First, it was a resolution denouncing violence against anti-abortion groups. Then it was a bill mandating health care providers give care to infants in the extraordinarily rare situation that a baby survives a failed abortion. Then it was a resolution “denouncing the horrors of socialism.” And a few days later, it was a bill to overturn a set of criminal justice reforms passed by the Washington, D.C., city council.
All of these measures—first placed on the floor this term by House Republicans—were political gambits designed to put Democrats in a corner. And, to varying extents, they succeeded, placing Democrats on the record either for or against tough issues.
That’s a new reality for House Democrats, who’ve prided themselves on their “resistance” to Republican legislative priorities in recent years. But now, itching to win back their majority in 2024, House Democrats are picking their battles, going along with some of these GOP “gotcha bills”—as Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D-KY) called them—to avoid the attack ads
“These bills that the Republicans have put out, are putting out, they are poorly written messaging bills that have no purpose other than to divide, when what we should be doing is continuing the progress of the last Congress in a closely divided chamber,” McGarvey, a freshman, said.
And yet, Democrats don’t expect the Republican-led efforts to stop anytime soon. Referendums and resolutions meant for little more than virtue signaling are easy for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to put on the floor, unite Republicans, and divide Democrats. And with a slim majority in the House, a Democratic Senate, and President Joe Biden in the White House, that’s mostly all Republicans can do. Certainly, it’s much easier than actually getting legislative achievements written into law.
But even though McCarthy will have to confront the realities of governing at some point, Republicans thus far have been rejoicing in their ability to strong-arm Democrats into bipartisanship.
The D.C. crime bill, for one, came on the heels of the GOP hammering crime as an issue in the 2022 elections. The messaging play is credited as a large part of Republican success in swing districts in New York, where the party made the bulk of its House pickups.
As Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the non-voting representative for D.C., put it in an interview Tuesday, “This probably turns on the rising crime around the country now. It wasn’t the best time to have a crime bill go through.”
Thirty-one Democrats in the House voted with Republicans on the proposal. But after 173 House Democrats voted against a bill, the National Republican Congressional Committee, a campaign arm for House Republicans, launched ads against 15 of them.
For members like Rep. Becca Balint—a freshman Democrat who represents Vermont’s lone, heavily blue seat in the House—decisions on these sorts of messaging bills have been relatively simple. She knows her largely progressive base would support her voting against the D.C. crime bill, or a resolution vaguely denouncing socialism. But she also knows her Democratic colleagues in swin -districts, which the party dubs as “frontliners,” might not have that sort of breathing room.
“I know that my colleagues from different parts of the country have a different calculation to make. And so for me, I try not to get caught up in what my colleagues are doing. I really want to make sure I’m showing up for the voters of Vermont and I think they would have wanted me to vote the way that I did,” Balint told The Daily Beast.