WASHINGTON (AP) — Nancy Pelosi is responding to a challenge to her position as top House Democrat by proposing to give more influence to junior lawmakers atop congressional committees and within her leadership team.
Pelosi, 76, has been the chamber’s Democratic leader since 2002. She is being challenged by Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan in the aftermath of elections that were disappointing for Democrats who expected Hillary Clinton to be elected president and their party to make sizable gains in the House.
Pelosi appears to be addressing widespread unease among more junior lawmakers who say that opportunities to advance and influence the party’s course are lacking so long as the same senior Democrats remain in charge.
Ryan says he is better able to appeal to Rust Belt and rural areas where Democrats used to perform better. Pelosi points to her successful leadership in the mid-2000s that led the party into the majority for four years.
Pelosi’s core leadership team has been in place for a decade and octogenarians command the top Democratic posts of several powerful committees, including the Judiciary panel and the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which has sweeping jurisdiction over taxes, trade, health care and Social Security.
Pelosi is the overwhelming favorite to defeat Ryan and hold onto her post as minority leader. But she’s responding to the unease among junior Democrats by proposing that less senior lawmakers be given the No. 2 spots on committees. She would also immediately create three leadership positions for Democrats who have served fewer than 10 years, and designate the No. 3 leadership post for a lawmaker who has served fewer than three terms.
“Making this fight requires all hands on deck,” Pelosi wrote to fellow Democrats.
Ryan, 43, had earlier issued similar proposals designed to give a greater role to more junior Democrats. And he says the party has to expand far beyond its coastal and urban strongholds.
“I’m pulling the fire alarm because the house is burning down, and we better get our act together or we’re going to cease being a national party,” Ryan said Monday on the Fox Business Network. “We’re going to be a regional party that fails to get into the majority and fails to do things on behalf of those working class people that were the backbone of the Democratic Party for so long.”
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I have long been a supporter of Pelosi, but it’s time to step aside. We need new leadership and fresh faces. This is not a criticism of her leadership; it’s just a fact of life.
Her challenger is an unqualified idiot. He’d throw people of color, women, and the LGBT+ (especially the T) under the bus in some quixotic attempt to win the hearts of the white working class. NO. FUCK NO.
And, I might add, if Senate Dems don’t put up a fight at Sessions’ confirmation hearing they can expect to see African American turnout decline further. And they’d deserve it.
I’m honestly ignorant as to his votes or published opinions on those issues. If you have any good links to read I’d appreciate it. I was leaning towards a change in leadership and what he’s said in recent interviews didn’t make it look - to me, anyhow - like he was an unqualified idiot. But I want to become better educated about Ryan by reading your evidence. Thanks in advance.
He was pro-life and then flipped. He got several As from the NRA and a 79% in 2012 before switching on that, too. He looks good in on paper regarding other issues but considering he doesn’t really need to justify his votes in a Republican-dominated House it’s hard to tell whether he’d maintain those stances if they had a real chance of passing. I think he’d hold the line for Ls and Gs, for instance, but abandon Ts regarding military budgets or similar areas he thinks he could work with Trump. And I don’t think he has the experience to take up the fight for voting rights or popular government programs like Medicare/SS.
I have long been a supporter of Nancy Pelosi, and believe that the Democrats will need her leadership in the legislative battles to come. However, I also believe that Democrats are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, so to speak, and can put people in positions of influence to help craft policy directed at those who do not vote Democratic but should. We need EVERY vote in place for the 2018 midterms.