chamber. They face a Republican Party apparently willing to tolerate significant lawlessness from the current administration; a president and his people exploiting that tolerance; and courts that have far too often failed to rein them in. Congress as a whole has enormous capacity to constrain the executive branch. One chamber, though? Much, much less. That basic dynamic shapes every choice House Democrats make. Should we cut Pelosi some slack? Nope. Should criticism of her take into account the context she’s working within? Absolutely.
