Over 24 hours after House Democratic leadership called for a “serious response” to the defections of two centrist members, no reprimand has been issued.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told reporters on Wednesday that the matter is in the hands of the Democratic Committee on Caucus Rules to review and that he would not “get out ahead of that process.” Democrats were roiled by the votes of Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) on Tuesday in support of Republicans’ legislative agenda.
Following the votes, Democratic leadership said in a statement that the insubordination “necessitates a serious response” and deemed it a breach of trust. But by Wednesday afternoon, Jeffries told reporters that he had yet to speak to the two members individually and that he had not received a readout of an earlier meeting of the committee on caucus rules from Chairman Mike Levin (D-CA).
“I’m sure we’re going to talk,” Golden told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday afternoon. “I think on matters like this, we generally don’t litigate it in the press, but I’m always happy to talk to Hakeem. He’s a good man.”
Gluesenkamp Perez, coming out of a meeting in the minority leader’s office that she described as a “routine weekly meeting” where she represented the Blue Dogs, for which she is a co-chairwoman, told reporters that she believes that in time, Democratic leadership will “see that representing working people working on the waterfront, like in my district, it strengthens the caucus.”
The only public repercussion either member faced on Tuesday was Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) turning his back to Gluesenkamp Perez as she testified before the Rules Committee about proposed changes to congressional sexual harassment policy if Democrats retake the majority.
“I really wasn’t interested and paying attention,” McGovern told reporters. “To be honest with you, I didn’t even get the courtesy of even a heads up that she was going to vote [for] the rule.”
When asked if there would be a decision on what punishments would be doled out to the two centrists before the October recess, Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) was noncommittal, saying, “We’ll see. It’s up to the caucus.”
The apparent slow-moving of punishments for both members comes as rank-and-file members express frustration over the defections.
“I think supporting a Republican rule is the wrong thing to do in any circumstance,” Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D-MD) told the Washington Examiner. “Period.”
“I respect that members have differences of opinions on maybe a particular piece of legislation, but doing anything, particularly in this moment, to enable the agenda that Republicans are unleashing on Americans that increased costs and have us in endless wars is enabling rampant corruption and is the wrong thing to do,” he continued.
However, the frustration went beyond just simply siding with Republicans; their vote also put Democrats in competitive districts on the record for a tough vote. In voting for the procedural vote, the two voted in favor of bringing to the House floor a package of bills that included a GOP-led resolution denouncing socialism and the Democratic Socialists of America.
“I think obviously to have two members ultimately pass the rule that then forces a vote on a bill that was intentionally designed to target swing district members is problematic,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who sits in an ultracompetitive district following the Florida gerrymander, told the Washington Examiner.
“They should have told leadership. They know they should have told leadership,” he added.
But despite the frustrations, it does not appear Democrats are fully on board with a floated caucus rules change to prevent such defections in the future, with progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) telling reporters she has “some real concerns about what exactly is being discussed” and wanted clarification on what a change would entail.
“Does it mean that you know no one can vote against a rule?” she posed. “When I was chair of the Progressive Caucus, we used the leverage of the rule because sometimes we felt like party leadership was just pushing what conservative Democrats wanted, and if that was the case, then sometimes progressives, who we were the largest caucus in the party, were ignored.”
She continued, “So I am not for something that takes away a democratic way of really leveraging power of a majority of the caucus.”
The defections have offered a test for Jeffries’s leadership as Democrats look to retake the majority in November, with eyes watching to see what repercussions, if any, he pursues as a preview of what a possible speakership style from him would look like.
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“The speaker has to be able to deliver the votes,” Jayapal said. “So they got to be able to count those. They got to be able to organize. They got to be able to make deals. They got to be able to keep everyone feeling united as a caucus and minimize the number of people that move in a different direction.”
She continued, “It’s a tricky navigation because we’re not kids.”