By Mike DeBonis
March 12, 2018
For
months, Democrats promised to use their leverage on government spending to
protect young immigrants at risk for deportation after President Trump canceled
the program. More recently, they have demanded Congress pass universal
background checks for gun buyers in the wake of another deadly school shooting.
Now,
with Congress less than two weeks from a funding deadline, Democrats are
showing little willingness to corner Republicans on those issues.
Their
lack of appetite to provoke another showdown represents a shift after two
previous fights resulted in brief government shutdowns and risks alienating the
party’s liberal base crucial in midterm elections. But several events have
sapped the party’s resolve. Moderate Democrats flinched after a three-day January
shutdown fought over immigration; court decisions have left Trump’s
cancellation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in
legal limbo; and many Democrats are quietly eager to pass the next spending
bill and lock in more money for key agencies.
“The
current predicament illustrates how you really only had one bite at the apple
of taking a stand over the funding of the government on this [DACA] issue,”
said Brian Fallon, a Democratic consultant who is close to Senate Minority
Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) “The previous attempt was either going to be
successful, or this gambit was going to fall apart, and what’s happened is it
has fallen apart.”
Congressional
leaders are now hashing out a $1.3 trillion “omnibus” spending package ahead of
a March 23 deadline. Despite the lack of resolution on DACA and no clear path
forward on gun control after a Feb. 14 shooting left 17 dead inside a Florida
high school, party leaders are brushing off suggestions of a fresh showdown.
House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who delivered a record-breaking
eight-hour floor speech on the DACA issue ahead of the last spending deadline,
has said neither a DACA extension nor a gun-control package “has to be part of”
the spending legislation but could instead pass in separate bills that
Democrats have little power to force through the Republican-controlled
Congress. And House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said the spending
bill “needs to be considered on its own merits, and then we ought to move ahead
on DACA.”
Instead
of delving into that fight, Democrats appear trained on battles happening
within the confines of the spending bill itself — where they feel they are on
firmer political ground trying to fend off what they consider to be Republican
overreach on controversial policies.
On
immigration, for instance, while there is little stomach to push DACA, there is
an emerging scuffle over whether Congress will grant additional funds to the
Trump administration to beef up border security, fund more immigration
enforcement officers and increase the number of detention beds for immigrants
who have been apprehended.
Democratic
leaders and immigrant advocates appear to be united behind a strategy of bowing
to political reality and setting aside the DACA fight for now to defang what
they call the “deportation machine.”
“I
don’t think anyone in Washington believes that they will be willing to withhold
their votes over DACA on another spending bill,” said Angel Padilla, policy
director for the activist group Indivisible. “But we’re hoping that they make
it clear to Republicans that there are red lines on enforcement activities.”
Leaders
of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus leaders last week sent a letter
to top congressional leaders, provided to The Washington Post by a
Democratic aide, calling on them to “reject any increased funding for [the
Department of Homeland Security’s] wasteful and harmful enforcement
system.” And Hoyer, in a statement Friday, called on Republicans to “stop
insisting on poison pill policy riders, such as funding for President Trump’s
border wall, more detention beds, and increased interior enforcement.”
The
pivot comes a month after Democrats splintered on a budget bill that delivered
$151 billion in additional funding to domestic agencies but left DACA
unaddressed. Less than two days after Pelosi delivered
her eight-hour speech, 73 Democrats broke ranks and joined
Republicans to approve the deal. In the Senate, already cowed by the fizzled
shutdown, 35 of 46 Democrats voted for it.
The
pending omnibus will now dole out that increased funding to specific agencies
and programs, funding them through Sept. 30.
“Democrats
got a lot of what they wanted, and immigration has not elevated itself to that
rarefied top tier where Democrats across the board are willing to go to the
mat,” said one Democratic aide who closely follows immigration issues and spoke
on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss private talks.
On
guns, there has been growing public pressure for action by Congress since the
Parkland, Fla., high school shooting, and Democrats have previously engaged in
dramatic steps on the gun issue, notably the June 2016 House sit-in that
followed the deadly attack on an Orlando nightclub. But that pressure has
not yet been trained directly on the spending bill.
According
to a senior Democratic aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
candidly discuss talks, Democrats are pushing for repeal of the Dickey
Amendment, a provision dating to 1996 that has been interpreted as preventing
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from studying gun violence as a
public health issue. That fight has the backing of major organizations
advocating new gun controls but has been waged quietly, the aide said, to avoid
provoking a public fight with gun-rights advocates.
“Because
of the gun lobby, Americans are effectively blocked from knowing even the scope
of our gun violence problem, let alone the possible solutions to it,” said John
Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.” This shouldn’t be
controversial — freeing up funds for basic research and shedding sunlight would
only help.”
Some
Democrats are pushing to wage these fights out in the open, even as party
leaders believe they can achieve better results — and play better politics — by
avoiding a high-profile confrontation.
“The
caucus is unified in insisting that we deal with gun violence and we deal with
the Dream Act, so I think everything tactically is still on the table right
now,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). “The outrage is growing in the
country that we have almost universal consensus for a universal background
check, and nothing’s happening, and we have to stop acting like a failed state.
“
But
another obstacle to Democrats hoping for action on immigration and guns are
defensive battles over other provisions in the spending bill where Republicans
are hoping to advance conservative priorities now that they have control of
both chambers of Congress and the White House.
“We
assume they’re going to need Democratic votes, and we’re trying to do the best
we can, using any ounce of leverage we have, to work on the issues we care
about,” said Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), a senior Democratic appropriator.
One
brewing partisan fight concerns the perennial flash point of abortion politics.
The parties are sparring over language pertaining to federal family-planning
grants, as well as Republican policy provisions that would block funding for
health-care providers that perform abortions, allow health-care providers to
opt not to perform procedures they find morally objectionable and bar funding
for scientific research using fetal tissue.
House
Republicans are rejecting a Senate-crafted compromise that seeks to prevent the
Trump administration from changing the rules for awarding family-planning and
teen pregnancy-prevention grants to favor groups that advocate sexual
abstinence over other groups, including Planned Parenthood. Democrats are
pushing to preserve that compromise in the final bill.
“I’ve
consistently made clear that undermining women’s health and expanding
restrictions on women’s access to the full range of reproductive health care —
including at trusted providers like Planned Parenthood — is a complete
nonstarter in our negotiations in Congress,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.),
who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on labor, health and human services.
No comments:
Post a Comment