Speaker Pelosi to shield vulnerable members from controversial votes

Ianus · 12-16-2009, 02:34 PM

I don't know if she intends on doing this to protect her Speakership or Caucus,but this certainly wasn't surprising considering all the legislation they were passing in the first session only to shutdown in the second.

Quote:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has privately told her politically vulnerable Democratic members that they will not vote on controversial bills in 2010 unless the Senate acts first.

After a year of bruising legislative victories that some political analysts believe have done more to jeopardize her majority than to entrench it, Pelosi is shifting gears for the 2010 election.

The Speaker recently assured her freshman lawmakers and other vulnerable members of her caucus that a vote on immigration reform is not looming despite a renewed push from the White House and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The House will not move on the issue until the upper chamber passes a bill, Pelosi told the members.

But according to Democrats who have spoken to Pelosi, the Speaker has expanded that promise beyond immigration, informing Democratic lawmakers that the Senate will have to move first on a host of controversial issues before she brings them to the House floor.

“The Speaker has told members in meetings that we’ve done our jobs,” a Democratic leadership aide said. “And that next year the Senate’s going to have to prove what it can accomplish before we go sticking our necks out any further.”......

.........Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has taken the immigration reform lead for Senate Democrats, but has repeatedly delayed the release of his bill. And while reform proponents believe that passage of a Senate bill would all but guarantee an immigration reform law, many see the upper chamber as being unable to forge a consensus on an issue more divisive than healthcare.

Obama and Reid have vowed to pursue immigration reform in 2010.

This is almost like the House's version of a Filibuster.

rock steady · 12-16-2009, 03:00 PM

What's new with that woman? It's funny how she explicitly takes this stance with immigration. She wants the Senate to move first with controversial and divisive issues. How, then, does she square that with scheduling a vote on health care ahead of the Senate's vote on health care? Health care has been nothing short of explosive.

It's not surprising at all. She is what she is.

ThespianDreamer · 12-16-2009, 04:07 PM

I believe that was always her stance on the issue since last Spring. I read an article in May or June where she said that the Senate will have to move first on this issue. The Speaker has done a wonderful job in my honest opinion. They are voting on jobs today. Which is important. The upper chamber is moving at a snail pace but it was always they go first with immigration.

angeleno · 12-16-2009, 04:57 PM

I agree with her 100% and if I were her, I would do the exact same thing.

Why lose 20-40 seats over a controversial vote that ultimately leads to absolutely nothing? I think that what she's doing is quite clever: if the Senate takes action first, THEN it means that they're serious about that piece of legislation and only then it makes sense to risk losing seats over a vote.

Look at what happened to climate change and financial regulation legislation. Many house members were forced to bite their tongues and vote for good, effective provisions only to have the Senate declare them dead on arrival. Now those house members face tough reelection campaigns and their sacrifice was all for naught.

Ms Pelosi has always been on our side, so let's be mature about this.

PS: those of us who follow politics closely know that this has been the Speaker's position for quite some time now, so really no news there.

lilbawler2001 · 07:26 PM

Quote:

The White House privately anticipates health care talks to slip into February — past President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address — and then plans to make a “very hard pivot” to a new jobs bill, according to senior administration officials.

nternally, White House aides are plunging into a 2010 plan calling for an early focus on creating jobs, especially in the energy sector, along with starting a conversation about deficit reduction measures, the administration officials said.

Obama and Democrats seem in agreement that they want to minimize the number of tough votes moderates in their party must take in the aftermath of the health care debate. They also seem in agreement that a jobs bill is a must — and that they need to show a serious commitment to reducing the deficit, a very difficult task after racking up record spending in Obama’s first year

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30925.html

Seems the only time Obama talks about immigration reform is when he is before a Hispanic audience. You know very well that republicans are going to oppose this jobs bill as much as they are opposing health-care reform now.

Quote:

White House aides are planning an intense focus on the economy and jobs at the beginning of the year. And an aide said Obama will be “very prescriptive” about measures he wants from Congress.

The plans were telegraphed in a speech the president delivered at the Brookings Institution on Dec. 8, with an emphasis on infrastructure improvements, green jobs and small-business incentives for hiring and investment.

All that will fit into a middle-class agenda that the White House hopes will give the country a psychological lift, even before jobs numbers rebound.

Key elements of the plans outlined at Brookings:

— Help small businesses by building on tax cuts in the stimulus bill, including the "complete elimination" of the capital gains taxes on small-business investment. Obama also wants to extend write-offs to encourage small businesses to expand. And he wants to help small businesses get loans by waiving fees and increasing guarantees for Small Business Administration-backed loans as well as continuing to mobilize bailout funds to facilitate lending to small businesses.

— Boost infrastructure by modernizing transportation and communications networks.

— Create environment-oriented jobs by pressuring Congress to start a program with incentives for consumers to retrofit their homes and expanding select stimulus initiatives to promote energy efficiency and clean energy jobs.

Also in the State of the Union address, Obama will discuss his views about the deficit and some of the things he’s going to do to address it over the midterm and long term.

GX01 · 12-23-2009, 08:33 PM

It proves one thing. Numbers do not matter, whether it's 60 or 250. You have to fight for every single vote. Hahahaha... in fact, Senate is harder.

skysla · 09:00 PM

We'll see what is going to happen when the Congress starts in late January.
If we see Senators Schumer and Graham introduce their immigration bill in January (more likely in February), then we'll have a decent chance for a debate and an attempt to pass one. It will also depend on the Democratic leadership. If they just introduce their bill and do nothing like the DREAM Act and the House immigration bill, we are out of luck.

First, the House and the Senator will return before January 20th. They'll work on passing a jobs bill and merging the health care reform bills if what Politico has reported is correct. The jobs bill won't take as much time as the helath care bill (assuming the Democratic leadership does not have a difficulty finding enough votes), and the Democrats will try to pass it before the State of Union speech. So, that will take most of January after their session begins. The process of merging the health care bills might take January and about half of February if they do it quickly. If they begin to work on energy or financial reform after passing a final Senate bill and haven't introduced an immigration bill in the Senate by then, I seriously doubt the prospect of any kind of immigration reform. Time's running out for the issue of immigration. Unlike other issues, everyone does not want to tackle it too close to the election date. Everything (the passage of an immigration reform bill) should be done by April after a Senate immigration bill is introduced by at least the end of February.

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Speaker Pelosi to shield vulnerable members from controversial votes