News reports from over the Thanksgiving weekend indicate Democrats are falling in line behind Biden’s reelection bid and their new slate of Congressional leaders.
Summary
News reports from over the Thanksgiving weekend indicate Democrats are falling in line behind President Joe Biden’s reelection bid and their new slate of Congressional leaders ahead of a busy lame-duck session of Congress despite rumblings from progressives.
- The New York Times reported Democrats’ surprisingly strong midterm showing has quieted public calls for Biden to abandon his reelection campaign. Now, the Democratic Party is “more inclined for now to defer to him than to try to force a frontal clash with a sitting president.”
- On the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, NBC News covered how Pelosi was able to orchestrate a smooth succession process “without a challenge or much fanfare” from her octogenarian leadership team to a new generation of House Democrats.
- Pelosi’s handpicked successors – Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark, and Pete Aguilar – will assume the top three leadership spots in the first major changes to House Democratic leadership in 15 years, seemingly without dissent from their party.
- House Democrats’ leadership “vote” -that at this point looks more like a formality – is scheduled for Wednesday morning. Multiple Democrats told Punchbowl News they expect the top four slots – Jeffries, Clark, Aguilar, and Rep. Jim Clyburn – will be agreed to by unanimous consent.
- Democratic leadership will remain unchanged on the Senate side. Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to eliminate the No. 3 spot on his leadership team and bump everyone else up a rank rather than fill the position vacated by Sen. Patty Murray.
- Lawmakers will return to Washington with a hefty legislative agenda to tackle before the end of the year. Government funding must be authorized by Dec. 16 or the government will shut down.
- The defense policy bill, the same-sex marriage bill, and a bill overhauling the Electoral County Act will all be taken up by the Senate in the lame-duck, while Democrats’ hopes for an assault weapons ban seem remote at best.
- NBC News covered how Pelosi was able to orchestrate a smooth succession process “without a challenge or much fanfare” from her octogenarian leadership team to a new generation of House Democrats.
- CNN summarized the most important political stories of the lame-duck session, including funding for Ukraine, the final business of the House Jan. 6 Committee, and Kevin McCarthy’s quest for 218 Republican votes to make him Speaker.
- Slate predicted the biggest challenge facing Jeffries would be wrangling the progressive wing of House Democrats. Jeffries has been a “zealous antagonist” of the party’s left wing and will now depend on their support if he hopes to stay in leadership.
- Fox News noted Pelosi’s call for a new generation of leaders wasn’t picked up by every member of her leadership team. Octogenarian Rep. Jim Clyburn plans to stay on as Assistant Democratic Leader, and attributed his decision to the “biblical” need for a blend of strength and knowledge – and to ensure the South gets a seat at the Democratic leadership table.
- As The Wall Street Journal observed, there are several major items on Congress’s to-do list that need to be addressed before the new Congress is sworn in in January. A key government funding bill, legislation codifying same-sex marriage, and the military policy bill are all on the year-end legislative docket.
- National Review condemned the “extreme recklessness” of Democrats to nominate Biden for a second term. Besides the chance Biden could lose to a younger Republican or Trump, Biden’s age especially makes the decision to nominate him again fraught with risks.
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
